Al Gore - Wants no FF for electric w/in 10 years . . .

Cashmere · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Mar 27, 2008 Posts: 1971

Yes folks, you read that correctly.

rdsaltpower · Heavy Crude Joined: Aug 30, 2006 Posts: 130

......yawn.......

Cashmere · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Mar 27, 2008 Posts: 1971

That's all you got?

Any Al apologists out there want to jump in and explain Al's 10 year time line and complete lack of understanding of energy density?
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LittleBoPeak · Tar Sands Joined: Apr 18, 2008 Posts: 24

Not me.

I've always said Al's an idiot. He's trying to jump on a politically expedient bandwagon to make himself relevant.

Ludi

Kind of a loon, I guess. Sad

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rdsaltpower · Heavy Crude Joined: Aug 30, 2006 Posts: 130

smallpoxgirl · Moderator Joined: Nov 08, 2004 Posts: 6473

Then that big wind bag needs to start by weaning his mansion off of fossil fuel electric.
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DefiledEngine · Heavy Crude Joined: Aug 19, 2004 Posts: 292

He's just a good politician. Remember, anyone can aim for the possible, that's why you have to go for the impossible. As others gawk at your claims you make the headlines. All publicity is good publicity.

Twilight · Expert Joined: Mar 02, 2007 Posts: 3076 Location: UK

I loathe the "Man on the Moon" comparison.

A quick history lesson. America never put a man on the Moon "before this decade is out". It began to build the necessary human capital during the 1930s under Roosevelt. His attempt to deal with the Depression may have seen some questionable command allocation of resources, but it also saw a mass mobilisation of technical cadres and fired up a remarkably effective vocational education system. The Second World War then allowed a far greater number of people to become intimately acquainted with radar, communication and other electronic systems than would otherwise have been required by a peace-time and damaged economy - and they did it from first principles. The same was true of the humble yet remarkably accomplished machinist. The manner of their experience was also very formative. Untold thousands of soon-to-be experts lived a brief career in its own right on adrenaline, and their successors trained alongside.

The industrialisation of the USSR was fundamentally a similar story with nightmarish details. America and the USSR alike also got a boost from looting and reverse-engineering advanced technologies, created during the same period by a third party that experienced, once again, a similarly crisis-driven technical-managerial evolution. When Kennedy set that goal, those people and their machines were ready, and so was the working culture that would be required.

Today? How much of that is true of today?

I expect no technological miracles this side of the pond, and I expect none in the US. I expect no technological windfall to come with the fruits of war. There is not only no sense of urgency, there is hardly anyone who can remember a sense of urgency in their time. There is no grand objective to focus the mind, nor has there been one in living memory (at least, of those upon whose shoulders this task would be laid).

Our readiness today can be likened more to 1931 than to 1961. That's right, the man who might send us along the path has not even appeared yet. If Gore said 40 years, that would be closer to the truth. That is what the historical precedent he cites would actually suggest. Alas, he is perhaps too close to the story to see it in its entirety, beyond the triumphant myth.

It is a shame the momentum never held after 1973 and 1979, because seeing where we are now, that would have been the time to start. History lesson over.

In summary, the technical-managerial cadres, structures and culture necessary to address the coming energy crisis do not exist today. Sometime next decade, an economic collapse may provoke a late attempt to construct them. Until then, normal service resumes.
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Cashmere · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Mar 27, 2008 Posts: 1971

mos6507

Al Gore should look up Pickens. Sure, Pickens wants to use NG for cars, which I'm sure Gore doesn't like, but it's the closest thing Gore has to accomplishing his goals for electricity generation.
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lawnchair · Intermediate Crude Joined: Oct 20, 2004 Posts: 793

I would listen to a "not one more FF MWh than this year" pledge. That's even a long way off, but worth the fighting.

Okay, maybe I wouldn't listen from Al Gore. His house uses 42 times more electricity than mine in a year. I *know* he can reduce his power by 40 times and do okay. If I cut my power by 40-fold, I'd get, um, 15 watts on average. And, his house, frighteningly, consumes less than many in his tony neighborhood.

Over the last 20 years, US electric demand has averaged 2.4% per annum growth. Well over double the population growth. Adding a load the size of, say, Missouri, every year.
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Plantagenet

Al Gore is a hypocritical gas bag, but he knows how to generate publicity and promote his issues. He's worked damn hard to make Greenhouse Warming a global issue and a mainstream political issue.

It doesn't hurt peak oil awareness to have Al Gore generating publicity and promoting the idea that its criminal to waste oil and other valuable fossil fuels on power generation. The next step is to have Al Gore and other mainstream politicians publically acknowledge that peak oil is real.

essex

He's an idiot - notice how he's been packing on the pounds lately ? Developing his own carbon storage system ?
NO global warming for 10 years !
http://www.climatescience.org.nz/

Hagakure_Leofman

I'd say the messenger is now well and truly shot. Shocked

Well done people.
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