Robert Parry: Gore Was Right

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http://consortiumnews.com/2007/082607.html

Neck Deep Secret: Gore Was Right

By Robert Parry
August 27, 2007

Having written several books that span periods of years, I’m often surprised how patterns emerge that aren’t apparent to me in day-to-day news coverage. In Neck Deep, our new book about George W. Bush’s presidency, one of those surprises was how often former Vice President Al Gore turned up making tragically prescient comments.Share this article

Gore, whose admirers sometimes call him “the Goracle,” comes across more as a Cassandra, warning the nation of looming disasters and finding himself either ignored or mocked by the dominant politicians and media pundits.

Time and again – from Campaign 2000 to the post-9/11 “war on terror” to the invasion of Iraq to Bush’s expansion of presidential powers – Gore pointed to grave dangers when nearly all other national political leaders and media bigwigs were either running with the herd or keeping silent.

In our daily coverage of those political developments at Consortiumnews.com, we’d run stories citing Gore’s speeches, but it wasn’t until we pulled together the book that Gore’s extraordinary role jumped out.

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[pscot]

1. Superman

wears Al Gore pajamas.

[bananas]

2. And history will prove him right about the solutions for global warming

Nuclear won't play a major role,
we need an "electranet" of distributed renewable generation.

http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2006/05/09/roberts/index.html

Q: Let's turn briefly to some proposed solutions. Nuclear power is making a big resurgence now, rebranded as a solution to climate change. What do you think?

A: I doubt nuclear power will play a much larger role than it does now.

Q: Won't, or shouldn't?

A: Won't. There are serious problems that have to be solved, and they are not limited to the long-term waste-storage issue and the vulnerability-to-terrorist-attack issue. Let's assume for the sake of argument that both of those problems can be solved.

We still have other issues. For eight years in the White House, every weapons-proliferation problem we dealt with was connected to a civilian reactor program. And if we ever got to the point where we wanted to use nuclear reactors to back out a lot of coal -- which is the real issue: coal -- then we'd have to put them in so many places we'd run that proliferation risk right off the reasonability scale. And we'd run short of uranium, unless they went to a breeder cycle or something like it, which would increase the risk of weapons-grade material being available.

When energy prices go up, the difficulty of projecting demand also goes up -- uncertainty goes up. So utility executives naturally want to place their bets for future generating capacity on smaller increments that are available more quickly, to give themselves flexibility. Nuclear reactors are the biggest increments, that cost the most money, and take the most time to build.

In any case, if they can design a new generation that's manifestly safer, more flexible, etc., it may play some role, but I don't think it will play a big role.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16127831/site/newsweek/

My Turn: The Energy Electranet

The climate crisis will force a historic shift to a new global power network of small alternative sources. This network will then feed a smart electric grid. Welcome to the future.

By Al Gore
Newsweek

Dec. 18, 2006 issue - Over the past 200 years, the industrial revolution has created vast wealth and huge improvements in the human condition—in a few dozen highly industrialized countries. The engine of that revolution was fueled by coal and then supercharged with oil—multiplying the productivity of human labor many, many times over. Although we have reaped many benefits from this intensive use of energy, we are now faced with an urgent crisis—a crisis that is altering the very nature of the Earth's climate.

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And what will the technological opportunities look like? Taking a page from the early development of ARPANET (the Pentagon's Advanced Research Projects Agency Network)—which ultimately became the Internet—we will rely on new kinds of distribution networks for electricity and liquid fuels. We will be less dependent on large, centralized coal-generating plants and massive oil refineries. Societies of the future will rely on small, diversified and renewable sources of energy, ranging from windmills and solar photovoltaics to second-generation ethanol-and biodiesel-production facilities. Widely dispersed throughout the countryside, these streamlined facilities will make the industrialized world more secure and less dependent on unstable and threatening oil-producing nations. Off-grid applications of renewable power sources can provide energy for the 3 billion people now stuck in poverty.

In the industrialized world, these systems will require a newly designed distribution grid. An "electranet," or smart grid, will be flexible and allow homeowners and businesses to sell or buy electricity on to and off of the grid. It will allow individuals and families to monitor their consumption much as they monitor budgets and bank accounts today.

The largest energy users of the grid are buildings. Due to rapid urbanization, we are on pace to erect more new urban buildings in the next 35 years than we have in all previous human history. These buildings could be constructed with breakthrough solar and nanotechnologies, reducing prices and increasing efficiency by 50 percent.

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