Al Gore’s Recent Challenge to America
Just last week Al Gore publicly made a speech about what the United States should do to address their energy needs. The former vice president called forth a plan to have one-hundred percent of the electricity produced in this country to come from clean renewable energy sources by the year 2018.
This seems like a huge undertaking since currently only a small portion of our electricity is generated by renewable energy sources such as; wind, geothermal, and solar. If this dream is to become a reality, then our nation must entirely give up and phase out coal (which currently accounts for nearly half of all our electricity generation). Other potential obstacles to this plan include the shear amount of time that it takes before construction can begin for new power generation sources including for example wind turbine farms. There is often a very lengthy permitting process involved, which include environmental impact studies. In addition the United States would have to make substantial upgrades to the national power grid, of which Texas is currently addressing (Please see http://www.theenergystate.com/blog/?p=11).
Gore’s comparison to the former president John Kennedy and subsequent push to go to the moon, was done in less than ten years. However there was more government intervention then. If our nation is to have one-hundred percent of its electricity produced come from renewable energy sources by the year 2018, then our permitting phases need to be made faster (with no decrease in the quality of them), and also the people and government of the United States need to push these ideas. If we all work together, things like this can be accomplished.
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