Two weeks ago, Al Gore gave a speech at a packed DAR Convention Hall in Washington, D.C. in which he “challenged America” to run “on 100 percent zero-carbon electricity in 10 years.” He called this transition to carbon-free electricity “achievable, affordable and transformative.”

It is also delusional.

Gore and his entourage arrived at the event in a convoy of gasoline-gobbling black limousines. Chauffeurs let the engines of these politically incorrect vehicles idle and their air conditioning systems blow full blast while the Nobel Prize-winning former presidential candidate delivered his global warming jeremiad inside.

The DAR building has no bike racks and no bicyclists were seen arriving at the event. The nearest Metro subway station is about a half-mile walk. Some of the audience of global warming faithful used public transportation but most had to depend for their arrival upon the iniquitous, greenhouse-gas-spewing, internal-combustion engine.

What they heard from Gore was no more “achievable” than the prospect of getting around Washington, D.C. via bicycle or rickshaw. Seventy percent of America’s electrical generating plants are powered by coal and natural gas. Gore thinks he can shut down these plants over a 10-year period and replace them with wind, solar and biomass facilities. But, according to the Energy Information Administration, these renewable energy sources today account for only about 2.3 percent of our electrical power needs. The EIA projects that, at best, renewables may fulfill four percent of our kilowatt hours by 2018. Gore does not explain how he will make up the other 96 percent.

Gore would shut down perfectly functional coal and natural gas powered plants, even those just built or retrofitted with the best available technology for reducing or eliminating pollution. Who needs terrorists to blow up expensive and vital public infrastructure when we have Gore to destroy them?

With all of these electrical plants mothballed or leveled, Gore cannot explain what electric utilities we will rely on when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining. Wind and solar are intermittent power sources and almost always must be constructed in tandem with fixed, reliable power sources, which include hydro, nuclear and yes, fossil fuel based facilities.

Gore promises that his fancied transformation will be “affordable.” But most wind power is produced in locations far from transmission lines and at night, when electrical loads are lowest. Transmission lines cost an average of a million and a half dollars a mile to develop. Even some of the most enthusiastic proponents of wind power admit the costs of switching to wind would be enormous. For example, T. Boone Pickens, who advocates running America’s vehicles on natural gas and switching our natural gas powered generating plants to wind and solar, estimates that it would require $1 trillion to build wind facilities between Texas and North Dakota and another $200 billion to develop the power lines necessary to transmit this wind energy to cities and towns. And this power would only service 20 percent of America’s needs.

Gore’s rhetoric is so overblown and his promises are so outlandish that one can only speculate as to whether this law school washout and divinity school dropout actually believes what he is saying or is just anticipating applause lines. But he is making millions of dollars in the process.