Comments on: Gore’s Energy Challenge to America

By: BooRadley

BooRadley — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 23:00:37 +0000

Thanks.

Are these utility scale, mid range, residential, all three?

I know a possible deal in the works to build a small hospital right on Lake Michigan, the property abutts, right damn next to a utility’s sub station.

Would anything they have fit that scenario?

By: BooRadley

BooRadley — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:54:25 +0000

Thanks scarecrow.

By: marksb

marksb — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:31:31 +0000

Way late to the post, but…
We have a small research company in our university town, owned by a huge Japanese technology and industrial company. They’re specialty is nano-level materials research. Couple years ago they were working on thin-film membranes for fuel cells, currently they are working on photovoltaics. The goal is a combination of breakthrough production with high efficiencies (both electricity production and manufacturing efficiencies).

The Japanese certainly get it. The US has a history of leading the world in chip speed and efficiency as well as manufacturing technology. We shouldn’t let this get past us.

We also have Clipper Windpower, a cutting-edge manufacturer of large wind turbines. Brilliant technology.

We need to embrace Gore’s challenge and get ahead of the competitive curve in energy technology and manufacturing. The US can leverage this challenge to rebuild our industrial infrastructure and restore quality non-service sector jobs.

By: Scarecrow

Scarecrow — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:16:31 +0000

klynn — be careful wrt to the “pumped storage hydro” you describe. The concept has been used for decades by many utilities, as a “peaking resource,” but it is not always economic. It produces energy on the way down, like any hydro plant, but it actually uses more energy to pump the water back up the hill to refill the first reservoir. So utilities produce energy during peak demand hours only, when the value of energy is the highest. They pump the water back up the hill late at night/early morning, when the value of energy is lowest — but the net is a loss of energy. In effect, it’s a huge battery, storing energy (water behind the top reservoir) for use later, but at a loss.

Today, it’s cheaper for utilities to build a gas-fired turbine for peaking purposes than to build a pumped-storage project.

By: Scarecrow

Scarecrow — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:06:48 +0000

Watch/listen to the video. Gore hopes there will be a lot more electric cars to reduce oil/gasoline/diesel consumption. But he starts with the electricity sector first, because that’s the “easiest” to take on.

Before he can change the transportation sector, he needs to make sure the electricity sector doesn’t just produce more carbon emissions while generating the electricity to power our autos. Hence, he focuses on electricity first.

By: MikeEss

MikeEss — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:59:57 +0000

Once you have energy (hopefully clean) readily available, you have a lot of options, even when that energy is from stationary sources.

All sorts of conversions of energy into alternate forms can be accomplished, and once a direction (or two - maybe electric/batteries and hydrogen?) is decided on for the mobile use problem, we can start building up the (vast) infrastructure needed to support it.

It isn’t easy or simple, but we have to start, and we can’t allow the still-seductive attractions of oil to cause further delay…

By: james

james — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:43:57 +0000

Just a question for Gore before we all prostrate ourselves at his feet….has he completely divested his share of the family’s investment in Occidental Petroleum?

If not this is just more say what they wanna hear.

Sorry, but nothing will ever convince me except action, not after the empty words the Democrats used to get elected in 2006.

By: dilireus

dilireus — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:38:02 +0000

A diarist at DailyKos recently wrote about our energy problems and pointed out that oil is used for transportation, not for electricity generation. Of course there are many coal-fired generation plants in this country that can be eliminated by a switch to solar and wind power, but that won’t impact our reliance on oil. How will his goals, admirable as they are, reduce our dependency on foreign oil unless we also move away from petroleum-based transportation? I have tremendous respect and admiration for Al Gore. I just don’t see how his proposition will help us with regard to our dependence on foreign oil. Admittedly, I haven’t read his entire speech, so maybe he does address this and I’m just uninformed.

By: CarolynU

CarolynU — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:23:10 +0000

Terrific Scarecrow. Thanks for writing about this.

By: klynn

klynn — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:55:31 +0000

Actually, I have a booklet from the DOE from the 70’s on alternative energies. Think where we would be now if we had followed the “alternative energies guidance” from DOE in the 70’s.