McCain: $300 Million Government Prize for Better Battery

further underscores mccain's lack of basic economic understanding... you need big govt stuff like this for space travel and atom bombs because they are not commercially viable

revenue from a battery like this would make 300 mil a drop in a bucket and this prize will not inspire more people to look into this problem

 

A company in Austin has already done this.....but they have not gone public with it yet.

From what I understand it is a completely new way to store and release energy very quickly and it should replace the battery all together.

DD

 

I thought that was debunked.

 

Hmmmm...not that I am aware of......

There was an article in the Technology section of the Austin American Statesman about the company and it's patents.....

The company had raised a lot of money and not said anything to the public but the patents that had been filed indicated this is what they were doing.

DD

 

Interesting.....I hope it comes around as soon as possible.

 

I'm certain even McCain understands that, but this is all about politics. He wants to show that despite supporting offshore drilling and additional nuclear power plants, he's also in favor of developing alternative energy sources and improving automobile technology.

 

Bolder technologies has had these things for years. TMF batteries, they powered the world record holding electric dragsters and sold their products in portable car starters .

A few years ago they were very cheap and considering they are lead based they should still be so.... but they stopped selling them as far as I can tell.
http://www.boldertmf.com/

I've been trying to buy some of those things for a remote control car for a long time.

-DaDakota, I read the article, but I guess I just don't believe they could get the costs down. If they could, why wouldn't someone like Fisker, Tata, etc pick up the product?
For the record , I think flywheels have a future in the auto industry, but the microturbine is more of a stretch.

 

There's a sizable cash award for winning a Nobel Prize. It's a nice perk, but I'm sure the participants would be trying to excel regardless. The energy prize just undercuts some of the development costs -- and provides added motivation.

 

I largely agree. the prize idea is a gimmick.

Anyone know if McCain has largely been supportive in his votes for the oil companies and Bush-Cheney energy policies?

Edit: Answered partly my own question. McCain opposes incentives for solar and other renewable energy.

"That bill is H.R. 6049 — “The Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008,” which extends for another eight years the investment tax credit for installing solar energy and extends for one year the production tax credit for producing wind power and for three years the credits for geothermal, wave energy and other renewables.

These critical tax credits for renewables are set to expire at the end of this fiscal year and, if they do, it will mean thousands of jobs lost and billions of dollars of investments not made. “Already clean energy projects in the U.S. are being put on hold,” said Rhone Resch, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association.

People forget, wind and solar power are here, they work, they can go on your roof tomorrow. What they need now is a big U.S. market where lots of manufacturers have an incentive to install solar panels and wind turbines — because the more they do, the more these technologies would move down the learning curve, become cheaper and be able to compete directly with coal, oil and nuclear, without subsidies.

That seems to be exactly what the Republican Party is trying to block, since the Senate Republicans — sorry to say, with the help of John McCain — have now managed to defeat the renewal of these tax credits six different times."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/o...em&ex=1214366400&en=1d288dfdedd325e6&ei=5087