The hot rumor at the moment is that Al Gore is going to appear at Netroots Nation immediately following Nancy Pelosi's Q&A session (which is going on right now). We'll keep you posted.
UPDATE: There he is!
Let's blog along, shall we?
He loves the netroots -- informed citizenry, etc. etc.
North pole melting -- 75-80 percent chance that the entire polar ice cap will be melted and gone within five years. How can we absorb the meaning of an event of that magnitude?
If we keep procrastinating, fail to take up our generation's challenge, the ice will never come back.
Climate crisis connected to economic crisis and national security crisis. Foreign oil; rising prices; older industries premised on cheap fossil fuels being devastated. China's demand swamping new discoveries. The idea that we can drill our way out of this is absurd. Reminds me of the old saying: hair of the dog that bit you. If you're in a hole, stop digging!
Cheapest, fastest way to reduce emissions is through electricity (transportation will take longer). Need a unified national grid with high-voltage transmission. 100% of electricity from renewable sources within 10 years! We can do it.
Defenders of status quo are the ones who got us in this mess. Ridiculous to open a few more areas for drilling to produce oil in 10 years that will be sold to China. Makes about as much sense as responding to an attack from Afghanistan by invading some other country.
Just mentioned CCS.
"Engines of distraction" say it's unrealistic -- more realistic to sleep walk off the cliff. We can shift public opinion. [Stumps for Alliance for Climate Protection -- says it's bipartisan. Stumps for We campaign. Trying to raise a million activists.]
We need your help. You won't see this organization get partisan, you won't see it change its mission. You won't see it give up or slow down. In it for the long haul.
You are on the cutting edge of a new era of history. You will look back some day and tell your grandchildren you were here. Thank you.
[This crowd loves them some Al!]
Doing Q&A.
Would you take a position in an Obama administration?
I don't think that's the best thing for me to do. The highest and best use of whatever experience I've had is to expand the political space within which elected officials address this crisis. We need a sea change in public opinion across party lines to support the huge changes we need.
Doesn't meat cause tons of global warming pollution?
Meat intensity increasing in China and other developing countries. It is true that it would be healthier for us as individuals and as a planet if we eat less meat. Part of the question is, why hasn't that been a more prominent part of the effort? I plead guilty to thinking we can only do so much at once. Also I'm a meat eater and that plays a part. But it is a significant part of what needs to be done.
Q: Mountaintop mining.
Mountaintop mining is an atrocity. It's part and parcel of the energy system that's causing global warming and the same moral blindness.
We should guarantee a good job for every miner affected by the transition.
Using coal to make liquid fuel is "insane." If you only care about independence, you could do it at great cost. But we've got to walk and chew gum at the same time -- energy independence and climate change. Not just domestic fuel, but renewable energy.
Pelosi: I love Gore. He's giving us a path to the future. He helped on telecom too (big applause).
Pelosi: President saying drill drill drill as excuse for failed energy policy. It won't do anything to help. To oil companies: use it or lose it. Drilling has no relation to price today. Don't drill Arctic Refuge. Drill where you already have leases. They're looking for an excuse, not a reason. President says drilling will lower costs -- I tell my colleagues not to give him any validation on that. It's a bill of goods. "We want to increase supply ... we want to reduce prices at the pump." [Sigh.] Release oil from strategic reserve -- 10 days rather than 10 years. "Free our oil." [Sigh.] And end speculation. [Sigh.]
Gore: wind power is competitive today. Combination of wind, solar, and geothermal important because of intermittency. Concentrating solar can help solve that, as can geothermal. When we make an all out commitment and do all these things, these problems subside.
[Here's audio of Gore's speech (mp3).]
Will Pelosi accept the challenge?
Pelosi: It is absolutely possible. [This is the most significant thing to come out of their joint appearance, IMO.] No one thought House could pass RPS, but it cleared by 40 votes. Senate's the problem.
Q: What about storage?
Gore: Wonky stuff about batteries, mentions other forms (molten salt, etc.).
Q: What about Buckminster Fuller's idea of putting windmills on existing buildings? [cuckoo !]
Gore: Uh ... that would be expensive. But wind farms are competitive now. The economics of renewables are increasingly attractive.
Q: Nuclear?
Gore: usual spiel.
All in all, a dramatic appearance, which seemed to put Pelosi on record in support of a wildly ambitious energy goal. Kate and I asked Pelosi about it afterward -- we'll put that video up today or tomorrow.
Climate talks timeline: From 350 to Kyoto to Copenhagen and beyond
Gore on the Daily Show: extended dance remix
Comments
View as Flat
amazingdrx Posted 4:26 am
19 Jul 2008
Maybe the biggest one we still have to defeat. What is the easiset, most direct way to counter this point?
Going off into wonkiness doesn't seem to work.
I like this approach. Local distributed storage and backup, starting with batteries in each building, good for a day ot so of emergency power, and a backup biogas generator for every 10 to 100 homes, on a farm, landfill, or sewage plant down the road. Controlled by smart grid technology that senses grid conditions and adjusts each building and source to meet supply/demand variations.
When the local emergency backup generators ran out of biogas, in an extended wind/solar power drought, they would use natural gas as the ultimate backup.
Local units of stand alone generation and storage grid areas, connected together, would make a regional and national stable grid, able to run mainly on shared and traded renewable power. Areas with excess wind or sun or wave or ocean current power would export to supplement less windy, sunny areas.
So there I go, right into the same old wonk swamp. Hehey.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Nick Berning Posted 8:02 am
19 Jul 2008
I agree that it's a big deal that Pelosi said Gore's vision is possible, but would like to see more explicit support -- from her, from other members of Congress, and from environmental organizations and the netroots too.
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Bob Wallace Posted 8:22 am
19 Jul 2008
Maybe the biggest one we still have to defeat. What is the easiset, most direct way to counter this point?"
Perhaps one could point out the 150 or so pump-up hydro storage systems that already exist. (About 85% efficient.)
Or the three(?) compressed air storage systems already on the job.
Or the thermal solar fields being built with storage part of the design.
Or the batteries already in use in several wind farms that help smooth out the flow to the grid.
Or the flywheel storage system currently being tested in New York.
Or the wind farm in Nova Scotia that is converting extra electricity to hydrogen for use in fuel cell generators when the wind isn't blowing.
Obviously we already know how to store power.
As soon as we reach the point where we are producing enough power then we'll start building more storage facilities, such as being done right now in Iowa where they have excess wind at times.
And as we build, we'll get even more clever in our methods.
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ce1907 Posted 11:18 am
19 Jul 2008
no messy stuff
like counting votes
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caniscandida Posted 4:02 am
20 Jul 2008
Nobody is talking about the huge things that you see out in open space. But in fact designs for already functioning rooftop wind turbines, in the city of Chicago, were featured in Grist itself, in the past year.
Amazing no doubt knows what he is talking about, when he points to storage as an engineering challenge. But presumably Al Gore knows what he is talking about too, when he says that the electricity-conversion-to-renewables within 10 years is possible, it is just a matter of scaling existing technology. See Tom Friedman's strong indictment of Bush/Cheney, with praise of Gore too, in today's NY Times.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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2wheeler Posted 1:53 am
21 Jul 2008
Rumor has it that vertical-azis wind turbines like those by finnish company OY WINDSIDE may be both reliable, stable at a wide range of windspeeds, and bird-friendly, as well as attractive looking. In addition we have other possibilities not yet pictured in my research of the net, for horizontal axis turbines functioning like the Windside cylinder-spirals, at the peaks and corners of all the boxy buildings where the wind is artificially concentrated and rushing around the corners anyway.
These are not huge nor unsightly additions, and some of us think they would actually liven up the urban landscape by renewing the visible connections of our artificial construct buildings, with the natural world on which we depend for our sustenance and energy.
So, not "cuckoo" at all. Just a different way of creating distributed renewable energy. Hopefully coming soon to your town, if all the touted American Green Job ingenuity can take hold and grow.
I think we can count on urban micro-wind to be a piece of the puzzle (not the single silver bullet some may be seeking) for meeting the 10-year challenge that Gore has set for us in his speech.
Moving toward sustainability with hopefulness, one revolution at a time.
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