Gore Urges U.S. to Develop Carbon-Free Electricity (Within Decade)
>>I think that Al Gore never recovered psychologically from the 2000 loss to "W." He can't be serious on this one.<<<
By Nadine Elsibai
July 17 (Bloomberg) -- Former Vice President Al Gore urged Americans to commit to producing all electricity from renewable energy and ``carbon-free sources'' within a decade.
``I ask you to join with me to call on every candidate, at every level, to accept this challenge -- for America to be running on 100 percent zero-carbon electricity in 10 years,'' Gore said in a Washington speech today. ``It's time for us to move beyond empty rhetoric.''
The declining cost of solar, wind and geothermal power, coupled with price increases for oil and coal, ``have radically changed the economics of energy,'' Gore said today. Enough wind power can be generated from the Midwest to meet U.S. electricity demand, he said.
The U.S. Senate failed last month to pass legislation to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by 66 percent by 2050 from 2005 levels through a so-called cap-and-trade system.
The Alliance for Climate Protection, founded by Gore, announced in April a $300 million, three-year advertising campaign aimed at recruiting 10 million supporters to push for new policies to fight global warming.
Gore, 60, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, has focused on combating global warming since losing the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush. Today, he called this a ``generational moment,'' comparing the movement to President John F. Kennedy's goal to put an American on the moon in 10 years.
Electricity Grid
The U.S. must upgrade its electricity grid to connect areas rich in wind with the rest of the nation, Gore said. The grid is ``antiquated,'' with power outages that cost U.S. businesses more than $120 billion a year, he said.
Helping automobile manufacturers switch to plug-in electric cars would ``increase the flexibility of our electricity grid,'' he said. He again called for a carbon tax to compensate for a reduced payroll tax.
``Like a lot of people, it seems to me that all of these problems are bigger than any of the solutions that have thus far been proposed,'' Gore said. ``And that's been worrying me.''
He didn't mention nuclear energy as a possible clean-energy alternative. Gore has previously said that, while he isn't enthusiastic about the possibility, he's open to it.
Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters, which tracks lawmakers' support of environmentally friendly measures, today said that reaching Gore's goal would ``finally break the tyranny of big oil and the Wall Street speculators who are preying upon American consumers.''
Three Percent
Jim Owen, a spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute, the Washington-based trade group for the utility industry, said companies nationwide are currently generating about 3 percent of electricity from renewable sources.
``We can't go from where we are now'' to 100 percent, ``certainly not in a 10-year period,'' Owen said. He said the industry will instead rely on increased nuclear energy as well as natural gas and developing techniques to store greenhouse gas emissions underground.
Renewable fuels -- including wind, solar, geothermal and biomass -- are ``still more costly than the conventional fuels that make up the bulk of our generation,'' Owen said.
Gore, who first began warning about climate change as a member of Congress in the 1980s, said the threat from global warming is ``getting a lot worse -- much more quickly than predicted.''
Switching to carbon-free electricity is ``not the only thing we need to do,'' he said. ``But this strategic challenge is the linchpin of a bold new strategy needed to re-power America.'' |
