[brien]

Also from Drudge:

DRUDGE REPORT FLASH 2007®

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 to 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.

Green or no green this guy is an enegy PIG

I found this answer to Gore's explanation about his energy usage;

Cutting carbon | Free exchange | Economist.com

Some of this response seems flatly silly. The electricity usage is what Mr Gore consumes after things like solar panels and CFLs are taken into account; it's hardly comforting that he could be emitting even more carbon, since that is true of almost all of us, yet has not stopped Mr Gore from hectoring us to reduce our carbon output still further. Similarly, I find it hard to believe that Mr Gore has actually reduced his carbon output "as much as possible"—and if Mr Gore so believes, I invite him to take a train up to New York, where I will show him what a more carbon efficient lifestyle looks like. The carbon offsets, on the other hand, sound like a very reasonable plan. That is, they did until I began thinking about them. Most carbon offsets seem to work on one of a few principles: they plant trees, invest in renewable energy sources, or pay someone in a developing country to use some less-polluting technology, like a CFL. It turns out that a lot of websites have already devoted quite a lot of space to discussing why these plans don't work particularly well. Calculating one's carbon output, and the carbon savings from various offsets, is very tricky and may be manipulated by unscrupulous offset firms. Trees take quite a long time to get to the stage where they are actually absorbing all that carbon—and tend to die shortly thereafter, releasing all that carbon back into the atmosphere, there to wreak havoc. By legitimating carbon usage, offset companies may actually be increasing it. But surprisingly few make what, to me, seems like a more basic point: energy is a tradable market good. It is not as if there is some fixed demand for energy, so that by using less carbon-emitting energy, you actually decrease the amount of carbon emitted. This is, of course, ridiculous. When you donate money to build a new windfarm, you don't take any of the old, polluting power offline; you increase the supply of power, reducing the price until others are encouraged to buy more carbon-emitting power. On the margin, it may make some difference, since demand for electricity is not perfectly elastic, but nowhere near the one-for-one equivalence that carbon offsets would seem to suggest. Especially since the worst offenders, big coal-fired plants, are not the ones that renewables will substitute for; solar and wind power are not good replacements for baseload power. Instead, renewables are likely to take relatively clean (and expensive) natural gas plants offline, since those are the ones that provide "extra" power to the system. Similarly, by giving villagers in Goa energy-saving CFL bulbs, you do not lessen the amount of electricity consumed; rather, you make it possible for other people to purchase the extra energy freed up by more efficient lightbulbs. This may be excellent poverty policy, but it does not lessen the carbon footprint of your international flight. Obviously, the same is true of individual conservation efforst. Thats why any attempt to abate global warming has to be massive. Huge numbers of people in the rich world have to fly less, drive less, consume less, and live in smaller houses. If Mr Gore really wants to encourage this (as I do), then he should try leading by example.