Green Taxi

Al Gore wrote into the New York Times as an Op-Ed Contributor to help explain his new energy proposal back in November.  In the piece titled, “The Climate for Change“, he laid out his views for the world to read.

While I do not agree 100% with Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth, I do think his purpose, to optimize our energy use and reduce pollution, is extremely important and should be supported.  He has some solid ideas that can be fine tuned and built upon. 

Speaking with an anonymous energy industry insider, I developed a solid view of how this proposal should be approached, adjusted, and hopefully put into practice.  Here are several of his quotes in regards to the proposal:

“I’m happy to see him put a real number on the cost of transmission for these energy proposals.  Most of the energy activists talk about replacing coal and natural gas plants located in the NorthEast with solar plants in the desert and wind generation in the Midwest, but “forget” to mention how they are going to get all that power 2,000 miles away to where it’s needed.”

(He then drew out a simple map of how the costs of transmissions work, thus clarifying how transmission is the first problem that should be addressed, not the last.)

“$400 billion seems like a decent number to put on that, from what I’ve heard it’s $1 million per mile at a minimum to build transmission lines and more expensive than that going through the mountains.”

“His timeframe of 10 years is ridiculous.  In 2006 AEP announced plans to build a 550 mile line from WV to New Jersey, to be in service in 2014.”

“I would have liked to have seen him lead with efficiency.  That’s something we could do right now, in every home and significantly cut energy usage just by giving the proper incentives – without waiting for new technologies to pan out or for construction of new generation units.  I would like to see the government mandate energy usage stickers on a wider range of appliances.  They already have those big yellow stickers on fridges and washers and dryers, but you have no idea how efficient your TV or DVD player is with another brand.  It seems miniscule, but when you think of the fact that right now in my house while I’m gone I have 3 TV’s, 3 dvd players, 3 cable boxes, a xbox, a wii, a receiver, a tuner all constantly waiting scanning to see if I’m pressing a button on my remote to turn them on.  Manufacturers have no incentive to design them to be energy efficient because there is almost no transparency into how much energy they use.”

“I hate the idea of putting in a carbon tax, I think it’s the surest way to put us into a depression, a huge new tax on all energy that will raise the cost of everything.”

The commentary is priceless and the simple ideas are so easy to achieve.  Basically, we have a few really important things for the government to work on.  Take these to your local congressman or lodge them in your head for your next vote or trip to the appliance store.

1. Transmission Bill – we are going to end up in a massive speculative bubble again if we keep throwing money at new technology without the transmission lines to get the energy from place to place.  Transmission lines need to be our infrastructure superhighway of the 2010′s.
2. Efficiency Bill for a broader range of appliances- Add the big yellow stickers to TV’s, DVD players, washers, dryers, computers, etc.  They do wonders for refridgerator energy management, so why not expand them throughout the household?
3. No Carbon Tax

*image source: businessweek.com

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