The bill is fine. But towards the end of the story there is the "add-ons" typical of bills introduced in this day. I think these add-ons are called "pork". This "pork" appears to give a tax credit to a vehicle who would not normally earn it under the current set of rules. When are we going to give our presidents line-item veto power? OK enough politics.

But perhaps this bill will help us get the Chevy Volt sooner, and cheaper!

For once I agree with you Andrey. Its not as though republicans such as the President boost certain technologes such as those to do with ethanol is it? In fact at least this more directly adresses energy rather than corn farmers.

A move in the right direction with a few caveats:

1) Funds should be directed toward development of electrical "storage systems." So that supercaps get some much needed attention.

2) Why should these funds be used to develop military hardware? They have $460 Billion annually to play with. This small but necessary support should go to free market innovators - not the usual behemoths.

Kirk makes a point - funds should include orders for shipping products to power government fleet vehicles. It is important that funding recognize battery technology available right now - to limit the perception that more "R&D" is necessary before BE technology is accepted.

I'm just happy to see a little more money head towards energy storage instead of hydrogen or food-to-fuel. I agree whole heartedly with gr about the ultracap funding. I'd love to see more money get to the LEES program at MIT.

I want this money going to A123, Tesla, ZAP for God sakes...anyone that can be held accountable. The thought of it being lost in some BS R&D or research paper that doesn't produce anything makes me sick.

Why not give it to 2-3 companies that actually have a viable product??? I keep thinking about the $160 billion in Iraq War funds = couple million EVs on the road today.

There doesn't appear to be anything in this bill to jump-start domestic manufacturing of the batteries. Here in the USA we're already doing a lot of research on future batteries -- for the Japanese and Chinese to manufacture. Is that really smart?

Also. . . As long as we are throwing around hundreds of millions, could the Congress spare a couple of million for Dr. Robert Bussard to repeat his "Polywell" IEC fusion reactor experiment? There's something that could change the whole energy landscape if it works.

Folks:

The Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF). We need elected officials with some stones and who will be uncompromising when it comes to our energy independence. We need to break our addiction and the sad truth is that we have the technology today to break the addiction. I suggest using a collection of different methods to address our enduring and emerging energy needs. Specifically, we need to:

1. Provide significant incentives, in the way of tax relief or release, to companies that can produce alternatives. (Results equals Rewards)

2. Increase research funding by 500% in the areas of energy collection & storage (batteries) and energy production (Algae/Ethanol/Clean Burning Coal/Hydrogen perhaps) using non-traditional methods. Again, results driven funding. No results...no funding. And no pork.

3. Remove all energy subsidies and divert funding to wind and solar exploitation and migrate to on/off grid.

4. 35 more nuclear power plants along w/upgrading transmission lines.

5. In transition from Middle-Eastern, Nigerian, Russian, and Venezuelan oil, facilitate oil exploration and exploitation domestically. Yes, this means ANWAR, East Coast, West Coast exploration.

6. Make hybrid vehicles a 1/1 dollar tax write-off with minimum standard of 50/50 MPG. Spend 25K on a hybrid and get a 25K tax write-off. Yes, this means removing caps on incentives for non-American auto makers. Currently, Toyota and Honda buyers are penalized for buying non-American. No protection for the big three...It's time to sink or swim.

7. Demand an increase in CAFE by 5% annually. It's time for the Auto Industry to stop the "Death by Delay" when it comes to making energy efficient vehicles.

8. Set an aggressive timetable….5 years to energy independence…ala Manhattan…..

Disturbing is that we currently fund the very countries that actively pursue and pray for our demise. A reduction or elimination on our reliance of foreign oil will crush the very regimes that are hostile to Americans and our way of life. We don’t have to kill all of our enemies…we just have to drive them to their knees…financially.

Thoughts?
Nick
[email protected]

Do you remember all that battery development money that the big three (so called Battery Consortium) received to develop a feasible EV battery? All up in smoke! and nothing of value was ever developed. Turned out to be nothing but another large subsidy for Big Auto.

Anytime a Washington politician gets involved in R and D of this magnitude, a deal has been made before hand; yes! even Biden; isn't he also trying to raise money for a presidential campaign! Think about it! I just hope some of it produces something that goes into production.

To me, it just points out how completely inadequate private sector funding is for needed technologies. I have seen Venture Capitalists fall all over one another to fund the 20th company doing the same thing, while great ideas headed no where due to lack of funding. It is time we looked at getting funding to good ideas rather than have them go by the wayside.

Various thoughts: The Tesla people sneer at the USABC that wasted a decade and produced press releases. Their web site used have some pretty rude things to say about the federal money wasted.

I then looked into the US Advanced Battery Consortium. My conclusion was that some pretty good work was done on how concept cars but very little got done on better batteries. With the big automakers spending the money I wonder how that could have happened.

That may be unfair or mistaken. But it was how I interpreted the program.

Second topic: The government should subsidize desired products at the consumption point. Instead of hundreds of fundings to research and develop poe-in-the-sky why not have bigger rebates or tax credits for what works?

And what does work? Well, Toyota sells a lot of hybrids, it is not a niche market anymore. Half a dozen other makers are or soon will be selling them. Yet the government subsidy is fairly small and applies to a limited number of vehicles per maker.

In other words they discourage the best hybrid makers.

Why not remove that limit per maker and help the best hybrids sell better. That will encourage those making less desirable hybrids to improve them.

And in each years begin to increase the subsidy for lithium-ion based hybrids and decrease it for others.

Ethanol. I'm not a big fan. Nor am I totally opposed. Right now we are throwing money at producers and researchers. Why not exempt ethanol content from taxes at the pump instead. Then guarantee that for ten years. Thus E15 would be 15% exempt and E85 85%.

Solar: It is subsidized at the consumption point. And it keeps growing despite high costs. Twenty percent a year or so. It is still very small. Does that give anyone a clue?

I have come to the conclusion that virtually no one in Congress wants to do anything that does not directly route funds to their contributors pockets or at least to their district.

This bill looks like the samo-samo garbage to me. But my loathing for Biden is such that I expect it of him.

Keep in mind, folks, that government will spend our money anyway. With awful waste and minimal efficiency. For battery research (for gods sake not to the fat cats!) these money will be spent with much more bang that for anything else.

Politicians ought to focus on formulating market externalities (taxes, regulations etc.) that reflect the outcomes the electorate desires, such as reduced dependence on OPEC oil and/or reduced CO2 footprint.

Beyond that, please let the engineers in private industry figure out how to achieve these goals at the lowest possible cost. It is very much suboptimal for any politician of any persuasion in any country to pick any specific technology, because it skews the market against other avenues of development. These may be equally or indeed, even more promising.

Concrete example: German R&D consulting firm FEV uses a
map
charting the efficiency improvements of various technology options against the associated manufacturing premium. In that graph, FEV includes lines indicating Euros/% of improvement.

According to their calculations, it would be possible to achieve a 40% improvement in engine efficiency in the NEDC using a combination of GDI, turbocharging, a variable compression ratio mechanism plus a microhybrid system (cp. new BMW 1 series). They reckon the cost premium for all that would be around ~EUR 1000, which translates to ~25 EUR/%.

By contrast, even a mild hybrid system costs ~EUR 1500 and yields ~22% improvement at best. This translates to ~68 EUR/%. Similar improvements could be achieved using just turbocharging plus roller bearings, at ~15 EUR/%.

Even if FEV's cost estimates are imperfect, it should be obvious that advanced battery hybrids do not necessarily yield the biggest bang for buck - from an engineering perspective.

Politicians don't care about any of that because the general public has been brainwashed into endorsing anything and everything that looks in any, way, shape or form "green". Cost is rarely if ever a consideration for pols, all that counts is positive name recognition. Consumers have heard about hybrids, they give them the thumbs up, so just let's latch onto that. Also, don't be surprised to see some hefty kickbacks in the form of campaign contributions going from battery manufacturers to Sen. Biden if his bill passes. Your tax dollars at work.