I found this on Grist. Spread it.
Isn't it strange that all these people want Gore to have a small house like they have but at the same time they are not willing to pay as much as Gore does for green energy?
Now that is hypocrisy.
It's nice to see the conservative media taking the message of conservation and energy efficiency seriously. Hopefully they will hold their own leaders and readers to the same high standards.
The Tennessee Tax Dept. does not consider the "Tennessee Center for Policy Research," which roughly no one had heard of before this, a legitimate group. It's run by a long-time right-wing attack hack, and its only registered address is a P.O. box. Why is everyone in the media taking what it says about Gore's electricity use at face value?
Gore's electricity company has no record of being contacted about his bills.
The "average" home electricity use quoted by TCPR is a national average that includes apartments and mobile homes. In Gore's climatic zone, the East South Central (Dept. of Energy PDF), the average is much higher, thanks to hot, humid summers and cold winters. Within that zone, Gore's usage is three (not 20) times average, and his per-square-foot usage is squarely average. (More here.)
The Gores are not an average family. He's an ex-VP with special security arrangements, and has live-in security staff. He and his wife both work on their many business and charitable undertakings out of their house, so they have space for offices and office staff. All that would be tough to cram in an average size house.
Gore buys the maximum allowable green electricity from the program offered by his utility.
Most of the electricity in TN comes from hydro and nuclear, and so doesn't generate all that much CO2 anyway.
http://gristmill.grist.org/...
More here (hell this scandal is really stupid, indeed)
The press release claimed that Al Gore's home in Nashville consumed 221,000 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity last year compared to a national average of 10,656 kWh per household. I have no idea whether the number cited for Gore's house is correct, but let's assume it is. The 10,656 number comes from data published by the Department of Energy. But it's an average of all households nationwide (including apartment units and mobile homes) and across all climate regions. As it turns out, the region in which Gore lives--the East South Central--has the highest per household energy usage of any climate region in the country, a good 50% higher than the national average quoted in the press release (I assume this is due to the combination of cold winters and hot, muggy summers). So that's misleading in and of itself.
Moreover, Gore lives in a large home (10,000 sq. ft.). If you look at the data, it's clear that Gore's energy usage per square foot (even assuming the 221,000 kWh number is accurate) is well within the average range for his climate region.
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The Department of Energy lists the average nationwide energy consumption per household as 10,656 kwh and the average consumption per square foot as 13.7 kwh. But for the East South Central region (Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, and Mississippi), the average is 15,447 kwh per household and 19.83 kwh per square foot. As you state in your post, Gore’s consumption is 19.43 kwh per square foot, which is less than the average.
http://www.anonymousliberal.com/...
The number cited for Gore's house is NOT correct. Therefore Gore's consumption per square foot is even lower. I wonder where the wingnut think tank got the data from. Probably their ass.
The Gores used about 191,000 kilowatt hours in 2006, according to bills reviewed by The Associated Press. The typical Nashville household uses about 15,600 kilowatt-hours per year.
The group said that Gore used nearly 221,000 kilowatt hours last year and that his average monthly electric bill was $1,359. Johnson said his group got its figures from Nashville Electric Service.
But company spokeswoman Laurie Parker said the utility never got a request from the policy center and never gave it any information.
http://hosted.ap.org/...