Al Gore: End fossil fuels for electricity

Al Gore, the head of the Church of Global Warming, has announced his plan to save the planet:

Washington, D.C., July 17 -- Former United States Vice President Al Gore this afternoon challenged Americans to adopt a 10-year plan to reduce carbon emissions from electricity production to zero. Without such dramatic action, the future of the country and ultimately the world is at risk, Gore said. [emphasis added]

(Al Gore waves to the crowd following his speech on US energy consumption. Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Gore received multiple standing ovations during his speech to the crowd of 3,700 at Constitution Hall, many of whom waited an hour or more in the hot midsummer sun in the hopes of hearing him speak. His 40 minute speech drew several standing ovations.

Gee, no electricity from fossil fuels in ten years -- where our magic wand? Of course, Mr. Gore's Grand Plan to Save Humanity won't come cheap:

He shied away from specifics during the speech, not mentioning the trillion-dollar price tag of ending carbon-based electricity. Instead, Gore urged the US to institute a carbon tax that could be offset by reducing the payroll tax on employers.

"We should tax what we burn, not what we earn," he said.

Personally, I think that trillion dollar estimate is on the low side. But don't worry, Big Al says, it'll all be worth it:

Underpinning Gore's remarks, however, was a finely tuned sense of the economic anxiety that dominates American life 13 weeks before the next presidential election. He observed that the environmental, fiscal, and national-security dangers facing the country would be eliminated by a conversion to clean energy.

Of course, Mr. Gore doesn't mention that he stands to make a bundle on any mandated investments on alternative energy. Hey, those private jets don't pay for themselves, you know.

I doubt many Americans would argue that we ought to pursue alternative energy sources -- nuclear, wind, wave power, solar, etc. -- and pursue them aggressively. But to think that you can replace 100 years of infrastructure in 10 years with renewable-energy technology that in some cases is still in the lab or unproven on a large scale, and in most cases is still far less economically efficient than using coal for power generation, is pure fantasy.

Heck, it often takes years just to get through the permitting process, with all its environmental impact studies and assessments, approvals from the plethora of local, state, and federal agencies, etc., and fighting all the legal challenges which, ironically, are often based on environmental and endangered species protection laws. What's that? Your solar array will impact the habitat of the rare spotted double horned blue billed spiny leprechaun lizard? No solar for you!

According to the Department of Energy, in 2006, the United States generated about 49% of its electricity from coal-fired plants. Natural gas produced 20% of our electricity, nuclear power 19%, conventional hydroelectric 7%, and petroleum 1.5%. Renewable sources other than hydroelectric contributed a grand total of 2.4% of our electricity. Those renewable sources included "[w]ood, black liquor, other wood waste, municipal solid waste, landfill gas, sludge waste, tires, agriculture byproducts, other biomass, geothermal, solar thermal, photovoltaic energy, and wind." Of that list of renewable sources, wind generates about 1% of our total electricity. The fact remains that almost 90% of our electricity comes from three sources: coal, natural gas, and nuclear.

(Source: Dept. of Energy / Energy Information Administration)

The reason for the dominance of coal in US electricity generation is simple: economics. Out in Kansas, for example, a kilowatt-hour costs about 1.5 cents when generated from coal, versus 4.5 cents from wind (the Kansas plains are very wind power friendly), and 10 to 14 cents from natural gas. Solar power utilities generate electricity in the 10 to 14 cents per KWh, on par with natural gas. Depending on whose estimates you believe, nuclear weighs in at around 5.2 cents per KWh.

So, Al Gore's plan to reach zero fossil fuel-based electricity would mean replacing about 70% of the entire generating capacity in ten years with presumably exclusively renewable alternatives that would not only raise the production (fuel, operating, and maintenance) costs, but would also require the massive capital investments of building entirely new plants. He would have us do so not to supplement our electricity generation capacity, but to simply replace cheaper sources of energy with more expensive ones. That should sound like a good plan to wreck the already fragile economy and bankrupt the nation, but Al "received multiple standing ovations during his speech" from his followers.

Of course, the poor and those on fixed incomes such as retirees will inevitably be hit the hardest with the increased "clean energy" prices, but so what? It won't have any meaningful impact on Al or his rich friends.

If Al Gore wants to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, he might start by reducing his own massive electricity and fossil fuel usage. Here's an idea: set a good example, before urging the country to do stuff that will bankrupt the nation. But maybe that's where the magic wand comes in.