When politicians really want to show us their ignorance, they pretend to be entrepreneurs. That's certainly what John McCain has done now. A $300 million prize for a "battery package" (whatever that is) that reduces the costs of an automobile by thirty percent sounds great, but really it's no more than cowardly posturing.
Think about it. Can you seriously imagine that there aren't companies out there working overtime on new battery technologies? Of course there are. Boston-Power to name but one. They're working on it because the real prize is worth a lot more than McCain's $300 million.
But even if McCain's did inspire some breakthrough -- would that do the trick? No, what you'd need is a car company to adopt it. It's not the technology, stupid -- that's the (relatively) easy part. The hard part is everything that comes next: persuading car manufacturers to use the invention, to pay a fair price for it, not to monopolize it, to enable the inventor(s) to make enough profit that the technology continues to develop. Oh, and then there's the really hard part: building a car that uses this new battery that consumers actually like.
The track record of US car companies is lamentable on all these fronts. They've virtually forgotten how to make cars Americans love and trust. They're notorious for their vendor relationships. And they don't play nice with one another. It's why the industry as a whole looks like a relic from the gilded age -- because that's what it is.
McCain's clearly no better an historian than he is an industrialist. Citing the Longitude Prize as his inspiration, he clearly forgot that it took fifty-nine years before the Longitude Board awarded their prize to John Harrison. And that was after the Board had become a byword for favoritism and corruption. Romantics may remember the story as the triumph of the little guy against the odds; others remember it as a story in which the establishment did everything it could to squash new thinking and protect old friends. Is that really what McCain's after -- cash for cronies?
Nor does McCain come out of this latest brainstorm as a great engineer. Note: he says nothing about the ecological consequences of the technology he wishes to inspire. He speaks merely of cost, wanting us all to be able to maintain our lifestyle -- just pay less. It's a cowardly sop, dodging the truly hard truths around energy consumption and climate change: We are all going to have to change our habits and we are all going to have to pay the price. And $300 million dollars won't be anywhere near enough to buy our way out.
The easiest way to make that technology affordable is to find a way to use it to make toys.
Case in point: the government supported the solid-state electronics industry in the 1960s because they needed lightweight equipment to keep the Soviets from embarrassing us in the space race - their rockets were much more powerful than ours.
Solid-state electronics became cheap when the video game explosion encouraged chip producers to ramp up mass production. That's why we have $300 PCs today.
The government will support battery technology when the Pentagon can use it to kill or the NSA can use it to eavesdrop. It will become cheap when it powers frivoloties.
Besides, just what top priority national security mission will be accomplished at a particular destination that couldn't be accomplished by the average driver half an hour later? Is that extra 15 minutes worth forcing everyone to pay an extra $10-20/gallon at the pump for?
What kind of a person makes that kind of choice. Much hay was made when Bush senior revealed how out of touch he was with the common man by displaying his amazed fascination about price scanners used at supermarkets. But even he knows how to use a computer. My 83 year old mother uses a computer. 5-year-olds use computers. The "one laptop per child" attaches so much value to the access to knowledge that their goal is to get laptops into the hands of every child in a developing country. But the great war hero John McCain hasn't bothered to turn on a computer. Doesn't use the Internet. Doesn't bank on line. Doesn't word process. Doesn't use digital cameras. Doesn't use an ipod. He operates in a technological vacuum.
And he is supposed to be the guy that will be the leader of the new technology, which will allow us to address the critical issues facing our nation.
the A123 nanophosphate batteries and other latest generation lithium Ion batteries have virtually Perfect characteristics:
2000 Watts/lb about 3 HP per lb.
Typical Lithium ion high capacity, several times NiMH.
virtually no self discharge, 2 years to 10% charge.
10,000 cycles. 200k miles for an electric car.
Non-toxic and recyclable.
Free from thermal runaway problems of 1st gen LiOIN.
low cost.
In production for over a year and market proven.
http://www.a123systems.com/#/home/phev
A123 has raised 250M$
http://www.a123systems.com/#/company/
The Big car companies are all committing to large purchases of these new generation batteries from various companies.
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/print/5490
A123 5WH cells are just 10$ RETAIL.
assume 5$/5WH cell wholesale. A 30Mile per charge, 10KWH battery cost 5k$. lasts 10 years life or more puts out 800HP peak.
Are PHEVs and EVs potentially game changing technologies that can help the environment, our national security, our economy and our society? Yes.
Is the best way to spur the development of PHEVs and EVs a $300 million prize for a better battery? No, although it would be nice if it were that simple.
If he wanted to show his bonafides on energy independence, McCain should have crossed the aisle and voted with Dems to remove the tax subsidies to big oil, and at the same time switch those subsidies to developing alternative energy industries. The Dem measure passed the House, but failed to pass in the Senate. If John McCain's one vote had been cast with the Dems, that would have been enough to pass the bill and turn it into law (assuming Bush didn't veto it).
The point of supply-side stimulus of emerging industries is to subsidize them before the market creates the imminent incentive for private investment so that the technologies they develop are available when the market demands them. The market is already clamoring for a viable PHEV or E-REV, so it's too late for the government to talk about creating incentives.
Actually, flywheel hybrid technology might be better and far cheaper than batteries, for now, but sadly it has not gotten the amount of attention that it deserves.
On the other hand, this near-religious preoccupation with the "Free Market" as provider of all solutions, if we but clear the obstacles is a fixation among the Right and gets in the way of real concerted efforts. The "prize for a solution" is empty posturing, seeing as no one *needs* a prize to undertake such an effort -- the natural Business rewards for doing so would more than compensate.
This has less to do with solving the battery situation than it does fluffing the "Free Market as Means to All Ends" myth.
This is just one more McCain proposal, like the gas tax holiday, that is both unmoored from any principle and aimed at voters who can't think beyond one simple concept. Do these proposals reflect contempt for voters, misunderstanding of voters, or McCain's own simple mindedness?
Ever wonder why we only make big cars? Ever wonder about the aggressive marketing of SUV's even as our car makers struggled to stay in business? Look at who owns the oil companies, and who owns the car companies, and you see the same names. Then look at how small the car companies are as an investment compared to the oil companies...
Makes sense now, doesn't it
Corinthians 13:11 - "When I was a child I spoke as a child I understood as a child I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put away childish things."
It's time for American society to grow up and give up their sick fascination with 8-cylinder internal combustion muscle cars.
Clearly republicans have know how and upper hand in such synchronization. Just look at how they all toot the same talking points within minutes of their release.