Batteries are included

Scripps Howard: John McCain has been a font of ideas on energy lately, some good, like ending the subsidy for corn-based ethanol, and some bad, like a summer gas tax holiday.

But this week he made an intriguing proposal. As he explained it, “a $300 million prize for the development of a battery package that has the size, capacity cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars.” And it has to deliver power at 30 percent of current costs.

This probably leaves out basement inventors in his call for “heroic efforts in engineering” but it could be an inducement to the big car companies since McCain would offer $5,000 tax credits to people who buy cars powered by the battery package.

Current leader

Japan is the current leader in cutting-edge battery technology but McCain sees no problem with letting Toyota and Honda compete since they build their cars in this country.

By McCain’s reckoning the $300 million is “one dollar, one dollar, for every man, woman and child in the U.S. — a small price to pay for helping to break the back of our oil dependency.”

Prizes contributed greatly to the development of faster aircraft able to fly ever-longer distances. The $10 million Ansari X prize for the first privately built manned spacecraft that could reach 62.5 miles above the Earth’s surface went unclaimed for eight years until aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan claimed it in 2004.

But prizes don’t always work. The $50 million reward for leading us to Osama bin Laden is still unclaimed.