Should Branson's (Virgin Earth Challenge) $25M prize be awarded to a no-cost battery for electric cars/trucks?

Question

Richard Branson, the Virgin Airlines billionaire, with Al Gore (An Inconvenient Truth) are offering a money prize for someone who can show how to remove 1 billion tons of carbon from the planet's 7 billion ton annual discharge. This is called the Virgin Earth Challenge contest or the Branson prize for climate change to help end global warming.

Should the Virgin Earth Challenge judges award the Branson millions to the people who came up with three battery breakthroughs, and made an electric pickup truck work only on dead (scrapped) batteries, which reduce pollution at the same time?

The BBC documentary "The Truth About Global Warming" said that approx. 1/2 (around 50%) of a typical family's carbon output came from the typical families two automobiles.

Here's a link to the revived battery breakthrough in newspapers and TV:
http://tv-news-revived-batteries.blogspot.com/
http://revived-electric-car.blogspot.com/

So, pretend that you're be the Virgin Airlines Earth Challenge judge.

Reply to the first answerer: Those batteries you rebuilt apparently aren't the same as the ones that are used in a long-string battery pack, as used in an EV. (Seems that EV batteries are almost 3X the price of a std. car battery.) Also, if you read more, you'll see that there are two other battery breakthroughs that make the revived pack work in a long-string battery environment of an EV. That's the big deal. Thanks for your Answer/question.

To the Apeweek's Answer: Did you surf the EV Diary pages? The text has a comment on Lithium batteries, like the Apeweek mentioned: Lithium comes from only a few countries, which would make it easy for a war, or even a corporation, to bottle up (hoard the key raw material.) The other battery type, NiMH (nickle metal hydride) patent is owned by an oil company, as was shown in the movie, "Who Killed The Electric Car."

Is this good enough, Mr. Judge Apeweek of Virgin Earth Challenger?

A few rich movie stars might be able to afford the $80,000+ lithium-powered electric vehicles. However, a lithium battery pack might last only two years, and the replacement cost for a lithium pack is $40,000 or thereabouts. This might explain why Tom Hanks is the only purchaser, thus far, for the lithium-powered eBox EV.

Furthermore, the raw material for lithium batteries comes from only a few countries. A small war, or a bulk purchase (to hoard) from a giant corporation, could put an end to the supply of lithium batteries. And what would EV owners have? Another sad story, while the planet burns.

Answer 1

Your achievement is noteworthy, but you are ultimately still running on lead-acid technology. I would personally vote for a more modern technology, like the new Altairnano batteries in the Phoenix EV.

http://phoenixmotorcars.com/models/fleet.html

Answer 2

You can try to make cars that pollute less, But until people travel less of use mass transportation more you will never reduce pollution .

All you do is change where the pollution comes from.
Power plants. All of those batteries will need to be recharged.

And who thinks that you could make a battery powered plane? How many batteries would it need to fly across the ocean?

Answer 3

The greenhouse gases are, in accordance to government paid scientists right here, the conventional source for international warming. pronounced international warming is supposedly melting the polar icecaps. This has been attributed to human beings using SUV's, using coal for electric powered, and scaling down the rain forests of the planet. for the reason that scientists are actually asserting that Mars is experiencing polar meltdown additionally, shouldn't the Martians supply up their Yukon's, dependence on coal and logging ventures? Why is it that we are actually not even allowed to debate the opportunity of image voltaic flares right here? Why is it that basically one point of view is authorized to dominate those discussions? could desire to that is that Yahoo has an schedule right here or some thing? i understand that Yahoo will probably sanction me for talking out and not believing their mantra right here.

Answer 4

I used to rebuild batteries as a part time job when I was in college in the 70's. What's the big deal ??