This is still a big one.  Storage/backup for renewables.  

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

Great speech.  It's nice to see Gore pushing the debate so far forward, and knocking down the lie that transitioning to alternative forms of energy has to hurt the economy.

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.

"This is still a big one.  Storage/backup for renewables.  

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.  

Messiah is a good gig

no messy stuff

like counting votes

Why is the idea attributed to Buckminster Fuller, to put wind turbines on top of buildings, "cuckoo"?

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.

... is not "cuckoo".  Folks just need to think outside the box some more, envisioning more than the traditional 150-foot horizontal axis huge propeller turbine.

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.