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Al Gore’s Personal Energy Use Is His Own “Inconvenient Truth”
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by joellerose | February 27, 2007 at 05:51 am
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Gore’s mansion, located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES). In his documentary, the former Vice President calls on Americans to conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home.
The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average.
Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year.
As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359. Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore’s energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006. Gore’s extravagant energy use does not stop at his electric bill. Natural gas bills for Gore’s mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year.
“As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk the walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use,” said Tennessee Center for Policy Research President Drew Johnson. In total, Gore paid nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for his Nashville estate in 2006.
The Tennessee Center for Policy Research is an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan research organization committed to achieving a freer, more prosperous Tennessee through free market policy solutions.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (4)
at 09:08 on February 27th, 2007
Here is an interesting counterpoint to this accusation from killfile, about how Al Gore offsets his energy expenditure with carbon credits.
at 10:25 on February 27th, 2007
Wouldn't it be wonderful if these schemes actually worked?
Emission trading suffers as carbon prices plummet <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />A leading economist this week warned that the world's two leading carbon trading schemes are failing to deliver the expected benefits due to a collapse in the price of carbon credits - and the situation is likely to get far worse before it gets better.
Many politicians have identified carbon emissions trading schemes as the best means of tackling climate change, arguing that by putting a price on carbon emissions firms have a financial incentive to reduce their carbon footprint.
However, speaking to an audience of academics and business leaders at this week's Tyndall Centre conference on investments in low carbon technologies, Professor Catrinus Jepma of the University of Amsterdam warned that both the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme and the UN's Clean Development Mechanism were in danger of failing with prices for the carbon credits used under both schemes predicted to reach just a few cents.
"The Stern Report suggests we need a price for a tonne of carbon emissions of $20, rising to $30, $40 or even $50 to stabilise [the level of CO2 in the atmosphere] at manageable levels," he said. "But there is a good chance that the carbon credits that are meant to provide incentives for reducing emissions will be available for next to nothing."
The problems with the European Trading Scheme are well documented with the collapse in the price of a tonne of carbon dating back to May last year when it emerged that most countries in the scheme had set their carbon caps far too high, resulting in fewer firms than expected having to buy credits and causing the price of a tonne of carbon to plummet from over €30 to less than €10.As one delegate observed "with some firms having carbon emissions capped at 110 percent of what they actually required it was always going to fail".
The EU is seeking to rectify the problem ahead of the second phase of the scheme, which starts next year, and recently rejected many member countries proposed emission allowances for the next phase as too high, ordering them to go away and come back with lower caps that will force more firms to cut emissions or buy credits.
However, Jepma argued that with no link existing between the first and second phase of the scheme the cost of carbon credits will drop to almost nothing by the end of the year. Currently the price is already below one euro meaning there is little incentive for firms to cut emissions as it is cheaper to just buy in credits to offset their pollution.
He also warned that something similar was in danger of happening with the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which is designed to allow signatories to the agreement to meet their carbon emission reduction targets by buying in Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) or carbon credits from CDM-approved carbon reduction projects in the developing world.
Jepma said the scheme was in danger of becoming a victim of its own success with over 500 projects already approved by CDM and a further 1,000 projects in the pipeline awaiting approval. He predicted that as a result over 2.4bn CERs will be available by 2012.Meanwhile, Jepma warned that Russia and many of the Central European States are on track to be well below their Kyoto emission targets for 2012 meaning they will generate 2.8bn credits or Assigned Amount Units that they can sell to those countries unable to meet their Kyoto obligations.
This means that there will be a supply of 5.2bn tonnes worth of assorted carbon credits available under the various <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Kyoto carbon trading mechanisms by 2012, but the biggest polluters in the scheme – the EU, Canada and Japan – are expected to exceed their targets by just 3.6bn tonnes.
"Under the Kyoto targets the supply of credits will outstrip the demand," said Jepma. "We are going to see the same scenario as with the ETS whereby the price for a tonne of carbon starts high and then collapses to close to zero by the end of the scheme… which is precisely the wrong message."
He added that such a scenario would not only remove the financial incentive for countries to invest in clean technologies that help them stick to their emissions targets - as it would be cheaper to continue polluting and just buy credits - but it would also discourage investment in carbon reduction projects in developing countries as they would have to pay for CDM approval only to find they could not get a good price for the carbon credits they generate.
Jepma said the only hope for keeping the price of the various carbon credits high enough to act as an incentive for countries to hit their Kyoto targets lay with convincing the Russians to retire the bulk of their credits.
"We need to convince the Russians that if they put all the credits they have into the market they are going to undermine their own returns from the system," he said. "We need to implore them to be sensible and help push the price [of carbon] up to a workable level."As one delegate observed what we need is a "CDM version of OPEC" to control the flow of credits onto the market. But until such an organisation emerges the success of the scheme up until 2012 rests entirely upon the goodwill of the Russian government. Green Business News, 2/21/07at 23:29 on February 28th, 2007
So Al is going to have to turn of a few lights..just like we will all have to. This is a pretty pointless exercise. Finding some flaw in Al Gore's life isn't going to change the catastrophe that we are headed for unless we pull together. !
at 04:21 on March 1st, 2007
Please read my post, Perhaps the Best Article on Global Warming You’ll See on NowPublic.