McCain’s $300 Million Energy Stunt
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Energy, McCain
Trust me, his announcement today is pure political theatre.
Harsh? You may think, but what he’s proposing a prize for is already in the pipeline of every major auto manufacturer and numerous green tech startups. In other words, there’s NO reason to incent superior battery technology because it’s already being widely developed.
The presumed Republican nominee is proposing a $300 million government prize to whoever can develop an automobile battery that far surpasses existing technology. The bounty would equate to $1 for every man, woman and child in the country, “a small price to pay for helping to break the back of our oil dependency,” McCain said in remarks prepared for delivery Monday at Fresno State University in California.McCain said such a device should deliver power at 30 percent of current costs and have “the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars.”
Also, why is he giving away tax breaks to car companies?
In addition, a so-called Clean Car Challenge would provide U.S. automakers with a $5,000 tax credit for every zero-carbon emissions car they develop and sell.
As anyway who reads this blog is well aware, I’m all for creating incentives for innovation, but this isn’t the right way to go about it. Tax breaks should go to people who buy these cars, not to the companies who make them. That’s a defacto subsidy for something these companies should be doing anyway, and it’s much more likely to benefit them in the long run if the government can give consumers more reasons to buy these new green autos…which in turn will push the auto industry to make more of them.
More as it develops…
This entry was posted on Monday, June 23rd, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Energy, McCain. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
June 23rd, 2008 at 12:53 pm
If only we could travel back in time, have Obama make the exact same offer, and see how you’d react, Justin.
In the absence of a time machine, look within. If this had been Obama’s proposal, would you be so quick to class this as just a stunt, or would you instead work hard to see the positives in trying to spur innovation and so on and so forth. Answer honestly.
I think a case can be made for such a public prize having value beyond the one you describe as not really necessary(creating incentive). It would symbolize our national commitment, for one. It would attract a greater pool of potential innovators to include the basement lab folks, who might come up with some sort of crazy idea that someone else could develop into a working solution.
It would inspire kids still in school, and teachers in science classes could talk about the virtues of a government prize instead of the evils of greed and capitalist enterprise. :-)
It could be used as an educational vehicle to familiarize folks with the real issues we face regarding energy supply and the important issue of portability.
I’m happy to notice that it has the elements of a gimmick to it. Cheerfully granted. But we could do way worse than inspire folks with prizes for solving important problems. If there’s one improvement I’d make, I’d like to see such a program funded by having a big public telethon where folks put aside their differences and agree to support the effort to make better batteries, and we create an extra-governmental fund that is filled up with money from all kinds of folks.
I like the idea of some sort of symbolic “we’re in this together” effort. Not because it’s the idea of some particular candidate, but because that’s the sort of attitude that we really and truly need to foster. Arguably, we need a change of atittude and the identification of some common ground as much as we need the better batteries. I think if Obama had proposed this, you be all over how it’s a fresh approach and would change the environment and so on.
June 23rd, 2008 at 2:23 pm
No tax breaks for any “green” technology producer? Or just the evil car companies?
June 23rd, 2008 at 3:16 pm
I have been waiting for some “rich dude” to make an offer like this for some time. What I was envisioning was $1B to the first person who could develop a commercially viable engine system that could travel 100 miles with a “consumables” expense of $4 or less and have at least a 400 mile range.
Once we have a winner, I would take the design and license it to ANY car maker to use on any car manufactured IN THE USA. I would use the licensing fee to develop other “clean” energy systems, maybe “clean coal” technology.
At least McCain is trying to be pragmatic in this area.
June 23rd, 2008 at 7:25 pm
[...] my post today about McCain’s $5,000 a car tax break giveaway to the auto manufacturers who make and [...]
June 24th, 2008 at 8:59 am
The “X Prize” idea, good. Beats hell out of subsidizing research directly–let others gamble THEIR money chasing the pot o’ gold, and you get a lot mroe bang for the taxpayer’s buck.
The credit-to-companies rather than to the consumers? Bad. I’m not even happy with the idea of a consumer credit, but a company credit is downright stupid.
June 24th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
I agree with Tully on the X-Prize approach being a good one. Don’t assume that the major manufacturers would win, either. I’d like to see Claire McCaskill contact Peter Diamandis and have him and Obama sit down and chat about how to create a public/private partnership to do this kind of thing across the board for multiple places where we produce and consume energy.
July 10th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
[...] expensive autos in the first place, it’s going to hurt adoption rates. That’s why I called it a stunt when he proposed [...]