Gore’s Push for Carbon-free Energy Economy Suggests Green Tech Boom

CafeSentido.com :: The former vice president of the United States, Al Gore, yesterday announced an ambitious goal, which he says the nation can meet, of transitioning its entire domestic energy production to clean resources by 2018. The speech marks a major moment in the process of transition to the green technology boom, which will be the next step in the ongoing economic development of the United States and the world. Gore, however, warned that failing to meet the challenge to date means “the United States of America as we know it is at risk”.

The United States currently consumes roughly one-quarter of all the world’s petroleum, while representing just 4.6% of the world’s population. Experts calculate that global energy production is at or near its peak, and total demand is fast expanding beyond production capacity. In a globalized economy, with major developing nations like China and India expanding GDP by between 7% and 10% per year, this imbalance is untenable. So crude oil prices are shooting up, and the US is increasingly at risk for economic hardship, perhaps already in motion, as a result of coming market corrections.

Mr. Gore opened his address [full text] with a caution to those who fail to perceive the complexity of a new kind of security risk:

There are times in the history of our nation when our very way of life depends upon dispelling illusions and awakening to the challenge of a present danger. In such moments, we are called upon to move quickly and boldly to shake off complacency, throw aside old habits and rise, clear-eyed and alert, to the necessity of big changes. Those who, for whatever reason, refuse to do their part must either be persuaded to join the effort or asked to step aside. This is such a moment.

The fact is, moods are changing, and the political environment has evolved dramatically in the last two years. Gore cites this trend as cause for hope in this moment of economic and environmental peril, and the best reason for calling for this grand infrastructure readjustment. Skeptics who have long cited the “prohibitive cost” of making the adjustment to clean energy technologies are out-argued by the soaring cost of carbon-based fuels: their historic efficiency is no longer guaranteed, and the economy as a whole is being magnetized to new technological opportunities to reduce energy overhead.

Noting the same problem of oil “addiction” Pres. Bush cited in his 2006 State of the Union address, Mr. Gore urged Americans to think with a can-do attitude about how to make fundamental changes to the core energy metabolism of our economy, specifically:

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.

How does an entire nation come together to undertake such a massive energy overhaul —priced at between $2 trillion and $5 trillion, according to a range of analysts from competing disciplines—, if not by using the levers of democratic political pressures to steer the entire economic output of the nation in a new direction? Moving public awareness can be as unwieldy as steering the ship of state, and in an economy that represents nearly one-third of the entire global economic output, the task is daunting.

But among the most instructive observations nestled within the text of Gore’s call for a new clean energy economy touches on the cost of making the infrastructure adjustment: while some critics continue to worry about impossible economic costs, ignoring what potential long-term benefits there might be, they overlook entirely the fact that the energy infrastructure of the United States is to some degree in poor repair.

Outages of the last few years have cost billions of dollars in lost business and damages, and upgrading the systems for traditional combustible-fuel-based power generation is not inherently less expensive than building a renewable infrastructure. This challenge is economic to begin with, so if the two economic challenges are treated with one solution, the combined cost of repairing what we have and reaching a sustainable future comes down dramatically.

Some members of the Democratic leadership in Congress are unnerved by the timing of Gore’s proposal, saying it comes shortly after a major emissions-reduction bill failed to pass the Senate and at a time when the Bush administration is pushing new drilling as the answer to high energy prices. Democrats don’t want to be seen as being on the side of an expensive government-spending scheme to abandon fuels that power the American economy and whose leading purveyors are the most profitable businesses in the nation.

But there is more to the timing that ignoring the whim of the Congress. Pres. Bush’s announcement he will life the executive ban on new offshore drilling has been met by some critics —environmentalists, economists, and even energy-industry analysts— as not well-attuned to the causes of the current price crisis. Major leading American corporations have publicly called for the government to speed new funding to the twin problems of tackling climate-altering emissions and overhauling the energy and vehicle-fuel infrastructure, so that business will know to follow what’s laid down as a federal funding priority.

Increasing numbers of observers and consumers have made known —anecdotally, in surveys and in formal organized campaigns— their desire to see the kind of assistance oil firms need to get serious about becoming energy-sourcing firms, diversifying their product, even as contaminant or heat-trapping emissions incur fines and heavier taxes.

The major import of Gore’s speech may not lie in the fine points of fact or analysis, but in the declaration of a national goal. If the banner of a clean energy economy is taken up by industry, commerce, politicians and consumers and voters alike, then the path to that goal will begin to be more visible, more comprehensible. We will be able to try and refine a number of potential contributing solutions that will get us closer to optimizing our use of energy without having to drastically cut back on our energy consumption.