As fuel price rises continue to hit American families in the pocket, Republican candidate John McCain has challenged US car manufacturers to develop zero-emission engines, with the lure of a $300m federal prize and tax credits as part of his presidential campaign theme of alternative energy.
“We will meet the goal of a swift conversion of American vehicles away from oil,” said the Arizona senator, calling 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.”
“Batteries are a natural, clean source of electricity,” said Senator McCain. “And you don’t have to put petrol in batteries. I’m asking the US automobile industry to come up with ways of planting ordinary 1.5 volt batteries and harvesting them when they reach a power output of 150 kilowatts. This is a difficult task, but we Americans are experts in making the most improbable things happen. After all, President Bush got re-elected - no other country in the world could have done that.”
Democratic rival Barack Obama derided Mr McCain’s plans, pointing out that the Senator had previously voted against tighter fuel efficiency standards and tax credits for green energy.
“What we need is more support for farmers making ethanol fuel out of good old all-American corn,” said the Senator from the corn-growing state of Illinois. “But we must put a stop to the evil of Brazilian ethanol made from sugar cane, which is the sole cause of rising food prices and starvation in the poor countries of the world.”
Suggestions from the rest of the world that Americans could try getting out of their oversized, gas-guzzling vehicles and walking somewhere once in a while were met with ridicule, the wrath of God and threats of nuclear strikes.
But Senator McCain said he was confident that US ingenuity would rise to the challenge - like the American philosophers working to develop a special stone that will cancel the $9.5 trillion national debt by turning the Federal Lead Reserve into gold.
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