Feverish flu power

I have been battling the flu, it has won every fight so far but I have high hopes of winning the war. 

So far flu has resulted in not much physical activity if you discount coughing, shivering and expelling alien life forms, but being by nature a fairly active person it has also led to a bit of frustration down on the farm.

So to elevate the boredom I decided to set the feverish mind to solving world problems. 

The fight over who controls the TV remote was quickly solved, give everyone in the family their own remote and the fastest fingers win. The down side of this is you end up watching a lot of kid programs. 

The next problem was brought to my attention by delivery in the mail of the Power Bill or more to the point the POWER BILL. 

The second thought (the first is unprintable) was that because the NSW government sold off most of the power network there should be competition and therefore the costs should be decreasing. Yet my bill has increased at a remarkable rate and my usage has remained constance.  Why is this so?

Private companies have to make a profit, governments in reality only need to cover costs. However current Liberal-National and past Labour party policies has seen both government and private companies use my light switches to make a profit. 

Why could not the political overlords see the problems this would cause? Or more to the point, why was this point ignored?

At this point you can insert your favourite conspiracy theory - mine involved a chipmunk, a ferret and a grassy knoll!

I digress, the real question is how do we solve the power problem. This made me think about the main problem that is hindering the development of solar power, electric cars and delivering calfs in the dark of the night etc. The Batteries, are failing us. 

So my solution to better battery development is to set up an online trust fund with the sole purpose of providing a prize to who ever can invent a battery that is light, easy to charge and discharge, affordable, environmentally sound and covers all of the technical details that I don’t know about.

The trust could be advised by experts in this field. The important thing is that there would be no copyright on this invention so that the knowledge could be freely used and not tied up by big business.

If everyone in the developed nations just gave one dollar to the trust the prize would be in the billions. This would work and it by-passes both governments and vested interests who would like to block a better battery solution.

Having solved this problem I think I need a little nap.