Al Gore's plan for change

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  Posted by louis M Sun Nov 23, 2008 6:27am PST

  al gore has the right plan for america,we have abundant sushine,wind and thermal energy. imagine tapping the geo-thermal enegy lying below yellowstone park which has been proven to be the biggest volcanoe in the US.

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  Posted by robbrian6 Tue Dec 2, 2008 4:03pm PST

  Over the past 85 years a not so democratic ideology has grown within the body politic which has gradually stolen from Americans essential parts of the dream. Namely, corporatism in the control and abuse of competitive principles regarding the development of competing natural resources for the production of energy. Non-renewable energy companies have banded together to constrain development of hydro power that does not require a massive dam. Instead this form of capturing energy is based on the natural flow of water in our oceans, rivers, streams, and thousands of sluice ways throughout the nation. But now we are at a critical junction in Planet Earth’s survival. CO2 creates, oceans which are becoming too acidic, air too polluted, and ancillary health care costs too prohibitive for millions suffering from air borne diseases. Would that former Vice President Al Gore included ocean energy/ocean kinetics in his mix of renewable energy alternatives (solar, wind, geothermal, bio fuels, etc.) when he challenged (7/17/2008) Americans to become energy independent or, at least, shed a large share of dependence on imported petroleum within the next ten years. By excluding ocean energy he implicitly signals to the investment community that it is a lower priority. While the case is just the opposite. Venture capital for ocean energy projects has increased from approximately, $2.1 billion in 2002 to $6.4billion in 2007. He must hasten to correct the oversight. The British Government, however, made an overt decision to defund ocean energy research and demonstration projects in the early nineties; partly due to pressure from oil and fossil fuel interests. However, in the past ten years they have renewed public sector investments, pouring hundreds of millions of pounds into a variety of efforts to gnerate electricity from ocean waves and tides. Both the Clinton and Bush administrations refused to support Production Tax Credits for hydrokinetics at levels similar to that of wind and solar, for no rationale reason; Since the agency decision makers were from the fossil fuel industry this is not a surprising outcome. The single most powerful source of renewable energy on this planet was ignored by most nations. Now, however, venture capital and a few progressive governments, the EC, Australia, South Korea, Brazil, and individual states within the U.S. are pursuing ocean energy projects from tidal wave to ocean currents. What makes ocean kinetics the solution to not only our energy problem but hosts of other problems? Simply put, the ocean's energy will always be there, night or day, fair or foul. Moreover, flowing water is the most efficient source of power on the basis of per kilowatt hour delivered to your coffee maker. Yet, as we legislate, authorize, organize and finance a myriad of commercially acceptable win-lose solutions to ameliorate power deficits, we pay only lip service to the ultimate win-win solutions contained in the power of the oceans. We don’t hesitate to announce, subsidize, and champion new technologies to squeeze fossil fuels from tar sands, deep ocean recesses, and the bowels of the earth. WE shove onto our taxpayers the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to design/build nuclear facilitites, and then neglect to add the cost of waste disposal and protection to the cost of electricity at your toaster, which is several magnitudes greater than costs for any other non-renewable or renewable energy source. At a point not too distant in the future, 15-20 years at most, reality will take a different turn. Because we are already far behind the knowledge/action curve, we have only a short while before we are overwhelmed with systemic environmental collapse in the West and social and economic collapse in the East. Western consumptive capitalism, pandemic now in China and India, forces significant inefficiencies in national production functions. For emerging nations this emulation creates a dependence on fossil fuels to maintain production for export markets sustain national wage/price advantages not wholly provided by currency manipulation. If economic growth falters in these emerging industrial economies higher profit margins will not be sacraficed for ecological principles. Fortunately, in the West public opinion on climate change is at or just past a tipping point. The Green Revolution has taken hold forcing national leaders to address the policy imperatives inherent in scientific conclusions regarding climate change and the need to exploit renewable energy. What we now see is a somewhat mad rush to do something with exisiting renewable energy alternatives. The all inclusive approach is ideal if public resources and private risk taking are sufficientlhy adequate to support all of the options. We do not live in that world. Choices will need to be made based upon efficiency. Namely: The standard for effectiveness of any policy solution must have five parts. * The objective metric must be carbon eliminated per dollar spent. * Solutions must be effective immediately, the next two to five years, not 20 years from now. * These technologies should be repairable, redundant, and relatively inexpensive given capital requirements for non-renewable design/development and distribution. * Overall, the policy must “solve for pattern,” in Wendell Berry’s words: It must become the linchpin for security, economy, equity, and environmental quality. The cheapest, fastest, and smartest approach in the near term is energy efficiency. * Next, we need a distributed energy system based on renewable energy — not coal and nuclear. We do not know yet how to sequester carbon from coal-fired power plants or how to deal with the toxic byproducts of burning coal; nuclear amplifies the danger of terrorism and requires massive subsidies, and we still don’t know what to do with the radioactive waste. Coal and nuclear are problem switching, not problem solving. Behind the scenes, however, well-funded lobbies are pushing hard for them, while the public interest in smarter choices is more diffuse and far less organized. Global warming is a rich person’s problem. If you’re poor, you have more to worry about than melting ice caps or weird weather. You have transportation problems, health problems, food problems, educational problems, etc. Do you really need an energy tax on top of that to assuage the worries of wealthy elites who are so well-off that all they worry about is Arctic ice melts in 70 years? A carbon tax, as currently framed, really is a call for sacrifice to benefit rich people.

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