How Al Gore justifies his energy useage - and why YOU can't!!!

[pre-set]

So, by now we're all fammiliar with the huge, giant, rediculous amount of energy Algore's house in Tennessee uses (in case you're not - it's roughly 2o TIMES the amount of energy used by a typical home), but here's what you night NOT know about the High Priest of Global Warming...

Algore is actually poluting LESS than all you other wastetrels out there, despite his massive energy useage. Here's how.

He buys things called "carbon offsets". What are those? Well, it's sort of like a commidity. They represent a "carbon saving" somewhere else in the world. Planting trees, flourescent lights, ect... - all those are things which reduce the amount of energy used or reduce the amount of carbon in the air by re-absorbing it (the trees). By purchasing enough carbon offsets, you could theoretically reduce your own carbon footprint on the planet.

Sounds good, right? Okay, this is the BEST part!!!!!


Algore buys HIS carbon offsets from a company called Generation Investment Management LLP. They have offices in Washington D.C. and London, U.K. He buys lots of carbon offsets from this company - enough to wipe out his own carbon useage.

But YOU can't buy carbon offsets from this company. They only have ONE customer. His name is Algore.

Oddly, that's also the name of the company's founder and owner!!!!!

Wow! How about that?

Algore can use vast amounts of electricity, generate huge amounts of carbon doing it, buy carbon offsets from HIMSELF to reduce his "impact", and make a tidy profit from himself doing it!!!!!!


Yep. These ARE the kind of brains capable of inventing the internet. I beleive it now!!!!!

[Grip]

if you want some carbon offsets so bad, all you had to do was ask.
I got a couple I will sell you

[pre-set]

Nah. First off, I don't need them nearly as bad as Algore since I only use about 1/25th the amount of energy in a year as he does.

Secondly, if I ever decide I DO need to buy some, I'm gonna start my own company and sell them to MYSELF. Then I can just keep the money.

Works for Algore, right?

[Frank McBride]

Even if we could purchase the offsets, the average person isn't going to have the money or incentive to do so. My money is tied up in supporting my family as well as those on welfare, FEMA vouchers, etc. I'm sure if Al has his way I'll have my check docked before I ever see it to pay for my offset...as well as the offset for those welfare and FEMA folks.

FMc

[Baltimore Shooter]

BTW, last I checked, AL Gore is TWO names, not one. That's Al Gore, not Algore. Or did they teach you to mispell Democrat's names in your Repulican grammer school?

BTW, Bush is a Republican'T.

Warren

[Foxwood]

Not all energy is produced the same way.. In fact, there is something called, "Renewable energy", which is produced by hydro power and solar energy. Gore does use a lot of energy, that is true, but he goes out of his way to purchase green energy, and actually has a zero carbon footprint. Quite the opposite of the impression you provided.

By the way, a quick look into the Tenessee Center for Policy Research, which claims to be a non-partisan group, shows links to a number of right wing, conservative websites. In fact, the Tenessee department of revenue has determined that they are an illegatimate organization, and has denied them tax exempt status.

Using press releases by groups such as this to form an opinion is the same as thinking Rush Limbaugh is providing the truth.

[leftcoastphotog]

Although you and I have very different political views I ask you to at least show the Vice President (albeit Ex) the proper respect he deserves. Former presidents are still called Mr. President and although I did not vote for President Bush (either one) I would still refer to them as Mr. President or at least properly spell their names.
So while you may be frustrated re: this whole issue please show the man the respect he deserves.
Lcp

[Foxwood]

I suppose it's easier for republicans to talk about Al Gore's utility bills than it is for them to discuss the war in Iraq, the treatment of our wounded soldiers at Walter Reed, the possible illeagal firing of Federal Prosecuters, failed foreign policy, failed education policy, Scooter Libby, etc., etc., etc.

[Foxwood]

Preset,

Do a simple google search for, "buy carbon offsets." You will find plenty of places to spend your money. That is, if you are actually willing to put your money where your mouth is.

[pre-set]

Although you and I have very different political views I ask you to at least show the Vice President (albeit Ex) the proper respect he deserves. Former presidents are still called Mr. President and although I did not vote for President Bush (either one) I would still refer to them as Mr. President or at least properly spell their names.
So while you may be frustrated re: this whole issue please show the man the respect he deserves.
Lcp


I appreciate your sentiment there, LCP. I truely do. And there was once a time (even on this very board) that my comments reflected your wishes.

But others on the left here have shown me that this respect is NOT in fact needed. If it were, they'd show it themselves when refering to members of the opposite side of the political spectrum. Since they don't, they've shown that it's acceptable under our rules of deccorum.

So, frmr Vice President Al Gore III is now "Algore", and will remain so until we ALL start using proper respect for titles.


Sentiment noted though, sir.

[pre-set]

... the possible illeagal firing of Federal Prosecuters.....



You DO in fact realize that the current administration has fired a TOTAL of SEVEN (7!) Federal Prosecutors since Jan. 20, 2001.

You DO in fact (perhaps not) realize that the Clinton administration fired ALL Federal Prosecutors in the first 3 months of 1992.


Dig a a little deeper next time Foxwood!!!!

[pre-set]

Not all energy is produced the same way.. In fact, there is something called, "Renewable energy", which is produced by hydro power and solar energy. Gore does use a lot of energy, that is true, but he goes out of his way to purchase green energy, and actually has a zero carbon footprint. Quite the opposite of the impression you provided.

By the way, a quick look into the Tenessee Center for Policy Research, which claims to be a non-partisan group, shows links to a number of right wing, conservative websites. In fact, the Tenessee department of revenue has determined that they are an illegatimate organization, and has denied them tax exempt status.

Using press releases by groups such as this to form an opinion is the same as thinking Rush Limbaugh is providing the truth.



This DOES NOT excuse the fact that his house is a MASSIVE waster of energy. Whether it comes from "green" sources or not is rediculous. It shouldn't USE that much to begin with!!!!

If Algore was some anti-environmental industrialist such waste would at least be expected, though not condoned. But Algore is the High Priest of Global Warming!!!!! Such behavior is simply beyond acceptable, green energy or not. It's STILL energy!

[Foxwood]

Actually, there is quite a difference between green energy and that produced by carbon based fuel. It is not related to the amount of energy used.

Your information resources are invalid. Your argument is invalid.

[Camera Face]

I wouldn't say his arguments are invalid. In fact, they're not even his arguments. They're Rush Limbaugh's. Word for word. So your problem is with Rush, not pre-set. Since most of Rush's arguments are invalid, I think pre-set should try to come up with some of his own.

[pre-set]

Actually, there is quite a difference between green energy and that produced by carbon based fuel. It is not related to the amount of energy used.

Your information resources are invalid. Your argument is invalid.



You cannot possibly be this obtuse. It's impossible. I simply refuse to beleive that you are this stupid.

Energy IS engergy. Think back to physics in high school!

Granted, 221,000 kwhrs of solar or wind energy might not have the same carbon impact of 221,000 kwhrs of coal fired energy, but it's STILL 221,000 kwhrs of ENERGY being USED.


The goal should be to be as efficient - to use as LITTLE - energy as possible. If Algore would cut his OWN useage by a reasonable 75%, it would FREE UP over 150,000 kwrs to be used elsewhere, or BETTER - to NOT BE USED AT ALL!!!!!

Think about it like this.... Let's say Algore's nieghbor doesn't buy "green" power like Algore does. Instead he buys coal-fired electricity like most people. Well, we could burn LESS coal if Algore wasn't using so much "green" energy himself! There'd be more to go around, and coal wouldn't need to be burned.

Wasting "green" energy doesn't make it okay. It's STILL a waste of energy. Energy that WILL have to be created from some other source to make up for that whcih is wasted.


Do you FINALLY understand my point?

[Foxwood]

Energy is energy?

That is a rather simple-minded way to look at it.

As the demand for more green energy increases, producers will find a way to provide it. Look at all the solar, hydro and wind projects that have evolved over the years. It's called supply and demand. And that, my spittle-lipped friend, will reduce the reliance on carbon based energy. If people like Al Gore prefer to buy green energy, there will be someone there to provide it. And if that energy is not produced by burning coal, then it reduces the carbon footprint by that amount.

But I suppose you are totally into green energy, and all the information you provided didn't come from some phony, made-up, never heard from before organization set up to slam Al Gore that was ruled illegimate by the State they are in. But it's neat that you included them in your tag-line to prove your point.

[Foxwood]

As far as the source of your information is concerned....

Contributions to the Tennessee Center For Policy Research totaled $104,980 in 2005, according to its one and only 990 available online at the Foundation Center's 990 Finder.

The Center lists a post office box number as its address which makes sense since occupancy costs were $450 for the year.

The IRS requires 501(c)(3)s to disclose the names of board members and officers which the Center fails to do. The 990 is signed by Jason A. Johnson who presumably is related to Drew Johnson, listed as the Center's president on the website.

Total salary expense for 2005 is $52,213. Despite a tight budget, the Center's managed to spend $8,155 on meals and travel. Marketing expense is $5,934 but no money was spent on research.

$98,870 of the Center's funding came from indirect public support which means another organization provided funding. Maybe Drew Johnson, Tennesee Center For Policy Research president, could provide that information. Perhaps Mr. Johnson could tell us, too, if anyone involved in the Center actually lives in Tennessee.

The Tennessee Center For Policy Research is not an obscure conservative group. It is a faux conservative group specifically set up to send out inflammatory press releases like the one about Al Gore's electricity bills.

Therefore, any arguements you make based on information provided by them, are false.

What will Rush talk about tomorrow?

[pre-set]

So this organization that provided Algore's power figures isn't telling the truth about his power useage? Thy're lying about it then?

Then why hasn't it been sued out of existance by said Algore? If those figures were anything but completely accurate, I'm sure a virtual army of left wing lawyers would have crushed them by now.

And yet they're still around, 10 days later.


And I don't understand your fasicination with Rush Limbaugh. You must spend a lot of time listening to him though - which I find sort of odd considering....

As for me, I don't hear him very often. I'm a Glenn Beck fan. He has a much better, much funnier show. The times I hear Limbaugh, he's talking about golf half the time anyway. And I hate golf.


Look, beleive whatever you want about who funds them or what their agenda is... But if what they're saying is correct and factual, then it doesn't matter.

I'm no fan of frmr President Clinton, but if the man said it was sunny outside - and it was - I'd beleive him. I wouldn't insist it was raining just because Mr. Clinton said it was sunny.


As far as "demand" for green energy.... I don't know how much more simply I can say it. So for the last time, here it is....


Energy wasted is energy wasted, regardless of the means in which it was generated. If a given quantity of green energy is wasted somewhere, a given quantity of "other" energy (read carbon based) must be generated to replace that green energy that was wasted. Short term demand does not change in this example - only the means in which the energy was created. Those extra kwrs wasted by the Gore home COULD have been out on the open market, available to someone else who instead had to buy carbon based energy.

I can't say it any more simply than that. If you can't understand that in such clear terms, then I cannot help you.

[Foxwood]

I have never asked for your help. You are in fact, quite entertaining though. Your Mom should ask your Kindergarten teacher for more nap time for you though. Maybe a more comfy rug would help.

[Foxwood]

Preset,

Sometimes, in the real world, it takes more than 10 days to sue someone out of exsistance.

Your arguement is baseless, as are your facts and assumptions.

[pre-set]

......Your Mom should ask your Kindergarten teacher for more nap time for you though. ....


Let's leave "mothers" out of this, okay?

I've been polite and cordial (if a bit exasperated by your density) with you for the duration of this thread. I'd think it's only fair to expect the same courtesy from you.

[Baltimore Shooter]

Pre-set,
What was your electric bill last year? Was it $0? This guy's was:

His energy bill is $0.00
By Jared Flesher, Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
Thu Mar 15, 4:00 AM ET

EAST AMWELL, N.J. - Mike Strizki lives in the nation's first solar-hydrogen house. The technology this civil engineer has been able to string together – solar panels, a hydrogen fuel cell, storage tanks, and a piece of equipment called an electrolyzer – provides electricity to his home year-round, even on the cloudiest of winter days.

Mr. Strizki's monthly utility bill is zero – he's off the power grid – and his system creates no carbon-dioxide emissions. Neither does the fuel-cell car parked in his garage, which runs off the hydrogen his system creates.

It sounds promising, even utopian: homemade, storable energy that doesn't contribute to global warming. But does Strizki's method – converting electricity generated from renewable sources into hydrogen – make sense for widespread adoption?

According to some renewable-energy experts, the answer is "no," at least not anytime soon. The system is too expensive, they say, and the process of creating hydrogen from clean sources is itself laced with inefficiency – the numbers just don't add up.

Strizki's response: "Nothing is as wildly expensive as destroying the whole planet."

Life free from the power grid
Strizki lives with his wife in a rural section of Central New Jersey. His 12-acre property is surrounded by trees and his gravel driveway leads to a winding country road. His 3,500-square-foot house has all the amenities, including a hot tub and a big-screen TV.

It was here, four years ago, that Strizki set out to do something that's never been done in this country – power his home completely through a combination of solar and hydrogen. "My motivation was, I saw what fossil fuels were doing to the environment," he says.

Strizki works for a company that installs solar panels. In previous jobs, he's helped integrate hydrogen fuel cells into cars, a boat, a fire truck, and an airplane. His latest project, the one involving his house, is an extension of that expertise.

The solar-hydrogen house took longer to complete than Strizki expected – a strict local zoning officer and the state permitting process caused delays, he says – but in October 2006, the system finally went online. The total cost, $500,000, was paid for in part with a $250,000 grant from the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities.

This is how it works
On sunny days, solar panels on the roof of Strizki's detached garage generate more than enough electricity to power his home. The excess electricity powers a device inside the garage called an electrolyzer, which transforms a tank of water into its base elements – oxygen and hydrogen.

The oxygen is released into the atmosphere, while the hydrogen is stored in 10 1,000-gallon propane tanks on Strizki's property. In the winter, when the solar panels collect less energy than the home needs, that hydrogen is piped to an air-conditioner-size fuel cell, located just outside the garage, which generates electricity.

The final piece of the equation is "The New Jersey Genesis," a hydrogen fuel-cell car Strizki helped design and now maintains for the New Jersey Department of Transportation. He can fill up the Genesis with hydrogen from his electrolyzer and drive it pollution free.

Strizki understands that few people can afford to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for clean energy. Now that he's demonstrated his idea works, his goal is to make the system better and less expensive. (For example, the 10 propane tanks could be replaced by one high-pressure hydrogen tank buried underground.) With mass production, he believes he could get the price of the system, not including the solar panels, down to about $50,000. (A new solar panel system can cost as much as $80,000, Strizki says, but some states, including New Jersey, have offered rebates that cover up to 70 percent of the cost.) Strizki is seeking government grants and private donors for funding, and he's started a company, Renewable Energy International, which he hopes will one day market his product. He says he's already heard from potential customers: "We've been called by some A-list Hollywood types interested in powering their islands."

Hydrogen hurdles
Strizki's project proves that carbon-free living is possible right now, but renewable-energy experts are skeptical that hydrogen houses with hydrogen-run cars in the driveway will catch on anytime soon.

"There's no way your average person is going to want to buy five expensive pieces of hardware," says Joseph Romm, a former Department of Energy official who analyzed clean-energy technologies during the Clinton administration.

In addition to the high cost of the equipment, there's another huge hurdle that must be overcome if hydrogen is to become a viable clean energy: Although hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, it doesn't exist alone in nature; you can't just bottle it up.

To get at hydrogen, it must be processed from another source, such as natural gas, oil, coal, or water. According to the National Hydrogen Association, 95 percent of the hydrogen produced in the United States is made through steam reforming natural gas – a process that releases greenhouse gases into the air.

Strizki's method for making hydrogen is totally clean, but suffers from a different problem: Electrolyzers are only 50 percent efficient. By the time the electricity from his solar panels is converted into hydrogen, and the hydrogen converted back into electricity in the fuel cell, half of the clean energy he started with is used up.

Mr. Romm thinks it's a waste. That electricity would do more good toward reducing pollution if it was sent into the main power grid to displace other energy, he says. "[Strizki's system] doesn't get you that much environmentally," he says.

Romm is an advocate for clean-energy use – in recent books and articles he advocates a sharp cut in greenhouse-gas emissions within 10 years – but he's characterized hydrogen as an overhyped distraction that isn't ready yet to help toward that goal. He supports continued hydrogen research, but other technologies that are more developed could help the Earth much more and much sooner, he says.

Not ready for prime time
Robert Boehm, director of the Center for Energy Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, has studied renewable energy for the past 35 years. His reaction to Strizki's home project is tempered.

"Does it make sense in the present environment? Probably not. Does it make sense as a sustainable thing in the future? It very well could," Dr. Boehm says.

Boehm predicts that it will be at least a decade before hydrogen energy is ready for the mainstream, and then only if enough money is put into research and development.

"In any of these new technologies, they need a lot of government support," he says.

Boehm sees the most immediate potential for a system like Strizki's in places far from a power grid, where selling renewable energy back to a power company is not an option.

Strizki isn't dissuaded by criticisms that his system is too expensive or too inefficient to be practical. He's determined to push technology ahead toward an end goal – totally clean energy – and he sees renewable hydrogen as the best solution.

"It's the way that makes the most sense, and we have to start somewhere," he says. "If you look at it, no one has said what I'm doing doesn't work."

Link here - http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20070315/ts_csm/chydro
-------------------------------------------

Warren

[shootercub]

Whatever.. These politicians are all liars anyways.. Why get so worked up over it?

Al Gore is a liar.. He didn't invent the internet.

And there is NO SUCH THING as man-made global warming.

What about dealing with this war instead??

[Buck]

I don't know much about Mr. Gore's energy consumption, but I do know he's a turd, having covered him a lot back in his senator days in Tennessee. Just not a likable guy. He's since had a personality makeover.

[Baltimore Shooter]

Dubbya isn't a "likeable guy" either.

Warren

[pre-set]

Warren -

Great article. That was fascinating. Guys like that are the ones who are going to show us they way - by leading by example. That dude rocks. The stuff that he is pioneering will be commonplace in a couple decades.

Thanks.

[Walter Graff]

Funny, I work half the week in Amherst, Mass. It has a number of universities in a 10 mile radius with some of the big scientists in many fields these days including climate. We have a Whole Foods that created an area at a checkout aisle which sells the Al Gore tape along with a TV playing it. One night I walked by and a man was on the phone complaining to someone about this thing and how erroneous it was. He seemed like a scientist type. A few weeks later the display was gone. I asked what happened. They said a group of scientists at the area universities complained to the company on the basis that Al Gore's hysteria had no scientific basis so they took it down.

And now Britains Channel 4 has produced a devastating documentary titled "The Great Global Warming Swindle." It has not been broadcast by any U.S. networks, but is available on the Web. Distinguished scientists specializing in climate and climate-related fields talk in plain English and present readily understood graphs showing what a crock the current global-warming hysteria is. These include scientists from MIT and top-tier universities in a number of countries. The names of some were paraded on some of the global-warming publications that are being promoted in the media - but they state plainly that they neither wrote those publications nor approved them. One threatened to sue unless his name was removed.

While the public has been led to believe that "all" leading scientists buy the global-warming hysteria and the political agenda that goes with it, in fact the official reports from the United Nations or the National Academy of Sciences are written by bureaucrats - and then garnished with the names of leading scientists who were "consulted," but whose contrary conclusions have been ignored. There is no question that the globe is warming - but it has warmed and cooled before, and is not as warm today as it was some centuries ago, before there was as much burning of fossil fuels as today. None of the dire things predicted today happened then.

The documentary goes into some of the many factors that have caused the Earth to warm and cool for centuries, including changes in activities on the Sun, 93 million miles away and wholly beyond the jurisdiction of the Kyoto treaty. According to these climate scientists, human activities have very little effect on the climate, compared to many other factors, from volcanoes to clouds. These climate scientists likewise debunk the mathematical models used to hype warming hysteria, showing that they're contradicted by hard evidence stretching back centuries. Much effort has been put into silencing scientists who dare to say that the emperor has no clothes. One of the scientists interviewed in the documentary reported getting death threats.

In politics, even conservative Republicans seem to have taken the view that, if you can't lick 'em, join 'em. So have big corporations, which have joined the stampede. No one denies that temperatures are about a degree warmer than they were a century ago. What the climate scientists in the British documentary deny is that you can mindlessly extrapolate that, or that we are headed for a climate catastrophe if we don't take drastic steps that could cause an economic catastrophe. "Global warming" is just the latest in a long line of hysterical crusades to which we seem to be increasingly susceptible.

[itsjusttvnews]

Thank you, Walter Graff. Excellent post!

[Alaska cameradude]

Well looking at the 10 foot snowbank outside my house today and the back porch that needs to be shoveled and all I can say is....

GO GLOBAL WARMING!!!

[pre-set]

Walter, you are clearly an idiot. And possibly a dangerous one at that. If you continue to question the "fact" of human-caused global warming, you may find yourself being "dealt with" in uncourteous ways.


The truth simply isn't worth it my friend.

Drink the Kool-Aide.

It's available from lots of guys on this board....

[Foxwood]

I suppose, in some alternate reality, that it would be possible to pour millions of tons of pollution into the air each day and not have any effect.

The fact that passenger pigeons were shot out of the air by the millions did not lead to their demise.

Oil tankers that spill into the oceans do not cause any adverse effect.

Strip mining does not harm the environment.

Let me get this straight.........

Things that man does does not affect the environment?

Is that what you are saying?

Talk about cool aid........

[pre-set]

You spelled Kool-Aide wrong.

Your argument is invalid.

[Frank McBride]

For the sake of discussion, let's say industrial pollution and other emmissions are causing the climate to change.

Is this solely or even primarily the fault of the United States? No. But let's say we need to lead by example even though other countries do far worse than we do. Where do the politicians who won't even make the personal sacrifice themselves look for improvement? Will they limit emmissions from grandfathered refineries and power plants? Will they require foreign trucks and sea vessels to have cleaner output? No. They want the ordinary citizen to justify all their usage and make the sacrifices. Illegals, non-taxpayers and big businesses will get a pass as usual.

I am not at all moved to go buy energy offsets or fret over what may be happening to the planet when the worst offenders won't be held responsible. Eventually the actually productive people in this country are going to be pushed too far and either the well will go dry or there will be an uprising.

FMc

[pre-set]

I'm hoping for uprising. That's the only thing that'll really solve anything....