McCain Proposes $300 Million Prize to Developer of “Super Battery”
On his campaign swing through the west, Sen. John McCain proposes awarding $300 million to the first developer of a battery technology that exceeds all known technology today. The package would have to be superior to any technology known today, to power plug-in hybrids or electric cars.
McCain is also focusing on alternative fuels, suggesting a $5,000 tax credit for every person who buys a zero-emission vehicle. He says that should level “the playing field for all alcohol fuels that break the monopoly of gasoline”.
It seems like McCain is jumping from one side of the fence to the other in his campagin. Last week he sided with President Bush, calling for resumption of off shore drilling, now he’s beating the drum for alternative fuels.
And let’s not forget McCain’s call for 45 more nuclear reactors by 2030.
I’m confused. Could he be appealing to those who hear only what they want to hear? That might cover both bases and get a few more votes.
Meantime, Senator Barak Obama opposes the idea of offshore drilling, saying it won’t answer the immediate problem facing motorists around the world. He blames, in part, the speculation of energy traders for the upswing in oil prices.
Source Material: ABC
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He’s not jumping the fence between renewable and non-renewable. That’s not the lens he’s looking through. His lenses are energy security as a national security issue, and price relief as a voter economic issue; in this sense, those are nearly the same.
Right now, no one can credibly claim to know what will do the most good for those issues, and in what time frames. The responsible thing for a wealthy nation to do is to try as many of them are reasonably possible, which includes both development of alternate fuels and development of domestic stocks of old school fuels.
I think this might be a political ploy. I’ve heard people suggest that he changed his stance on drilling to get the people who do want to drill to vote for him, also he does not ever say how long it will take to get that oil. Before I knew that it would take 10 or 20 years for us to start using the oil we find off our coasts, I thought that this would be good to keep oil prices from rising too much before we can find our alternative energy sources. And this article I read called The Oil “Melt-Up” and Why the U.S. Economy Won’t Run On Windmills Alone… explains why we need oil until then. And if we don’t find those alternative energy sources within 20 years then I am positive its not because we can’t, its because we were bogged down by bureaucratic factors. We just need to get out of own way. I understand there are many views and opinions for what’s right in alternative energies but I don’t see why we can’t have a think tank with the leading experts on the topic and decide what the best plan is. We did it in World War II, what’s stopping us now? Check out that article it really gives you a good perspective of our current energy situation and what the reality is now. Its easy to say we need to change but the real question is how.
I am surprised at what a reasonable energy policy he is building one proposal at a time. He is not jumping from one side to the other but charting a sensible center path. If this path is taken we can expect in ten years to be driving in highly efficient pluggable hybrids that are powered with domestically produced gas and electricity from clean power plants. How is that a bad thing?
If such a competition is officially established and if the participation conditions are clear, I will be ready to apply for it as a representative of a consortium of several scientific and university institutions working on similar matter at present.
I wonder what the standard will be for a battery that wins? It seems like the market incentives are already doing quite a good job of driving innovation. Check out an article on the Bright Future blog about companies both in Toronto and Texas that have developed highly efficient models.
Maybe he’s loosing his memory. Isn’t he like a 100 years old or something?
Cars, no matter how effecient, are a problem, not a solution.
This battery technology and oil drilling is such a pipe dream.
And plus, the current technology is good enough, even though cars aren’t the answer, America could have been the world leader in PHEVs… but capitalism happened.
The sensible thing is to attack all sources at once. It will not take 10-20 years to get offshore oil, more like 7 years and since it will take more than 25 years to flush all the gas vehicles from the roads, we’ll be needing oil for some time to come.
While new technologies will come along, they will be initially expensive which will limit their market penetration for years. Even hybrids burn gas, after all.
I think McCain is doing the right thing. A better battery will make electric cars much more affordable but will also require more electric generation for charging as time goes by. While I’d view Nuclear as a last resort green technology, it may indeed be needed if we move from oil to battery/hydrogen energy. (Hydrogen from natural gas is not all that green, but from electrolyzed water is very green).
The ZEBRA battery is already here. Even the Sodium sulphur battery is already in production. Lithium Ion batteries are arriving for cars. There will be no major advances over these batteries. There is always the need for concentrated energy, so there will always be the need for the compromise car, the Plug in Hybrid. Nature evolved the production of fats for energy storage and we get much of our oil from plants that produced fats millions of years ago in the oceans. Nature also produced carbohydrates and most of the coal comes from plants that grew in bogs. We do not have to await the perfect solution or the perfect battery. Small engines with medium sized batteries will give the car transportation we now need in a more economical way. Methanol from coal is a good starting point for dealing with our liquid fuel problems. It can be changed to DME for diesel engines and gasoline for a quite a few existing cars. Perhaps Butanol can be made from it for a long lived high density fuel.
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