Gore Calls for Electricity Overhaul

WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Al Gore called yesterday for a "man on the moon" effort to switch all of the nation's electricity production to wind, solar, and other carbon-free sources within 10 years, a goal that he said would solve global warming as well as economic and natural security crises caused by dependence on fossil fuels.

"The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels," Mr. Gore told a packed auditorium in Washington's historic Constitution Hall. "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."

Mr. Gore compared the challenge to establishing Social Security and the Interstate highway system, as well as landing a man on the moon — all successes that took more than a single presidency to accomplish and required members of both political parties to overcome their partisanship.

The Alliance for Climate Protection, a bipartisan group Mr. Gore leads, put the 30-year cost of his plan — both government and private — at $1.5 trillion to $3 trillion.

To speed up the transition to new energy sources, Mr. Gore said the single most important policy change would be to "tax what we burn, not what we earn," advocating a tax on carbon dioxide pollution.

Gore's proposal would represent a significant shift in where America gets its power. In 2005, coal supplied slightly more than half the nation's 3.7 billion kilowatt hours of electricity. Nuclear power accounted for 21%, natural gas 15%, and renewable sources, including wind and solar, about 8.6%.

Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize for sounding the alarm about climate change and his documentary on the issue, "An Inconvenient Truth," won an Oscar. In his speech, he did not address what to do about coal, which is responsible for more than a third of America's carbon dioxide pollution, the most prevalent of the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.