Al Gore — who has become more relevant than the man he lost the 2000 election to — challenges Americans to reach 100% carbon-free electricity in ten years.

Our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels is at the core of all three of these challenges – the economic, environmental and national security crises. We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that’s got to change…

Al Gore made a series of sweeping statements yesterday. Having already assembled the canon of evidence that climate change is nothing sort of a global emergency — and having allowed George Bush’s administration to highlight the economic and security problems inherent in our present energy strategy — he was not compelled to persuade the public that something was wrong. Rather, he issued a call for carbon-free energy and transportation inside of 10 years, a rhetorical goal based on John Kennedy’s decision to go to the moon.

But is it even possible?  As great a technical challenge as the moonshot proved to be, the energy crisis may be far more complex, and certainly faces more political opposition.

This is Long Overdue

The energy debate has been ongoing for decades; launched in earnest by President Jimmy Carter in 1979, the claim that we needed to move away from a foreign oil dependency was one of several issues (see also:  rabbit attack) that allowed Carter to be pilloried in the press and by his opponents, eventually marking him as one of the least-effective Presidents in our short history.  As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution claims, however, Carter was right, after all:

• He was right in seeking to raise the fleet auto mileage standard to 48 miles per gallon by 1995. (Even U.S. automakers admitted at the time that they could easily achieve 30 mpg by 1985.)
• Carter was right in exhorting Americans to turn down their thermostats, even if he did look nerdy in a cardigan while urging us to do so.
• In his July 1979 speech, he was right when he said, “I am tonight setting a clear goal for the energy policy of the United States. Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977 —- never.” That worthy goal quickly went by the board.

Carter, like Gore, invoked JFK when calling for a 10-year program.  Carter got laughed back to South Georgia in 1980.  Since that time, two of four presidents have been involved in the oil industry.

The Generation Isn’t The Problem

Perhaps the most shocking discovery upon analyzing Mr. Gore’s speech is that, while he allows it, our generation capacity isn’t the primary handicap to achieving his goal.  Yes, the coal fired plants that supply over half of the country with power aren’t going to suddenly become green, but the viable alternatives are in place — wind, solar, and geothermal power is ready on an industrial scale, it just costs between 5-20x more than building a new coal plant.  Because of that, it’s essential to place these plants where they operate at their maximum efficiency — solar in the southwest, wind in the plains.  There’s one tiny problem with that, however; the power grid can’t get it from those places to where it needs to be.

Why Our Current Infrastructure Sucks

High-voltage transmission lines, the backbone of our electrical system (also why you probably don’t know were your power plant is) have an effective range of about 4,000 miles.  Astute students in geography are aware that this is more than enough distance to cross the country, so why are our current transmission systems ineffective for our goal?  It seems that in the effort to maximize profits without stirring up each other, the power companies have neglected to build a true national grid, and instead focused on a series of regional ones.  This is complemented by the fact that as they approach the end of their range, power lines bleed progressively more power into heating the air around them; in present-day conditions it reaches as high as a 30% loss; in a national grid, the power on present technology would be at too low of a level to be of use.

Is Anybody Doing Anything About It?

Help is on the way for those that would see all of our nation’s power generation capacity move to the plains and the desert; experimental research in a power transmission line that is cooled by hydrogen has been extremely successful at lowering the power loss to an acceptable level, making a national backbone of power lines possible.  This way, instead of waiting for the local networks to finish fighting one another for territory, a provider (or a government agency?) could simply build the line to reach every regional net, and keep them powered from the central, hyper-efficient locations.

The Oil and Coal Talking Points

A properly planned and executed energy strategy would of course have a great deal of opposition; one can readily expect the oil and coal industries to launch an all-hands assault on the necessary legislation and individuals that back it.  More than that, public opinion will be swayed by discussion of economic and security concerns.  Because of the costs inherent in this new strategy, automakers would pose it as a way to wipe out the American auto industry; pundits would spin it as an elitist scam to siphon precious dollars away from those who need them the most; state leaders in West Virginia, Kentucky, and all of the other coal states would paint it as a guarantee to plunge their citizens into poverty from the job loss.  It seems likely that stories about the New York blackout being caused by Iranian hackers would resurface, with a not to the danger of a national blackout, or the vulnerability of such space-intensive generation as wind and solar to a terrorist attack.

There’s one important thing to remember:  all of the arguments against this focus on the worst possibility.  If we continue on our present course, that instead becomes an assurance.

More Reading

Second Hearing For Carter (AJC)
Gore Sets Goal Of 100% Carbon-Free Electicity (The Oil Drum)
Gore Lays Down Green Challenege (SFGate)
Is Al Gore Nuts? (CleanTech Blog)

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