Can the USA get 100 % of their electricity by clean energies ?

If you don’t read US environmental blogs, you may not know that yesterday Al Gore issued a speech that may become as historical as JFK’s one on sending a man on the Moon.

Indeed, the former Vice President proposes to produce a 100 percent of the country’s electricity by low carbon energies within ten years. A fantastic goal.

Doing in ten years such a thing – shifting the totality of electricity sources to low carbon solutions – is a HUGE project that will require a lot of money and people.

As I stated on Marguerite’s blog :

100 percent of energy from renewable energies is simply impossible, and in only ten years, even more…Look at how Germany is working on these energy sources. They still represent a tiny fraction of their energy mix. Renewable energies aren’t perfect either...

But, aren’t the United States used to making the impossible possible ? Indeed, which nation could have stated in 1961 that they would send a man on our satellite by the end of the decade and actually succeed ?

And even if the goal is not achieved but ” only ” 50 percent of electricity in the USA are made by renewable energies by 2028, isn’t it a goal that has to be approved ? Isn’t it a plan that is worth supporting ?

Of course, this will need to work fully on energy conservation, and even perhaps nuclear power. In any case, any plan of making American electricity relying less on coal-fired plants got my full support.

(Please note that current US electricity is made of 50 percent coal, by far the most polluting and greenhouse gases emitting solution with up to a kilogram of carbon dioxide per kilo-watt per hour)

In any case, I invite you to watch the video below. Al Gore is back and I am more than glad about that as I have been a supporter of the US Vice President since I watched an Inconvenient Truth.

You can find the full speech in video right here… (nearly 30 minutes)

For further data, please check :

• The Daily Green : Al Gore’s 10-Year Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis ;
  and Transcript of Al Gore’s “Generational Challenge” on Climate Change and Energy Use ;
• Dot Earth : The (Annotated) Gore Energy Speech ;
• Eco Geek :  Gore’s Challenge, 100% Carbon Neutral by 2018 ;