Al Gore: Web 2.0 can help save the planet
By Michael V. Copeland and Yi-Wyn Yen
SAN FRANCISCO – Al Gore didn’t take credit for inventing the Internet at the Web 2.0 Summit Friday, but he did credit it with enabling the victory of President-elect Barack Obama and helping restore faith in the principles upon which the United States was founded.
“The electrifying redemption of America’s revolutionary declaration, that all human beings are created equal,” Gore said to a cheering crowd, “would not have been possible without the addition of the empowerment of individuals to use knowledge as a source of power that has come with the Internet.”
In a speech that ranged from the foundations of printing, computing and other disruptive technologies, to the subject of the dampening effects of television and the need to tackle climate change, Gore returned to the Internet and Web 2.0 as tools to bring about huge leaps forward in society. He highlighted the way in which people organized and spread information using web-based databases of names, numbers, and ideas to support the Obama campaign.
“What happened in the election opens up a whole new range of possibilities, Gore said. “Now is the time to really move swiftly, to seize these new possibilities and to exploit them…Web 2.0 has to have a purpose. The purpose I would urge as many of you as can take it on, is to repair our relationship with this planet and the imminent danger we face.”
“We have everything we need to save it and in the process create millions of new jobs, create energy security,” he continued. “But the only way this is going to be solved, is by addressing the democracy crisis – a great blow was landed during the election – and taking this issue and raise it to the awareness of everyone.”
Gore advocated for the construction of a $400 billion “smart-grid” to tap renewable energy sources like wind, geothermal and solar and bring green power. He said a smart-grid infrastructure would pay for itself within three-and-a-half years. He urged Obama to set a goal of generating all of the nation’s power from renewable sources within a decade.
Well actually renewable engery can make a big dent. With the millions on advancements in solar, wind, water turbine, bio-fuels, and everything else. Don’t get me wrong, im not saying we will be off oil or coal next year, but nuclear power, cars that run on air, homes that power-up them selves(yes they can have that- don’t argue that much, i get $50.00 back from the electric company every month- so don’t try to tell me it is impossible, and all it is is a roof mounted win tourbine, and solar panels. and i have a plug- in car)- cars that can than run on the engery we produce at homes. If people took the time we can all become indivdually energy indepent, and eventually the nation can to, and Al Gores idea would make it easier, but i don’t know if that is web 2.0’s porpuse(excuse my spelling), i kind of like the idea of not leting the internet controll to much, call me old fashioh, but i like being in control, especially if that ever gets hacked… wouldn’t be to cool.
It never ceases to amaze me how little grasp people have on the technical aspects of power generation. Solar power, windpower, biofuels, “renewable” energy, etc are all thrown around as if they exist today on the scale necessary to even make a dent. What do you think the response would be if some utility went out for 1000 Mw of solar energy? How many firms would bid on it? Wind power is the darling of the green movement now. In ND it takes about 1,000 (that’s no typo) windmills to be the equivalent of one 500 mw coal plant. And there are 7 plants that large within 40 miles of where I am sitting. Do the math, 7,000 windmills, ain’t gonna happen. Should we abandon alternative energy? Of course not. But it isn’t going to be a factor for another 50 years regardless of who is in the White House or how many films Micheal Moore makes. That is unless you enjoy sitting in the dark at night.
“he did credit it with enabling the victory of President-elect Barack Obama and helping restore faith in the principles upon which the United States was founded” – “would not have been possible without the addition of the empowerment of individuals to use knowledge as a source of power that has come with the Internet.” – “Gore returned to the Internet and Web 2.0 as tools to bring about huge leaps forward in society.” Half of you didn’t even read the article it sounds like.
Gore is talking about the changed social mindset about information control and distribution that Web 2.0 can bring. He is talking about how it helped Obama win over McCain and how it has potential to solve our problems in the future. Find out what web 2.0 is before you bash Al Gore for being a global warming junkie. Web 2.0 isn’t going to limit access to the internet, it is the complete opposite. Its the notion of open culture and participation, and the shift from top-down to user-generated media. This is the way our society is going, so if you miss the boat, its nothing but your own fault.
Hey, so how many of you are using Hotmail, Yahoo email, Gmail, Google Docs, blogs, Twitter, Flickr, (NOT FLASH), commenting here on Fortune CNN, etc?
Welcome to Web 2.0. You’ve been riding and using it while you slam it as some pie-in-the sky dream.
It’s truly amazing how some commentators are coming so far from the fringes that they can’t recognize what they’re using, and continue to slam a single person over a well-deposed myth.
Meanwhile, the reality of the large pink elephant of the last 8-years of large government and institutional greed still stares you in the face.
To David Doty (November 8, 2008): where do you take the hydrogen (H2) from? (e.g: to make biofuels from CO2). What does it cost? How much energy is needed to make H2 (with your optional suggested method)?
King Al Gore is a frigging idiot and anybody who agrees with him is also. It is pretty cold down here in Texas and I like it that way!!
Funny, just today I was thinking — this internet thing is totally out of control. What we really need is government to come and fix it and show everyone how to create jobs.
Better yet lets get all the governments to cooperate so they can use our money to create a final uptopia
…We don’t seem to understand manmade financial derivatives and the banking system.
What makes us thing we have the slightest understanding of the environment.
…We don’t seem to understand manmade financial derivatives and the banking system.
What makes us thing we have the slightest understanding of the environment.
Funny, just today I was thinking — this internet thing is totally out of control. What we really need is government to come and fix it and show everyone how to create jobs.
Better yet lets get all the governments to cooperate so they can use our money to create a final uptopia.
Who in the hell gives this moron media attention. Get him the hell out of our lives. Just drop him. Jeeze!
Enough!
Nice to see that lots of people can voice their opinions and derision of Al Gore without contributing a SINGLE thing to the point – we are fast approaching a bind for renewable energy sources. We COULD have had at least four years to move in that direction instead of ensuring that we channeled as much money as possible to the oil giants. But, as McCain and Palin were fond of pointing out, that’s looking BACKWARD.
Whether you think it’s just God hugging us closer or a direct result of human activity, global warming and renewable energy are two issues we can’t take lightly. Either start investing in real estate farther inland, or find a way to reduce your carbon footprint and that of those around you, folks.
Or, you can sit on your butt and kvetch about Al Gore to salve your post-election wounds.
Al Gore is 100% right, go for green, create jobs and business at home. No more depending on foreign oils. Good for America, good for the world!!!
The McGraw-Hill Computer Desktop Encyclopedia defines the term Information Superhighway as, “a proposed high-speed communications system that was touted by the Clinton/Gore administration to enhance education in America in the 21st Century. Its purpose was to help all citizens regardless of their income level. The Internet was originally cited as a model for this superhighway; however, with the explosion of the World Wide Web, the Internet became the information superhighway”
Al Gore has always been pushing for using high tech solutions to promote a cause. This web 2.0 push is no different.
Calling Al Gore a belicose idiot is an insult to belicose idiots.
Looks like the conservative republications found some place to vent over the election. If the facts scare you just blame the messenger I guess or sink into denial.
The editors of Fortune must be embarrassed that so many of their readership fail to recognize the backbone economy of the 21st century – namely, information technology and renewable energy.
The truly unfortunate fact is that Ronald Reagan, by removing Jimmy Carter’s solar panels from the white house, sent a message to these Neanderthals that the 21st century would be delayed by 3 decades so that the neocon madmen could relive the dark ages.
Time to move on – and quickly.
John…you are “relieved” that Gore was not elected president? So after the complete disaster of Bush’s presidency now in our hindsight, you are still “relieved” that Gore was not elected?? Wow…have you been living in the mountains with no form of communication?
If the gov had given our tax money back to “US” instead of the bankers with the caveat it be used for solar panels or other renewable energy systems, we would have created millions of jobs, become energy independent and the banks and businesses would get their money back in the end. Instead, the fascist bassturds just kept our tax money for themselves!
Web 2.0? Are you serious? Web 2.0 will require that you log on to an account to surf and all that they will show you is what they want you to see.
Someone, please give Al Gore another valium. They seem to work for about two years …
what a JOKE.
web 2.0 requires a greater resource pull. it needs high bandwidth, faster servers capable of dealing with the increased performance overhead. web 2.0 – if anything – would achieve the exact opposite.
web2.0 this web2.0 that. it’s a big scam and everybody keeps singing, as long as the music keeps playing. the parallel to the financial situation isn’t too far off.
just wait until the shit hits the fan.
Truly Al Gore doesn’t have a good grasp on reality. I’m so relieved he didn’t become president when he ran.
Biofuels, hydrogen, improved vehicle efficiency, and compressed natural gas are not going to solve either the impending oil crisis or the climate crisis. Bear with me here for a sound perspective that has not often been heard from the green advocates. We will be able to recycle CO2 into standard liquid fuels using wind energy, as I’ll explain shortly, but first some background on the deficiencies of some of the current alternative fuels.
The upfront costs for nuclear power plants in the US are being quoted by the major companies (Exelon and GE) in the range of $5500-$9000/kW for plants of ~1 GWE. Wind, on the other hand, can be below $900/kW in prime areas, though it may be over $2000/kW in many areas where it is still being built. The capacity factor of nuclear is only 2.2 to 3.0 times that of wind. Hence, the upfront cost for new nuclear energy (not peak power) today is 1.5 to 4 times that for wind energy. A decade ago, that ratio was reversed. New construction of unsubsidized nuclear power is not currently competitive in any advanced country where there are good wind resources.
About $40B has been invested in biofuels in the U.S. over the past decade (the global figure is probably three times that), yet the 50 MMT (million metric tons) of biofuels produced globally this year will make a net contribution to transportation energy of only 0.4%. According to a recent UN study, biofuels are responsible for a 70% increase in the price of food. The carbon debt generated when new land is tilled takes 10 to 200 years for the energy crops raised on that land to repay (Sci. 319, 1235-8, 21 Mar, 2008). It is not surprising that some of the countries with the largest commitments to biofuels and cap-and-trade are also seeing some of the fastest increases in CO2 emissions.
The US is headed for a devastating spike in the price of cellulosic feedstocks in about five years. A severe pine-beetle blight began in North American in 1999, and today vast expanses of the forests in the northwestern states of the U.S. and in southwestern Canada are dead from the blue fungus carried by the beetle. These forests had previously been a carbon sink of about 100 MMT-C/yr. Today they represent an annual carbon source of about that amount, and this carbon source is growing rapidly as destruction of the dead trees by wildfires and normal decomposition steadily increases (Sci. 321, 652-3, 1 Aug, 2008).
The strong growth in the price of wood pellets and other cellulosic feed stocks over the past three years is surprising in view of the fact that hundreds of megatons of pines across North America died during this same period. Wood pellet factories are being built throughout the dying forests about as fast as the fledgling industry can manage, so as to recover some value from trees that have been dead for more than two years and are no longer suitable for timber purposes.
When these dead pines (several gigatons worth) are gone, the price of wood pellets and all other cellulosic feedstocks will soar. Vast regions of the Rocky Mountains that were previously mature forests, both pines and mixed species, will be bare or in seedlings by 2012. The global wood-pellet market by 2014 will be approaching 100 MMT/yr, and wood pellets will be above $500/ton – over ten times what they cost four years ago. Using the world’s limited cellulosic feedstocks for domestic heating is more than twice as efficient as making transportation fuels from them. Ethanol from these cellulosic feedstocks five years from now will be $6.50/gal.
There is a much better solution for transportation fuels. Detailed simulations have recently shown that low-cost off-peak wind energy can be used to recycle CO2 into ethanol, gasoline, and jet fuel at up to 60% efficiency. These wind-generated carbon-neutral fuels, dubbed WindFuels, will compete when oil is above $80/bbl. Recycling CO2 into transportation fuels using renewable energy addresses both the oil and the climate challenges. The energy storage problem with wind is no longer the challenge it has been perceived to be. Detailed scientific, engineering, and economics analyses are available at http://windfuels.com/ .
Wind energy is the most competitive renewable energy resource in many regions. The perceived challenge is getting wind energy from good sites to where and when it is needed. Efficient conversion of off-peak wind energy and waste CO2 into standard liquid fuels solves these problems. Annual WindFuels production per land area in good wind regions will exceed biofuels production density in fertile farming areas by a factor of 4 to 30.
The cost of producing ethanol and gasoline from CO2 and wind energy will depend mostly on the quality of the wind site and on the market for the co-produced electrolysis oxygen. In a Class-4 wind site with expected consideration for climate benefit, the cost of wind ethanol should be about $2.00/gal. Wind-gasoline will compete as long as oil is above $85/bbl.
It is essential for the market to help drive the dramatic cut needed in CO2 emissions to prevent a climate disaster in this century. With the taxes expected on CO2 emissions within a decade, WindFuels (ethanol, gasoline, jet fuel, diesel, etc.) will prove to be the most competitive solution to transportation fuel needs in North America. Tell Obama and the DOE that we need to start developing the industry that will synthesize all future transportation fuels efficiently from low-cost renewable energy and waste CO2.
Let’s see…Al did nothing as a Vice President for one of the worst presidents in history and now all of a sudden he is the resident expert on so called ‘global warming’…how pathetic. He’s a clown!
Good job continuing your derisive and false commentary about Al Gore not being a driving force behind the internet, and a missed step in out nation’s evolution.
Even Snopes shuts this joke down: http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp
Was it not enough that we had instead 8 dark years with an administration that ignored many opportunities to grow our economy with technology that isn’t based on military incursion and underfunding education and sciences?
Dangled the mirage-carrot of hydrogen cars with FreedomCAR while shutting down Clinton’s PNGV hybrid initiative. Those 2 billion dollars then would’ve put GM on the map instead of the 25 billion that they need now to bail their arses out.
I was just wondering if Al Gore is an Evolutionist or Creationist? Seems to me that if he’s an Evolutionist, his Global Warming crisis is not a crisis at all. If everything from animals to humans evolve and adapt over time to precisely and perfectly utilize the air mixture and water make up of that time, then we’ll all simply evolve and adapt to perfectly utilize the air mixture (as it has changed to according to his Global Warming predictions)at that time. No worries – right?
Web 2.0 will help rebuild America. The contracting industry is one of those backbones of our labor force that can never be outsourced. However, Joe The Plumber and millions of painters, roofers, electricians and handymen still run their entire business on pen-paper-napkin-drywall. My company spends all its efforts in helping companies stay better connected to its customers and prospects. The small mobile business person must adapt to staying connected in the most speedy appealing way to their customers. We at http://www.MyOnlineToolbox.com spend all our efforts to do so for the contractor business that is by Americans for Americans. There are a millions of homes that need repair and remodeling for the forseeable future. The contracting industry needs to embrace web 2.0 to get jobs, manage them more efficiently and get paid quicker.
Sounds like a Distribution Superhighway. Yet another invention from the man who brought us the internet.
Gore is a pompous globalist that wants nothing more than the UN to run everyone’s life. We’re going into a period of global cooling and he’s still trying to get a global carbon tax for all of us evil CO2 emitters. I wish someone would put a muzzle on this guy. He’s got a carbon footprint the size of King Kong’s and all the hot air he spews out is only making it bigger. When he moves into a modest 1500 sq ft home and stops flying all over the world in private jets, then maybe he can start to lecture us on how we’re ruining the planet with our evil CO2.
For gods sake…would someone shut up this motor mouth…and for good.
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AL GORE IS TOTALY COOL !!
WITH SO MANY NAYSAYERS AND COUCH-POTATOS AND OLD FOGEY’S OUT THERE WITH NO DRIVE TO THE FUTURE WE MIGHT JUST END UP IN THE 3 WORLD, FOR ALL THOSE FUTUREIST AND GEEKS AND FRESH-THINKERS THIS IS OUR TIME LETS “PUSH-FORWARD” LIKE NEVER BEFORE !!!!! AND LEAVE THE OTHERS IN THE MOON DUST WE KICK UP!!!! NEW TEC ,NEW MED’S, NEW ENERGY , NEW HIGHTS, MOON AND MARS U.S.A.!!! OH AND NEW CARS TOO..
*OUT WITH THE OLD AND IN WITH THE NEW*