Gotta love Al Gore

Energy Guzzled by Al Gore’s Home in Past Year Could Power 232 U.S. Homes for a Month
Gore’s personal electricity consumption up 10%, despite “energy-efficient” home renovations

http://tennesseepolicy.org/main/article.php?article_id=764

Do as I say, not as I do!!!

That must be because he's not out there "clearing brush" by hand 200 days out of the year.

I'll be right back, I'm gonna get some popcorn for this flame war...

Germey said:

That must be because he's not out there "clearing brush" by hand 200 days out of the year.

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House #1 A 20 room mansion (not including 8 bathrooms) heated by natural gas. Add on a pool (and a pool house) and a separate guest house, all heated by gas. In one month this residence consumes more energy than ! the ave rage American household does in a year. The average bill for electricity and natural gas runs over $2400. In natural gas alone, this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home. This house is not situated in a Northern or Midwestern "snow belt" area. It's in the South.

House #2 Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university. This house incorporates every "green" feature current home construction can provide. The house is 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and is nestled on a high prairie in the American southwest. A central closet in the house holds ; geothermal heat-pumps drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground. The water (usually 67 degrees F.) heats the house in the winter and cools it in the summer! The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas and it consumes one-quarter electricity required for a conventional heating/cooling system. Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Surrounding flowers and shrubs native to the area enable the property to blend into the surrounding rural landscape.

~~~~~
HOUSE #1 is outside of Nashville , Tennessee ; it is the abode of the "environmentalist" Al Gore;

HOUSE #2 is on a ranch near Crawford, Texas ; it is the residence the of the President of the United States , George W. Bush.

An "inconvenient truth".

Both those guys have absolutely no political power or will to make policy.

Gore's house is indefensible. Some balance must come from somewhere on these threads though

Germey said:

Gore's house is indefensible. Some balance must come from somewhere on these threads though

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This is a tough one, eh Germey?

olllllo said:

Both those guys have absolutely no political power or will to make policy.

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Personally, I can't wait till both are gone from screwing with the people.

The 232 is a bit sensational, lets make it apples and apples. 19.3 average houses a would consume the same amount of power as his. Now this is just ONE house, you know he owns multiple properties. Rediculous.... Do you reallyt expect any less though?

I was reading an article the other day that European countries may require you to purchase a carbon credit per x qty of gas.

Mark my words, this will be the trend, energy costs go up and people start to consume less. We've built this large infrastructure for energy and it will start to be utilized less and less, which means profit margins will begin to shrink. Since utilities are garaunteed a profit the cost per kw/h to suffice this... Its already happening with the water utilities in some areas, Georgia for one.

This alarmist BS is only going to exasterbate the problem.

I plan on getting the F off the grid and selling surplus power back to the power company at a premium when prices do super inflate.

Thats Nuts.

Virtuous said:

I plan on getting the F off the grid and selling surplus power back to the power company at a premium when prices do super inflate.

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Yep, they get people to conserve and then charge them even more. Great logic. I'm with ya. I'm going to install a solar array once the prices come down and do the same.

I just can't relate to politicians that can afford electricity bills that are more than what I will make in 2 years!!!

Not one candidate or wanna be candidate can relate to my paycheck vs electricity bill

Political posts are fun

But he is super cereal about the environment!

Tenchiro said:

But he is super cereal about the environment!

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and finding manbearpig.

EdWort said:

Yep, they get people to conserve and then charge them even more. Great logic. I'm with ya. I'm going to install a solar array once the prices come down and do the same.

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FIL is looking into that. He's figuring it would cost $35,000 to do the whole house. Im looking into selling the damn things! Make some money while they are still $$$, then buy when they come down.

EdWort said:

This is a tough one, eh Germey?

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Bashing politicians is easy!
Only tough thing is keeping up with this thread during dinnertime.

olllllo said:

Both those guys have absolutely no political power or will to make policy.

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What, Ed and I have plenty of will... Just wait 'till he finishes the BrauHaus.

bethlehembrewer said:

FIL is looking into that. He's figuring it would cost $35,000 to do the whole house. Im looking into selling the damn things! Make some money while they are still $$$, then buy when they come down.

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Solar powered stirling generators are starting to look promising. The theoreticle efficiency is superior to silicone solar cells. As soon as I clear up some projects on my to do list I will be testing with a couple. I figured two 6' dishes at %20 efficiency will be more than I need. If I can increase efficiency that is just more money the electric company is going to pay me.

Silicon photovoltaic technology will become obsolete in the next few years. The manufacturing process for plastic coated solar cells is close rapid mas production with multiple companies investing in the technology. The plastic version is lighter, flexible, easier to custom fit, and the market will be competitive in pricing.

Virtuous

Sterling solar? Id like to know more- During the summer here we get 18+hrs of sun

EdWort said:

I'm going to install a solar array once the prices come down and do the same.

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How's the wind in your area? Windmills are pretty efficient, and have substantially lower startup costs. Looks like you've got the space for a few.

Some info from an Electrical Engineer for a power company:

How much electricity does an average 2-story 3-bedroom house use per day per month or per year?

Answer
More information is needed to address this question well. What type of appliances are being run? Is it an all electric house? What appliances run on gas? Is there a Central Heat and AC? What is the approximate square footage? With answers to these questions you can get a pretty good ball park answer.

Otherwise I will contribute this: As an electrical engineer for a power company I see on average a house that is 1600-2000 square feet and having electric appliances except for the furnace use an average of 1500Kwatts per month making 50 Kwatts per day and a total of 18,000 Kwatts per year.

Having said that it is also important to know why the question is being asked. If, for example, one is trying to determine usage as part of a plan for creating an alternative energy system for the house, one really needs to find out the actual usage for the house. Average numbers can be very misleading. Nova ran a story about a couple that installed a solar based 6 kWatt system who were generally running a surplus. No data is provided for actual consumption and converting the rating of a solar system back to Kwatts/day is moderately complex.

On the other side of the spectrum, it has been reported that Al Gore's mansion uses about 221,000kWh per year. If you scale this number down to the requested 1600-2000 square foot house, the result is around 60,000 Kwatts per year. It is reasonable to assume that Mr. Gore has already done all of the obvious things to reduce his energy footprint (e.g. energy star appliances, energy efficient lighting) so this clearly should not be considered an upper bound on electrical usage. Mr. Gore also purchases carbon offsets and extra wind power to balance out the remainder of his home's energy consumption.

The most important part about this question is that knowing the average value is useful if you just want to know the average but knowing the specific number may be significantly more important in some cases.

It's not quite as bad the email makes it out to be.

"A few pertinent details have been left out, of course, such as the fact that one reason the Gore family's utility bills run so high is that they pay premium prices to get 100 percent of their power from Tennessee's Green Power Switch program, which draws from renewable resources such as wind, solar, and methane gas; such as the fact that the Gore family invests in "carbon offsets" to allay the environmental impact of their power usage; and such as the fact that the 10,000-square-foot mansion serves not only as their residence, but also as a workspace for both Al and Tipper Gore."

Not saying that makes everything better but I deal with these smear emails all day at my job and they almost always leave out important bits of info, take information out of context, or blatantly lie to make their point. If a piece of information is circulated by email, 99 times out of 100 it's not true.

You can argue the details all day long, but Gore is still one of the biggest hypocrites to ever walk the earth, and carbon offsets are a money making scam.

I really loved this sentence in the original article:
In the past year, Gore’s home burned through 213,210 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity, enough to power 232 average American households for a month.

In the past year, I have eaten have eaten at least 1095 meals, enough to feed 12 average American people for a month!

Do I eat 12 times the average person? No. Just to make a point that isn't there, I compared my yearly food intake (3 meals times 365 days) to a person that eats 3 meals a day for a month.


"See in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."
George w. Bush

I think we should be done by now catapulting the propaganda about Gore. It's time to focus on Obama and McCain.

nobody is arguing the details, I'm simply pointing out the creator of the article/email has an agenda and people with agendas often bend the truth.

stever said:

It's not quite as bad the email makes it out to be.

"A few pertinent details have been left out, of course, such as the fact that one reason the Gore family's utility bills run so high is that they pay premium prices to get 100 percent of their power from Tennessee's Green Power Switch program, which draws from renewable resources such as wind, solar, and methane gas; such as the fact that the Gore family invests in "carbon offsets" to allay the environmental impact of their power usage; and such as the fact that the 10,000-square-foot mansion serves not only as their residence, but also as a workspace for both Al and Tipper Gore."

Not saying that makes everything better but I deal with these smear emails all day at my job and they almost always leave out important bits of info, take information out of context, or blatantly lie to make their point. If a piece of information is circulated by email, 99 times out of 100 it's not true.

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I want to say that I am not Pro-Gore or Anti-Gore. I am just tired of poorly written propaganda presented as fact no matter what party it is slamming. W said it best: Catapulting propaganda

Austinhomebrew said:

I want to say that I am not Pro-Gore or Anti-Gore. I am just tired of poorly written propaganda presented as fact no matter what party it is slamming. W said it best: Catapulting propaganda

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I completely agree. When people jump on bandwagons based on facts derived from suspect sources, it drives me nuts. There is more than enough information available out there that if people would just do their own research they would find out the truth which (in theory) should allow them to make an informed decision.

stever said:

I completely agree. When people jump on bandwagons based on facts derived from suspect sources, it drives me nuts. There is more than enough information available out there that if people would just do their own research they would find out the truth which (in theory) should allow them to make an informed decision.

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sadly, I think one could do 40 hours a week of research and would still end up confused by conflicting evidence from sources that seem more and more credible every year. The art of pitch and spin is getting more refined on both sides of the "debates". Someday, when we folks stop beating our respective red and blue chests, we will realize that the most important rivalry going on right now is between those of us with real mortgages and those who have so much money that the only thing they can do to keep getting more is to influence world business policies and politics.
To a certain degree, we need to trust our guts a bit more and believe in using less, working harder, and making sure our government is transparently working for us.
Does anyone else remember the Simpsons where it is revealed that BOTH candidates are actually hideous aliens (Citizen Kang).

"what about a third party candidate?"
"Go ahead, waste your vote!"
...H Ross Perot punches hat...

Austinhomebrew said:

W said it best: Catapulting propaganda

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But did he pronounce it correctly?

Al Gore invented the Internet, give him a break, would ya?

I've seen this before. Pretty interesting given his global warming stance since he lost to Bush.

FWIW, Jacksonville Jaguars coach Jack Del Rio has a similarly stunning water bill each month. IIRC his household goes through more water in a month than the average FL home goes through in a year.

When I was Working last night driving back from detroit, I saw a huge black cloud in the sky and it started to choke me. I realized it wasn't a cloud but only the smoke coming from Al Gore's Gulf stream as him and Obama flew out of my state.

Austinhomebrew said:

In the past year, I have eaten have eaten at least 1095 meals, enough to feed 36 average American people for for a month!

Do I eat 36 times the average person? No. Just to make a point that isn't there, I compared my yearly food intake (3 meals times 365 days) to a person that eats 3 meals a day for a month.

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Wouldn't 36 people eating 3 times a day for a month eat 3240 meals?

I think you meant that your yearly meal intake would feed 12 people for one month.

carry the one........

I didnt know about Bushes house. Funny how that never makes it into the mainstream

PeteOz77 said:

Wouldn't 36 people eating 3 times a day for a month eat 3240 meals?

I think you meant that your yearly meal intake would feed 12 people for one month.

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You are correct. I have fixed my post.

But still that is an insane amount of food. Just think of all of the food I eat in a year and how many people it could feed in a month.

I have to agree with Forrest here, they're making an uneven comparison to make the results seem more drastic.

Since they are comparing his yearly usage to an average home's monthly usage, let's divide that 232 by 12 to get a better comparison. It works out to 19.33. So Gore's power consumption is equal to that of roughly 19.33 average sized homes, and Gore's house is obviously not of average size. I'm not saying that he's not using a butt-load of energy or that he is not a hypocrite, but that comparison is a bit less shocking when you look at the numbers under the same time frame.

I'm willing to give Al a pass on this since he is protecting us from ManBearPig

Austinhomebrew said:

You are correct. I have fixed my post.

But still that is an insane amount of food. Just think of all of the food I eat in a year and how many people it could feed in a month.

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Mmmmm Foooooood

c.n.budz said:

I have to agree with Forrest here, they're making an uneven comparison to make the results seem more drastic.

Since they are comparing his yearly usage to an average home's monthly usage, let's divide that 232 by 12 to get a better comparison. It works out to 19.33. So Gore's power consumption is equal to that of roughly 19.33 average sized homes, and Gore's house is obviously not of average size. I'm not saying that he's not using a butt-load of energy or that he is not a hypocrite, but that comparison is a bit less shocking when you look at the numbers under the same time frame.

I'm willing to give Al a pass on this since he is protecting us from ManBearPig

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Right, and if you compared Bill Gates, Shaq and Arnold's homes wouldn't they come out to be the same. They are all on a different playing field.

bethlehembrewer said:

Right, and if you compared Bill Gates, Shaq and Arnold's homes wouldn't they come out to be the same. They are all on a different playing field.

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Right, but Bill, Shaq, and Arnold are not pointing the finger at the public preaching green. They just have an extravagant lifestyle because they can, that's all.

stever said:

It's not quite as bad the email makes it out to be.

"A few pertinent details have been left out, of course, such as the fact that one reason the Gore family's utility bills run so high is that they pay premium prices to get 100 percent of their power from Tennessee's Green Power Switch program, which draws from renewable resources such as wind, solar, and methane gas; such as the fact that the Gore family invests in "carbon offsets" to allay the environmental impact of their power usage; and such as the fact that the 10,000-square-foot mansion serves not only as their residence, but also as a workspace for both Al and Tipper Gore."

Not saying that makes everything better but I deal with these smear emails all day at my job and they almost always leave out important bits of info, take information out of context, or blatantly lie to make their point. If a piece of information is circulated by email, 99 times out of 100 it's not true.

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His bill is high because he is using a god awful amount of electricity, that many kw/h is just insane.

My house averages 21 kw/h a day. My house is average for the area, 1700sqft under air. The amount of electricity he uses in one year would sustain me for almost 28 years! My mortgage would be paid off by then. Just because you're rich doesnt excuse you from being responsible. In Gore's situation it is convienent to be green because he can afford it.

*Red State Update*

I'm disappointed in the lack of flaming vitriol in this thread so far. Come on, boys, bring your A-Game!