McCain calls for $300 million prize for better car battery

(CNN) -- Sen. John McCain on Monday called for a $300 million prize to whoever can develop a battery that will "leapfrog" the abilities of current hybrid and electric cars.

Citing high oil prices, the Republican presidential candidate said he wants his offer to "deliver a power source at 30 percent of the current costs."

"[The prize would amount to] $1 for every man, woman and child in the U.S. -- a small price to pay for helping to break the back of our oil dependency," McCain said during a town hall-style meeting at California's Fresno State University.

McCain said the new automobile battery should have "the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars."

McCain calls for $300 million prize for better car battery - CNN.com

I think it's a step in the right direction but I remember reading an article several months ago that said plug-ins backfired in a city in CA.Apparently..several yuppies in this upscale city went to plug-ins and their electricity bill doubled and trippled.They never realized any real "savings" but they did contribute to our being less reliant on ME oil.

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"Destiny must be shaped and not left to mere chance."..Spencer Collins

If it's done by the PRIVATE SECTOR I'd be all for it...

But governmental interference?...

Whoever does this will be an instant billionaire anyway...

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"You get the respect that you give" - cnredd

See? His aids must be reading Political Wrinkles! Something similar was suggested just the other day by a certain witty beautiful ...

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Consumption is indeed important in a free economy: particularly the freedom of consumers to buy their goods in unhampered markets. However, key to long-term economic growth is investment (savings), which is the opposite of consumption. Public policies that promote consumption — such as low interest rates — do so at the expense of savings. Less savings means less investments; an economy that does not save or invest will consume all of its resources and eventually end up bankrupt.-David Saied

A better battery will very little impact on reducing our dependence on foriegn oil. Those batteries still have to be charged and that means we'll end up buying less oil for gas and more for electrical power. There will be some gain, but very little. Of course, if the eco-nuts would stop lieing about GW, we could use clean coal and tell the Arabs to stuff thier oil wells where the sun don't shine (at least they'd be pre-lubed). Then, we'd have a real solution.

What makes you think coal is a viable alternative? If it is why wouldn't the administration as well as economists and scientists be pushing it instead of saying "There's no alternative."

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Consumption is indeed important in a free economy: particularly the freedom of consumers to buy their goods in unhampered markets. However, key to long-term economic growth is investment (savings), which is the opposite of consumption. Public policies that promote consumption — such as low interest rates — do so at the expense of savings. Less savings means less investments; an economy that does not save or invest will consume all of its resources and eventually end up bankrupt.-David Saied

Currently only about 2% of the electricity produced in the US comes from burning oil. McCain also has proposed 100 new nuclear plants. We can produce electricty to our heart's desire... Indeed, clean coal is a great alternative as we transition to nuclear. Once we have enough nuclear, we can then stop mining our environment (for coal) entirely.

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You know I posted a plan a couple of weeks ago. And it included a cash prize for innovations. And the right jumped my ass. Ha ha I have the last laugh.

Because the GW alarmists ahve made coal an unviable alternative. Our coal reserves hold enough energy to power this country for a loooong time. We are the world leader in coal reserves, but not in coal production/usage (China's got that locked down). But the GW alarmists and lieing eco-nuts have demonized coal to where no one will touch the idea of expanding it's use. The bottom line is that if we went whole hog on using coal, we'd be telling the Arabs what we'll pay for oil instead of the other way around. Putting our coal reserves to full use would put us in a position of complete dominance in the world energy picture. With coal, we fuel the production of our electricity with our own energy reserves instead of foreign sources. That leaves the petro industry with basically gasoline and diesel as products.

...if he doesn't get killed first.

Nuclear is far too expensive. The only way it's ever been fiscally viable is by massive gov't subsidies. A lot of the nuclear power supporters like to cook the books on the energy cost for nuclear by ignoring the long term costs of a nuclear power plant and the massive back-end cost of building one. They like to talk about the low cost by only looking at the uranium mining/refining and production costs, but ignore the fact that w/o the gov't pouring money into the building and long term support costs, there's no way nuclear could be a fiscally viable source of power. Take a plant like Trojan in NW Oregon, it's completely shutdown, yet it will require a continual support staff for decades. Here's an article from 1993 when Trojan was being decomissioned:
Trojan Pay attention to the annual cost of a mothballed plant and the number of employees. This cost has gone up substantially (inflation) and the number of employees has remained pretty stable. It will be a continual drain on our tax dollars, since PGE cannot afford to keep support on it. The feds helped PGE build it and they (WE) will continue to help PGE support it.