Gore Says Obama Should Announce a National Goal: Achieve 100% Renewable Energy Use in a Decade

It’s been a week since Barack Obama won the presidency, and already he’s being urged to announce a national goal to achieve 100 percent renewable energy dependence within a decade. Al Gore doesn’t aim low.

The former Vice President and Nobel Laureate announced this goal at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco last week, striking while the iron was hot, and he outlined his five-point plan days later in a commentary for the New York Times’ wider audience.

Mr. Gore minces no words, and he’s nothing if not consistent. On July 17, we highlighted his warning that “The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk.” He writes in his Times piece:

“To those of you who are still tempted to dismiss the increasingly urgent alarms from scientists around the world…, please wake up. Our children and grandchildren need you to hear and recognize the truth of our situation, before it is too late.”

Gore’s 5-Part Plan

1. Large-scale investment incentives for massive solar, wind and geothermal power plants.
2. Construct a smart grid for the country, including high-voltage, low-loss underground lines.
3. Help America’s automobile industry convert to electric plug-in hybrids to run on renewable energy.
4. Retrofit buildings to make them efficient.
5. Put a price on carbon emissions in the United States and lead the way at next November’s Copenhagen conference (a Kyoto successor) to establish tough emission caps.

Gore’s Plan…the Pickens Plan…they all would move us closer to a stronger, more secure America and cleaner world, but the only plan that really matters will be the Obama Plan, which the President-Elect presumably will unveil in a matter of weeks.

His home state of Hawaii is gearing up for the energy transformation to come and will be an all-in participant out of necessity. Our overwhelming dependence on imported oil demands it.