An Electric Plan

I found an article that is very interesting. Max Shulz wrote about John McCain's plan, if he is elected, to give a money reward to whoever can design new battery technology that is more advanced than we have now. But Shulz says that McCain is hurting himself for not bringing it up and making it an important part of his campaign. Shulz seems to be very knowledgeable when it comes to the subject of prizes for innovation. He brings up two prizes, although they are privately backed, that nonetheless spurred people forward to create something. One of his examples was the X-Prize that gave ten million dollars to whoever made a reusable manned spacecraft. But, as Shulz says, this has not been what is done in Washington. There, winners are picked before a competition is even started. They set goals and reward people regardless if the goals are met or not.
But McCain's plan is different in that it only rewards the first group that develops the new technology. Shulz says that it is different then something like Bush's billion-dollar hydrogen initiative or Clinton's Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles, which cost seven billion because these two things did not reward the winner only. McCain had put energy high on his agenda early in his campaign supporting offshore drilling and choosing a VP candidate from an energy rich state. His plan was to give $300 million dollars to the person or group who could develop a smaller, more powerful battery to be used in cars. McCain hurt himself by not making this an issue now.
I personally think that McCain's plan is good because it gives money to the winner only after they accomplished something. New battery technology is a must if we are going to stop buying foreign oil. The batteries would not just help pure electric cars, but they will also be used by hydrogen-powered cars to store the energy that is created. The problem I would see about talking about this plan right at this moment is because the price of a barrel of oil is around $70, so people will probably go back to SUV's instead of hybrids and tiny cars.