So my take is that Al Gore chose his “generational challenge” words very carefully: “Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years.”

So in terms of “carbon free” electrical generation don’t we have a significant head start today given how 30% of U.S power is currently already being generated?

Looking at some round numbers, as of 2006, some 10% of US electrical power was from renewable powers. Over 7% of that was hydropower.

And the US gets some 20% from nuclear. While this isn’t a renewable per se, but it is carbon neutral. That’s supports the objective of Gore’s goal as well as the PickensPlan of energy independence as well.

So to become carbon free in terms of producing electricity, we’re really looking at replacing a bit more than 2/3’s of hydrocarbon and coal based electricity with renewable power.

Wind and solar — particularly the CSP version of solar with it’s built storage –could be a big part of that answer.

I bring up storage because the Achilles heel about a lot of renewable power sources like wind and solar is still its intermittency.

It’s not just the generational technologies that are have breakthroughs. Storage technologies are now on the market that, for the first time, store mass quantities of renewable power. (Detail here: http://outsidetheboxinvesting.blogspot.com/)

And costs are coming down. VRB Power, covered in this blog in past posts, announced that the reduced the costs of the cell stacks in its vanadium-based flow batteries by 50% last year.

To see how “storage” + renewables really changes the game, it might be a good idea to look at the world’s most successful renewable: hydropower. It been around for nearly a century and, in 2006, it accounted for some 19% of global electricity generation capacity — more than nuclear power.

All the water backed up in a reservoir is storage. Not electrical but energy storage as you can control the amount of power generation by increasing or decreasing the water flowing through a dam’s turbines. You couldn’t do that if you only took the “flow” from a river’s run where you would have a more variable power source. Like wind or PV solar is today.

Storage protects against mistakes in forecasting, shifts demand peaks by storing off-peak energy to sell back to the grid during peak times, and provides frequency regulation and deters expensive grid upgrades.

In short, storage provides the basis for a complete change in the thinking surrounding power generation and use.

And its here today.

I don’t think Gore’s plan is workable only because I follow the resource market closely enough that steel, copper, silver, rare earth metals, lithium, are all in tight enough markets that it will impossible to gear up industry fast enough to build all the new energy and all the new cars needed. The plan needs to be adopted and the production of these things begun but I do not think you can build the factories , the mines to feed the factories, and improve and repair all the broken infrastructure in just 10 years, but what does get developed will certainly put things on a better track.

The only way to stop continuing to release *additional* CO2 back into the atmosphere is to *stop* burning *recovered* fossil fuels.

His desire is to switch to a closed loop CO2 energy system. Existing atmospheric CO2 combined with solar energy to create sustainable liquid biofuels that thus constantly recycle the CO2. Or, to avoid the CO2 issue entirely with, say, electric only (PV + “batteries”?) sustainable energy storage / usage.

In Al’s scenario, no new exploration, drilling or recovery of fossil fuels. Period. The higher the price on recovered fossil fuels, the sooner / more competitive sustainable solar derived biofuels will exist.

That’s obviously the true root paradigm shift Al’s after.

It is a radical change from the status quo. Al doesn’t want to come right out and say it. The end of the stored solar energy (fossil fuels) recovery businesses. And the beginning of and reliance on a contemporaneous make ‘em as you use ‘em version.

I think that Gore wants to get a message across that this is an urgent priorrity – and I do agree with him.

Building transmission lines has become an almost impossible task – the lack of growth since about 1980 has happened during a time when there has been a dramatic increase in the process involved in getting approvals. In order to get a stronger grid, there are going to have to be many new high voltage lines constructed – and doing this in any reasonable period, is going to require strong support – and a real committment on the part of the federal government. Regardless of what kind of generation that is used, they will need a bigger and stronger grid.

So it will be interesting to see what the public response to this is… will they support the idea – or not. I suspect that the pollsters will be busy in the next while.