The McCain Prize: $300 Mil for an electric car

[CaptainChewbacca]

Link

McCain plan: $300 million prize for better car battery

(CNN) -- Sen. John McCain is expected Monday to call for a $300 million prize for innovation that would help the U.S. decrease its reliance on oil, a day after his rival for the presidency called for greater oversight for energy traders.

Oil and energy are expected to be on the agenda as McCain campaigns in California and Sen. Barack Obama speaks in New Mexico on Monday.

McCain, during a town hall-style meeting at Fresno State University, is expected to propose a $300 million prize for whoever can develop an automobile battery that "has the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars."

The Arizona Republican will say such a battery "should deliver a power source at 30 percent of the current costs," according to prepared remarks released ahead of the event.

"In the quest for alternatives to oil, our government has thrown around enough money subsidizing special interests and excusing failure," the prepared remarks read. "From now on, we will encourage heroic efforts in engineering, and we will reward the greatest success."

McCain also is calling for a "Clean Car Challenge" for U.S. automakers, hoping to spur them to develop and sell vehicles with no carbon emissions. The challenge would allow $5,000 tax credits to buyers of of such cars, making such vehicles more appealing to consumers and thus easier to sell.

McCain's appearance at Fresno State is expected to start at 10 a.m. PT.

Obama on Sunday, blaming skyrocketing gasoline prices in part on speculation, proposed fully closing what he called a loophole that exempts most over-the-counter energy trades from regulation.

His campaign said many economists believe speculation could be adding between $20 and $50 to the price of a barrel of oil. The price per barrel closed near $135 on Friday.

He said current law prevents the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from fully overseeing the oil futures market and investigating cases in which excessive speculation may be increasing oil prices.

His campaign noted that the so-called loophole would be partially closed by a provision in a farm bill that was passed this year. But he said his plan would fully close it by requiring that U.S. energy futures are traded on regulated exchanges.

"My plan fully closes the ... loophole and restores common-sense regulation as part of my broader plan to ease the burden for struggling families today while investing in a better future," Obama said in a statement Sunday.

The Illinois Democrat on Monday is scheduled to speak with working women at the Flying Star Cafe in New Mexico.

Meanwhile, monthly campaign finance reports filed this month show the candidates are nearly level in the amount of money they have available to spend before their parties' conventions.

According to a report filed with the Federal Election Commission, Obama had $43.1 million in the bank at the start of June. However, $9.8 million of that is designated for the general election, meaning only the remaining $33.3 million may be spent prior to the conventions.

McCain, according to his report filed with the FEC, began June with about $31.4 million available to spend before the conventions.

McCain had only $123,000 set aside for the general election. However, since indicating he will accept public financing for the general election, he has returned nearly all of the money he has raised for it.

Obama said last week he would not accept public financing. Republicans and outside analysts have said Obama found he could raise more money than public financing would allow him to spend.

The Democrats' convention is scheduled for August 25-28 in Denver, Colorado. The Republicans' convention to set for September 1-4 in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota.

I don't know if this is the best idea ever, or one of the worst. It'll certainly get things moving, thoguh.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I'd love to have an EV-1 right now. I'd go up to McCain's residence and request $300m there and then.

Also, I love how energy security keeps cropping up, Aside from its impossibility right now, they had the chance four fucking decades ago and never did anything. Fuck, if people aren't so stupid at times. Carter had a clue, but Reagan got in and pretty much came out with the brilliant plan of relying ever more on theocratic hellholes for sustaining society.

The opening to The Kingdom sums it up.

[Thanatos]

I'd love to have an EV-1 right now. I'd go up to McCain's residence and request $300m there and then.

You wouldn't get it (besides the fact that you didn't develop it) because the prize is for surpassing current tech:

McCain, during a town hall-style meeting at Fresno State University, is expected to propose a $300 million prize for whoever can develop an automobile battery that "has the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars."

I personally want a more efficient truck based vehicle since I actually use the "utility" in SUV.

[Admiral Valdemar]

We never bothered using what we had ten years ago. The same shrill cries are heard again for tech that is practically ancient. Sure, we can get better power cells using lithium now and possibly super capacitors or super flywheels, but for 90% of commuters, they need only an EV-1 and subsidised at that. In Europe, the thing would be ideal.

Even with EVs, the American public needs to learn that a commute to work doesn't involve travelling half a state away daily.

[Plekhanov]

Seems like a headline grabbing waste of $300m to me, it's not as if there aren't already abundant financial incentives for people to develop better batteries.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Indeed. If you look at McCain's past few months of speech making, he's promised the Earth and then some. I know politicos are notorious for being lying shitbags, but this guy is really quite desperate. He's like David Cameron; just give him a problem and he'll fix it like bloody Batman.

[Rogue 9]

Aren't the X Prizes already doing something similar? I mean, their prize isn't as big, but damn.

[Rogue 9]

Ghetto edit: Not electric; just getting 100 miles per gallon energy equivalent in a commercially viable model will do. And the prize is $10 million.

[Plekhanov]

Aside from the other prizes owning the patent on a battery that's cheaper, smaller, more powerful... than what's available at the moment would earn you a fortune.

[Patrick Degan]

Fuck, if people aren't so stupid at times. Carter had a clue, but Reagan got in and pretty much came out with the brilliant plan of relying ever more on theocratic hellholes for sustaining society.

Yes. The Right Wing tend to regard energy efficiency as communist or something. Reagan's first act in office was to have the solar converter ripped off the White House roof, then to slash by 90% and more the budgets for alternative energy research. Lost a whole decade and a half on the fight right there.

[SirNitram]

I see we've moved from gimmick tax cuts to gimmick BIG CASH PRIZES!!!! for the GOP.

[MKSheppard]

Lost a whole decade and a half on the fight right there.

No we didn't. Alternative energy is a pipedream which will never pan out; but idiots keep chasing it.

Bring on the mighty god of atomic fission -- I want RBMK-2000s in every state.

[Darth Wong]

That depends on how you define "alternative energy". If it means "anything but our current idiotic system of giving every family two 3500 lb gas-guzzling cars and encouraging them to drive thirty thousand miles every year", there are plenty of ideas which could work.

[Ender]

Yes. The Right Wing tend to regard energy efficiency as communist or something. Reagan's first act in office was to have the solar converter ripped off the White House roof, then to slash by 90% and more the budgets for alternative energy research. Lost a whole decade and a half on the fight right there.

Wait, seriously? Got a link to source that?

No we didn't. Alternative energy is a pipedream which will never pan out; but idiots keep chasing it.

Bring on the mighty god of atomic fission -- I want RBMK-2000s in every state.

While I revere the might of the atom even more then you do, the simple fact is that with energy in any kind of long term scenario (long term being 100 years+) it is go solar of give up.

[Battlehymn Republic]

I guess this is how it works:

Democratic science: Massive state investment/involvement- Manhattan Project, Apollo, etc.

Republican science: Providing incentive for private individuals to step forward. Kind of like a science fair, as Wonkette is calling it.

[MKSheppard]

the simple fact is that with energy in any kind of long term scenario (long term being 100 years+) it is go solar of give up.

Bullshit -- we have more than enough uranium and plutonium to last us for quite a long while, even more if we do reprocessing of spent fuel.

[MKSheppard]

That depends on how you define "alternative energy".

Alternative energy here means Solar, Wind, etc, stupid "renewable" energy sources, which do jack and crap, when you get down to the brass tacks.

If it means "anything but our current idiotic system of giving every family two 3500 lb gas-guzzling cars and encouraging them to drive thirty thousand miles every year", there are plenty of ideas which could work.

Or we could build 3,500 lb hybrid vehicles, which have a fuel tank of gas for long distance travelling, and battery banks which can last about 40-80 miles, which can be recharged each night from the power outlet via ATOMIC FISSION.

[Ender]

the simple fact is that with energy in any kind of long term scenario (long term being 100 years+) it is go solar of give up.

Bullshit -- we have more than enough uranium and plutonium to last us for quite a long while, even more if we do reprocessing of spent fuel.

50-70 years my the estimates I've seen. That is well short of the long term scenario I specified.

[Patrick Degan]

Yes. The Right Wing tend to regard energy efficiency as communist or something. Reagan's first act in office was to have the solar converter ripped off the White House roof, then to slash by 90% and more the budgets for alternative energy research. Lost a whole decade and a half on the fight right there.

Wait, seriously? Got a link to source that?

The late Carl Sagan comments on this in his last book, Billions And Billions. The stupidity was breathtaking, to say the least:

In the administration of U.S. President Jimmy Carter, a solar-thermal converter was installed in the roof of the White House. Water would circulate and on sunny days in Washington, D.C., be heated by sunchine and make some contribution —perhaps 20 percent— to White House power needs, including, I suppose, presidential showers. The more energy supplied directly by the sun, the less energy that had to be ddrawn from the local electric power grid, and so the less coal and oil that needed to be spent to generate electricity for the electric power grid around the Potomoc River. It didn't provide most of the energy needed, it didn't work much on cloudy days, but it was a hopeful sign of what was (and is) needed.

One of the first acts of the presidency of Ronald Reagan was to rip the solar-thermal converter off the White House roof. It was somehow ideologically-offensive. Of course, it cost something to renovate the White House roof, and it costs something to buy the additional electricity needed every day. But those responsible evidently concluded that the cost was worth the benefit. What benefit? To whom?

At the same time, Federal support for alternatives to fossil fuels and nuclear power was steeply cut, by around 90 percent. Government subsidies (including huge tax breaks) for the fossil fuel and nclear industries remained high through the Reagan-Bush years. The Persian Gulf War of 1991 can be included, I think, in that list of subsidies. While some technical progress in alternative energy sources was made during that time —little thanks to the U.S. government— essentially we lost 12 years. Because of how fast greenhouse gases are building up in the atmosphere, we did not have 12 years to waste.

—Billions And Billions, pp 153-155

And even as it is, the Reagan administration steadily cut back on nuclear subsidies, from around US$2bn (in constant 1999 dollars) in 1981 to a low US$750ml in 1988.



By contrast, Big Oil have for 90 years enjoyed the benefit of the Oil Depletion Allowance in addition to other tax breaks and subsidies to levels that dwarf any Federal investment in the domestic nuclear energy industry.

The 90-year-old oil depletion allowance will cost taxpayers $4.7 billion from 2006 to 2010, according to the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. When the allowance was initially enacted, the oil industry arguably needed assistance to compete and expand in a chaotic energy market dominated by coal. But today it is hard to argue that this subsidy is necessary to ensure the success of the oil industry.

Oil and gas receive more than half of all federal energy subsidies, according to Earth Track, a group that specializes in identifying subsidies in the energy market, while renewables other than ethanol receive only 7.5 percent. Ethanol, which enjoys the backing of agricultural giant Archer Daniels Midland (and comes from politically important Midwest states), currently receives 7.6 percent of total energy subsidies.

While there is general agreement on the rough allocation of federal energy subsidies, the absolute estimates of subsidy levels vary. Estimates of the value of federal subsidies to the domestic oil industry range from $31.6 billion in public dollars for 2005-2009 to an amazing $39 billion annually. There are several reasons for this discrepancy. First, accounting methods vary as to how to value subsidies. Second, while environmental and consumer groups tend to calculate the direct cost to taxpayers, Earth Track notes that “many subsidies have a higher value to recipients than their direct cost to the government.” Finally and most significantly, the higher estimate, which comes from Earth Track, includes a portion of defense spending.

Earth Track’s Doug Koplow argues that a significant rationale for the major U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf is to protect oil supplies, a non-controversial assertion. That there are other reasons for the U.S. presence in the Gulf does not mean that some portion of the cost of U.S. operations in the region should not be considered an oil subsidy. U.S. governmental research agencies, including the Government Accountability Office and the Congressional Research Service, have reached similar conclusions. The difficult challenges are to decide what share of U.S. military expenses are Middle East expenses, and what portion of military expenditures in the region should be considered an oil subsidy. Koplow also estimates a share of military expenses for protecting U.S. oil assets in Alaska, and the costs of maintaining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a vast stockpile of oil, held in case of a supply disruption. Koplow settles on an overall estimate of $19 billion for these three prongs of oil security. This figure does not include any costs associated with the Iraq war.

Exactly which companies benefit from the governmental giveaways? The short answer, says Tyson Slocum, energy campaign director at Public Citizen, is “the bigger the oil company, the bigger the piece of the pie they’re going to get. Big companies are getting the lion’s share.”

No we didn't. Alternative energy is a pipedream which will never pan out; but idiots keep chasing it.

Bring on the mighty god of atomic fission -- I want RBMK-2000s in every state.

Any energy plan must be drafted to exploit all sources of non-fossil power —solar, geothermal, hydro, biomass, as well as nuclear. We will agree that nuclear power is the longterm answer for industrial society, and I want to see another 100 nuclear reactors with on-site fuel reprocessing capacity. But anything which can add another watt of power for less cost than the dying option of fossil fuel should be fully utilised. Especially as it's going to take a few years to get those new reactors online.

[SirNitram]

Patrick's links and excerpts are a reminder of how the Reagan Republicans function: Declare government doesn't work, and to prove yourself right, do everything you can to make it fail.

[K. A. Pital]

I think Patrick's graph sums it up pretty well, non-oil energy investments were fucked during the Reagan era. Including nuclear.