"I sat at a meeting with the UCI last year and drew on the blackboard exactly how this might work," Boardman told the Telegraph. "I showed them some of the sophisticated boosting technology now available, mainly from F1 teams, that can get a kilowatt out of a single AAA battery."
Erm ... no, big guy, I really don't think so! 1200mAh maybe? Unless you're installing regenerative breaking too ...
1.2Ah x 1.5v=1.8Wh ... it might help if you and your bike weigh about 1.5kg.
Lets relate this to the real world. If I put 6 shiny, freshly charged Ni-Cad batteries into my son's remote control car, he'll get about 40 minutes entertainment out of it before it dies a death - and that's not constant use either.
Utterly, utterly implausible.
I did check the date when the story first broke, but I can't see why it's getting any credence at all.