The United States could generate all of its electricity from carbon-free sources by 2018, Al Gore said today., in a widely publicized speech in Washington.
"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," Gore said.
Replacing the coal plants that currently generate more than half of the United States' electricity, Gore foresees a combination of wind, solar, and geothermal.
Andy Revkin posted a very smartly annotated version of the speech on his New York Times blog, Dot Earth. It's worth reading in detail if you're seriously interested in Gore's ideas, but for the quick hit, here's Revkin:
There's almost no doubt that we'll need to take a lot of the carbon out of our energy infrastructure, but no one I've spoken to, from venture capitalists to utility execs, thinks it's possible to make changes to a national infrastructure this quickly. Absent a huge runup in coal prices, a fusion power breakthrough, or some unforeseen technology, it seems impossible. In any case, it's certainly much more difficult than putting a man on the moon or building an atomic bomb, the "national achievement" analogs that many like to use when talking about fighting climate change.
Image: Al Gore. flickr/Will Palmer
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