So that's what Al's up to ...

Interesting piece - Al Gore's latest speach with commentary, other opinions and such

The (Annotated) Gore Energy Speech - Dot Earth - Climate Change and Sustainability - New York Times Blog

Then there was Al on Meet the Press
July 20: Al Gore, political roundtable - Meet the Press, online at MSNBC- msnbc.com

Seems that Al is mixing some data points
Go renewable for electricity generation to end dependence on imported oil.

"The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels. In my search for genuinely effective answers to the climate crisis, I have held a series of “solutions summits” with engineers, scientists, and CEOs. In those discussions, one thing has become abundantly clear: when you connect the dots, it turns out that the real solutions to the climate crisis are the very same measures needed to renew our economy and escape the trap of ever-rising energy prices. Moreover, they are also the very same solutions we need to guarantee our national security without having to go to war in the Persian Gulf. "

Well, oil is only a small part of electric generation, the bulk is coal
How about 1.6%
Sources: Energy Information Administration, Form EIA-906, "Power Plant Report;" and Form EIA-920 "Combined Heat and Power Plant Report."

But he goes on:
"If you want to know the truth about gasoline prices, here it is: the exploding demand for oil, especially in places like China, is overwhelming the rate of new discoveries by so much that oil prices are almost certain to continue upward over time no matter what the oil companies promise. And politicians cannot bring gasoline prices down in the short term.

However, there actually is one extremely effective way to bring the costs of driving a car way down within a few short years. The way to bring gas prices down is to end our dependence on oil and use the renewable sources that can give us the equivalent of $1 per gallon gasoline."

How, pray tell, do renewables affect gasoline prices?
Oh yeah - Electric Cars

Except for one thing ... Batteries

From WSJournal:

For everyone excited about electrifying the morning commute, Robert C. Stempel, the former chairman and chief executive officer of General Motors Corp., has a few sobering words.

Mr. Stempel believes in the idea of electric-drive cars – he uses the term "electric drive" to encompass both all-electric systems and plug-in hybrids. He gave the greenlight to development of GM's EV1, the first electric car to be offered by a mainstream car maker since the early years of the 20th Century. After he was pushed out of GM by a boardroom coup during the auto maker's last big financial crisis in 1992, Mr. Stempel continued to devote himself to the electric car idea. He spent more than a decade as chairman of U.S. battery maker Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. before leaving the company last year.

At both GM and at Energy Conversion Devices, Mr. Stempel's efforts to make a profitable business out of electric vehicles hit numerous potholes. GM has taken flak for killing the EV1. Mr. Stempel, who was long gone when the plug was pulled, says there was no subterfuge involved.

"The business side of the case wasn't there. The EV1 was too expensive…We were way off the cost target," he says.

Mr. Stempel, now a consultant with an office in suburban Detroit, says the obstacle to mass production of electric vehicles is the same issue as it was "when Mr. Edison told Mr. Ford that in a year he'd have a battery for his car. The weak link is the battery."

Nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries have proven reliable, he says. "It doesn't do anything naughty, like burn up," he says. But NiMH batteries don't have the range to be competitive with conventional cars.

Lithium-ion battery technology, similar to that used in laptop computers, offers better range from smaller, lighter packages. But lithium-ion batteries do have a propensity to be naughty. The Tesla Roadster uses lithium-ion batteries similar to those used in laptops. Tesla's important technology idea isn't the commodity batteries. It's the systems Tesla engineers designed to assure they stay cool and under control.

Piling thousands of laptop batteries into a car creates "a control nightmare," Mr. Stempel worries.

Then there's the issue of cost.

"Look at what happened to the cost of nickel," says Mr. Stempel. "The price of nickel has gone off the charts." A lot of the commodities used in batteries have gotten expensive in the recent commodity price boom, he says.

None of this necessarily means the auto industry should once again give up on electric-drive cars. When it comes to reducing the economy's dependence on oil, the amount Americans burn up in cars isn't one issue. It is THE issue. But consumers need to take the latest flurry of press releases touting forthcoming electric-drive vehicle models with a few grains of salt.

The petroleum-fueled internal combustion engine has dominated automotive transportation for a century for a good reason: On the basis of power per dollar, it's more cost effective than the competition. Depending on how strictly one controls the emissions, Mr. Stempel says, a gasoline fueled car can be five to ten times more efficient on a dollars per horsepower basis than an electric car.

But all of this doesn't really matter, Al got his Nobel prize, and his Academy Award ...
Images matter more than facts.