Al Gore details five-step plan to clean electricity
As speculation mounts over the shape of president-elect Obama's energy policy, Al Gore laid out a multifaceted plan to make the U.S. electricity system carbon-free in 10 years.
In an opinion column published Sunday in the The New York Times, Gore said the federal government should fund projects to upgrade the nation's aging power grid and install renewable-energy sources.
"It is a plan that would simultaneously move us toward solutions to the climate crisis and the economic crisis--and create millions of new jobs that cannot be outsourced," wrote Gore, the former vice president and the co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize last year.
The column comes fresh after Gore's talk at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco on Friday, where he said the social connections that the Web allows should be channeled toward mitigating climate change.
It also comes days after the Gore-founded Alliance for Climate Protection launched an advertising and awareness campaign called Repower America, which advocates for carbon-free electricity in 10 years.
The five elements of the plan are:
- Incentives for construction of concentrating solar-thermal power plants in the southwest, wind farms in the Midwest, and plants in geothermal "hot spots."
- A $400 billion investment over 10 years to build a "national smart grid" to distribute renewable energy, which he said would quickly offset the annual $120 billion loss from power grid failures. The power grid can be outfitted so that consumers have better tools and information for conserving energy.
- Aid to automakers to convert to the production of plug-in hybrids. Smart-grid technology that enables the cars to be charged during off-peak hours.
- A nationwide effort to retrofit buildings, which account for 40 percent of carbon dioxide emissions, to be more energy-efficient.
- Climate regulations to cap carbon dioxide emissions.
Gore also argued that alternative fossil fuel technologies--notably so-called clean coal, where carbon dioxide emissions are stored underground--are not yet viable options.
Unrealistic or inspirational?
Gore and many others have likened an ambitious clean-energy program to the Apollo Project to launch a successful moon landing in 10 years. The Apollo Alliance, for example, is one of several groups advocating an upgrade to the electricity distribution network and policy incentives to create jobs around clean-energy industries.
Climate reporter Andrew Revkin explored this energy "moon shot" approach last week. Analyzing federal research money on energy technologies, he noted the spike in energy research in the 1970s after the oil embargo but said "no subsequent administration or Congress took energy innovation seriously, (and private-sector research investments have dropped even more)."
Gore's original call for an Apollo-style program came in July, when he delivered a speech at Constitution Hall in Washington.
Although clean-tech investors and entrepreneurs generally favor policies that create incentives for clean energy and put a price on pollution, Gore's 10-year energy plan was received with a good dose of skepticism in July.
Clean-tech blogger and entrepreneur Neal Dikeman wondered if Al Gore was "nuts," saying the program was so ambitious that it risked failure. Similarly, Technology Review took issue with the July speech, calling the goals laudable but the time frame "unachievable."
My initial reaction was similar: converting a electricity system that gets half of its electricity from coal today to carbon-free sources in 10 years is exceedingly ambitious by any measure.
And even with a stimulus plan in the works, the country's economic problems tie the hands of the next administration and Congress. Also, falling fossil fuel prices and the credit squeeze are throwing sand in the gears of clean-energy businesses.
That said, there is no shortage of plans to rapidly clean, or "decarbonize," the energy sector. What varies isn't the technologies that need to be adopted--energy efficiency, renewables, plug-in electric cars--but rather the pace and particulars of the policies.
Google, which is spearheading a plan to make renewable energy cheaper than coal, published an analysis last month concluding that the United States could wean itself from coal and oil for electricity by 2030. The country could cut its oil use in cars by 40 percent in the same time period.
The Pickens Plan, launched earlier this year by oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens, calls for a massive investment in wind energy and natural-gas-powered cars (two areas in which he is investing) in order to cut oil imports.
There are also energy experts who maintain that Gore's 10-year challenge is feasible or, at least, an approachable goal.
The left-leaning New Republic's energy and environment blog summed up the Gore opinion piece nicely, calling it "an attempt to broaden the discussion of what's possible in building a clean-energy economy, rather than presenting a specific plan of action."
Energy czar?
Gore's column comes at a time when there is speculation about the Obama administration's cabinet and whether there will be a dedicated "energy czar."
Another key position is the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, which is expected to be charged with implementing climate regulations. (One rumored possibility is environmental activist Robert Kennedy Jr.)
It's unclear, however, that Gore, who calls himself a "recovering politician," would want to be part of the Obama administration.
Martin LaMonica is a senior writer for CNET's Green Tech blog. He started at CNET News in 2002, covering IT and Web development. Before that, he was executive editor at IT publication InfoWorld. E-mail Martin. 
Nuclear is the best approach with the current technologies, use use less, and produce more electricity than any coal plant. If we had more of those, than electricity would literally be FREE.
Without both any significant change is never going to take place.
And when you have the mantra of 46% of the American people being "Drill, Baby Drill!" change comes very slowly.
Nobody said you had to cast aside all present tech, nor forget any future tech until it is cheaper than the existing stuff... sometimes a blend works quite well.
Complete nonsense - we had just as many nonsense excuses when the economy was booming - mainly, that things are "just fine" as they were; and that the ever-expanding economy could only be powered by ever more coal mining and oil drilling.
Why the economic downturn is a great time for Gore's plan:
1) With the economy down, power demand is down (that's why fuel is cheap) so we don't need to generate as much energy from these new sources as we previously thought. People won't be driving so far, nor buying and shipping so much stuff, nor demanding new power for new buildings. This is a golden time to build the new infrastructure - when it does not have to be so large as we might have estimated before the downturn.
2) With unemployment high, we have lots of skilled folks that need work building the new infrastructure. They may be willing to work for less money, just to have a reliable paycheck.
3) With consumer confidence and spending way down, the way to get money circulating again is for the government to do the hiring, with jobs that can't be outsourced.
The only way we have to pull out of gas as a car fuel is to build a better way to store power in a vehicle. Right now newer battery technologies add hundreds of pounds to cars and give minimal range...15 to 50 miles. What happened to the electric cars(Saturn EV-1) that could go 160 miles or more on a single charge... Oh Chevron bought the battery makers. Think they're pouring tons of money into R & D... I don't think so.
There. I said it.
Also, add to that Water Power. 95% of the power in Sweden is made with Water Power and Nuclear energy. That's pretty clean. Wind energy is too expensive. it's twice price per kilowatt then "normal" power so that's ABSOLUTELY not an option when electricity is so expensive that it is now.
Plug-in hybrids appear to be the best pivotal idea for the fossil fuel problems we face. Plug-in hybrids shift a large part of the mobile energy source problem to the stationary source arena, which can be solved by a combination of currently available technology choices such as nuclear and alternatives. Even new coal plants would be preferable to imported oil.
It takes TEN YEARS to design, approve, building & become operational a nuclear plant.
Also, what about the waste?
For all the PRO Nukes out there...Would you build one in YOUR back yard? Would you bury the radioactive waste in your town?
THERE is no ONE solution to the energy CRISIS...
Nuclear power is just ONE option...
So is Solar & Wind power...
Conservation & having buildings / cars be as EFFICIENT as possible so as not to waste energy / money is also a good thing.
Gore is just keeping the dialog open, so people don't get lazy & just keep pumping gas into their Hummers.
Falling Gas prices...? Why is that...? IS it because we all have our eyes wide open about energy, conservation & alternative fuels....Coincidence?
I don't think so.
But there is hope. Hyperion Power Generation (Google it) is building backyard nukes which can power 20,000 homes for five years. These compact power plants cost $25 million each. That is $250 per home per year. That's 21 bucks a month wholesale for electricity for your house.
Regardless, a France level (in terms of percentage of power generated) nuclear power plant investment, combined with Hyperion type reactors could move the U.S. to the point we only use fossil fuels for air and sea transportation.
So is there one solution to the energy problem? No. But only one technology can obsolete coal.
Nuclear power is a 66 year old technology. It is as mature as the 71 year-old jet engine. People afraid of such unproven technology as the 66 year old nuclear energy should probably avoid jet air travel as well.
Again, read Patrick Moore's op-ed and William Tucker's web site. Just watch Tucker's video.
a nuclear power plant with capacity of 10 coal power plants only produces the waste of 6x10x6in. and further the latest technology can reused most of the waste and french and japanese have used it for past 2 decades. the waste can be put into a remote mountain deep in the ground. further more research can be put into reusing the rest of waste. solar and wind are alternatives, but they would never achieve to the efficiency rate as that of nuclear.
living closer to a nuclear power plant is no different from living in san francisco: the power plant will survive the big quake while san francisco might not. you might be scared by USSR's disaster. japan and french built many nuclear plants closer to residential areas and they practice pretty safely.
the reason for this is not about technology, but those environmental fundamentalists and lawyers and those coal power plant backers who do not want to see nuclear power plant at all. the worst of all, let us it will take 10 years, but it would take much longer for solar or wind to be 20-30% of the nuclear capacity. if we don't do it, then 10 years later your argument will stand still.
"Conservation & having buildings / cars be as EFFICIENT as possible so as not to waste energy / money is also a good thing. "
there is upper limit on how much conservation can save. upgrading existing buildings to fit new efficiency standard will cost extra to every one unless it is free. further there is physical law on how much further cars can be efficient.
Panks, is that you?
William Tucker also makes an excellent case in his new book "Terrestrial Energy: How Nuclear Energy Will Lead the Green Revolution and End America's Energy Odyssey" (Google Terrestrial Energy to see Tucker's excellent web site and flash movie, or search on Terrestrial Energy on YouTube to see the video).
Any discussion of an energy plan must address base load power requirements. Nuclear energy is base-load power (Google base load power). Wind and Solar are not base-load power, and will require additional investments in dispatchable gas-fired, coal-fired, or hydroelectric plants to provide power in the dark or when the wind is calm.
Finally, if one seeks a future hydrogen economy, where hydrogen replaces fossil fuels as a primary fuel source, it takes far less energy to hydrolysize superheated water as it does to hydrolysize room temperature water. And the cooling water of a nuclear reactor is an excellent source of superheated water.
Couple nuclear plant permitting to storage battery development- this will give Big Oil the clear direction for the future.
- by anakin2006 November 10, 2008 3:54 PM PST
- $400billion to build a grid specially for solar and wind will be waste of money. with this amount of money more capacity and more grid can be built on nuclear power. instead, small amount money shall be spent on a special zone to provide pure solar/wind energy to see how it would work over 10 or 20 years period. instantly pouring into $400billion into an immature energy tech will be imprudent.
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- by jlees November 10, 2008 7:47 PM PST
- The best way to get the world to develop the technology to solve the worlds energy problems is to have oil go to $300 a barrel ten we will have the incentive togo forward in tecnology and conservation.
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