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Energy XPRIZE

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Designing An Abundant Clean Energy XPRIZE Competition

Design an XPRIZE competition to pioneer breakthrough new energy technologies to rapidly provide Abundant Clean Energy globally

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stage:
Won
prize:
$50,000

This challenge is closed

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Summary

Overview

Can the way we generate energy be FUNDAMENTALLY transformed?

 

We believe the world will be much better if global clean energy generation is dramatically improved beyond current choices – and that’s why we’re developing this XPRIZE.

On a planet awash with energy, in a universe where all matter is made of immense amounts of energy (E=mc2), we find our society forced to make bad choices for most of our energy supply from a set of technologies as old as the transistor, not to mention fire. 

There are countless reasons why we need new and better sources of energy, from climate change to pollution to poverty and more.  The vast majority of mankind’s current energy use is coming from unsustainable and damaging sources.  We need something better.

An XPRIZE is a great way to inspire new solutions

Great prize competitions have worked to spawn entire new industries from ideas of inventors who entered.  XPRIZE Foundation is a global leader in designing and executing fair, well-designed incentive prize competitions.   

But what would a prize competition for abundant clean energy look like in detail?  To design a highly effective competition in detail takes a lot of thought and work and we need your input and help.

Well-designed competitions have a way of breaking new ground that seems impossible. They attract the best and brightest minds, challenging and supporting them to push all the limits.  Lots of promising ideas are on the drawing boards of inventors, small companies and scientific researchers.  They exist.  How do we draw them out and validate them so they can get the support they need to scale up and serve this huge need/market?  What better way than a well-designed, very large XPRIZE? 

 

Please help make this prize competition THE BEST it can be

We are in the process of designing this XPRIZE.  We recognize that we don’t have all the answers so we’re asking for your help.  We invite thoughtful advice from experts like you that can help us set up a prize competition to get the greatest results. 

We are looking for ideas on how to design the prize to:

1.  Attract the BEST, most transformative new clean energy technologies and inventions

2.  Optimally incentivize the most talented inventors/scientists/engineers to participate

3.  Clearly define prize competition structure and rules

4.  Set up scientific protocols to test and verify/validate entries

5.  Set up judging criteria to efficiently evaluate and sort through entries while not discouraging “adventurous” submissions

 

What’s in it for YOU?

We are putting up a $50,000 prize purse that is broken into pieces to incentivize YOU to help come up with better and better ideas on how to accomplish these objectives.

  • Start thinking of your ideas on how to best run a prize of this magnitude
  • It’s simple - The more great ideas and collaboration you share, the more points you get.  The more points you get, the more money you get - and the more you help the world.

 

Easy steps for you to get involved

Step 1.  Review the challenge Guidelines and start thinking of optimal ways to run a prize competition like this.

Step 2.  Sign up by clicking the orange “Accept Challenge” button above and share with others who may be interested by using the social media buttons.

Step 3.  Collaborate with others.  Add to the Wiki and the message board; contribute your ideas and earn points.  Discuss and expand the ideas of others and get more and more points.

Step 4.  Begin a competition design entry by clicking the orange “Accept Challenge” button above.

Step 5.  Win cash prizes for your contribution to helping the world.

 

Dive deeper if you’d like

Here is more info on what we aim to achieve and how.

 


Guidelines

Designing the Abundant Clean Energy XPRIZE Competition​

We’re having a competition to design a competition!

XPRIZE believes in the power of competition and that you get what you incentivize. To solve this grand challenge of designing an XPRIZE Competition for Abundant Clean Energy, we want to encourage and reward the creation, development, and verification of new energy technologies capable of providing clean, abundant, safe and affordable energy to all.

We are asking you to help design a competition that creates this incentive. The best competition designs will include a competition structure and guidelines that articulate exactly what is required from competitors, how competitors will be evaluated and judged, and dollar amount for the prize purse(s),

Because we are seeking revolutionary, breakthrough ideas in energy, we are also looking for ways to test and verify exactly how a demonstration of net positive energy generation by any competitor would be verified and measured. The Positive Energy Test may be an idea of your own, or adapted from academic literature, established industry standards, or other methods shared on the Wiki (see below for a description of the Abundant Clean Energy Wiki, which is an important component of this design challenge).

Competition design entries will be judged by XPRIZE by following the spirit of three key design questions. 

  (1) Is the design concept “prize-able”, i.e. has the entry demonstrated that their incentive prize competition design has the ability to create clear, effective incentives for this challenge? 

  (2) Can the proposed prize competition be successfully executed, i.e. has the entry articulated a way to practically and efficiently incentivise the creation, development, and verification of new energy technologies capable of providing Abundant Clean Energy to all? 

  (3) Will the prize credibly validate the production of net positive energy from a new source, i.e. is there a scientifically valid method for measuring competitor performance that can be used to award a prize with confidence?

The Abundant Clean Energy Wiki

To be eligible for a Competition Design Prize you must contribute to the Abundant Clean Energy Wiki. We invite you to join your peers in science, engineering, design, business, and more to compete and collaborate to create the best Abundant Clean Energy competition! 

Join an Online Community

The opportunity to join this online community is open to anyone, and many of us are aware of tantalizing avenues for energy research, but no one has time to follow more than a few of them in depth.  

A New Way to Collaborate

The Wiki effort is not a diffuse brainstorm, or a formal literature review.  Instead, our goal is a Wiki that supports a temporary community of collaborators and competitors in a way that combines the insights and knowledge of many great minds in a respectful and open-minded way. A key piece of this collaboration will be the design of new tests and methodologies that competitors in a future XPRIZE Competition can use to prove the viability, safety, and potential of any new energy technology.  

Grounding in Research and References

Designing a prize to encourage solutions to a grand challenge starts with lots of research.  We believe it is important for each competitor to have access to all of the combined research so that everyone can spend more time and energy considering the best way to design the prize.  Collecting citations, relevant references and background research is so important that this challenge has two prizes dedicated to those who contribute the most.

$10,000 Quick Start Prize

To encourage the early sharing of your research, there will be a $10,000 Quick Start Wiki Contribution Prize awarded to the competitor who contributes the most by February 28th.  To be eligible for the $10,000 Quick Start prize, click here to submit your entry before the February 28, 2017 deadline.  A Final Wiki Contribution Prize of an additional $10,000 will be awarded based on who contributes the most to the Wiki overall.  Entries for the Final Wiki Contribution Prize are submitted on this page.

Get Started

To make contributions to the Wiki,  first create a HeroX account. Then, while signed in to your HeroX account, create a Wiki account by clicking here.  Until then, you may read the Wiki but cannot contribute to it. 

 

Competition Timeline

January 12, 2017 Submission Period Begins
February 28, 2017 Deadline to submit for $10,000 QuickStart Wiki contribution prize Enter Here
April 11, 2017 Deadline to submit a Challenge Design or Wiki contribution entry
May 31, 2017 Winner Announcement

 

Prize Purses

QuickStart Wiki Contribution Prize - $10,000 - Deadline of February 28th Enter Here

Final Wiki Contribution Prize - $10,000 - Deadline of April 11th

Competition Design Prizes - 3 at $10,000 each - Deadline of April 11th

 

XPRIZE Visioneers Invitation Prize: In addition to the prize purses described here, the most creative and visionary competitors may be invited to participate in the XPRIZE Visioneers summit as presenters or mentors to Visioneers teams.

 

How do I win a Wiki prize?

Wiki prizes will be selected from submitted entries based on the number of additions made, taking into account the quality and quantity of the contributions and unique references cited. The Wiki Contribution Leaderboard tracks the number of pages edited and the number of additions made by competitors.  An expert panel will be used to evaluate the scientific relevance and veracity of entries made.

 

How do I win a Competition Design prize?

To be eligible to win a Competition Design prize, you must do two things: (1) contribute meaningfully to the research Wiki, and (2) submit a Competition Design. Your Competition Design will be evaluated according to the Scoring Criteria outlined below.

Each Competition Design will contain:

  • Title - A short, engaging name that describes the goal of the challenge.
  • Executive Pitch -  A clear, concise description of the competition. Anyone reading this Pitch should have an instant understanding of what the competition is about and a good idea of what it will take to win.
  • Prize Purse - How much money do you think is necessary to incentivize the desired breakthroughs? How will the prize purse be distributed?
  • Prize Purse Justification - Why is the submitted prize purse value the right fit for the challenge?
  • Structure - What is the basic competition structure? Does the first competitor to achieve a certain level of performance win, or does the best competitor at a certain deadline date win? Or other structure?  Will your challenge have multiple phases? Perhaps there’s an elimination phase or time and money to support implementation? Check out the CHIME National Patient ID Challenge, IGNITE, and the Autism Speaks House to Home Prize for three of the many ways to structure a challenge.
  • Recommended Duration - How long should your challenge run to allow innovators time to design, develop, refine, and test  their solutions? Maybe it’s only six months, or maybe it’s years or until a winner meets a net energy output threshold?
  • Guidelines - What needs to be done to win the challenge? The guidelines should provide clear, objective and measurable goals.
  • Verification - What is the method of verifying the positive net energy generation of competing technologies given that they may well be quite different? Is the method unique to each technology, or consistent across technologies? How can it be assured to be repeatable?
  • Supporting Information - Want to submit a schematic of a verification method, or a link to a video of yourself giving an elevator pitch of your design? Just attach them to your entry when prompted.

 

 

Comptetition Design Scoring Criteria

Wiki – 20%

Scoring will be based on the number of additions made, taking into account the quality and quantity of the contributions and unique references cited.

Novelty – 5%

Does the competition design incentivize the development and demonstration of truly breakthrough clean energy solutions?

Competition Structure – 15%

Will the structure of the competition create clear, highly effective incentives for developing new clean energy concepts and technologies?

Validation Plan – 20%

Does the articulated plan to validate technical performance appropriately balance the need for unequivocal technical rigor with the desire to fairly evaluate novel, transformational solutions?

Operability – 15%

Do the structure, validation plan, prize purse amount, and duration lend themselves to a prize competition that can be practically and highly effectively executed?

Scientific Rigor – 20%

Does the competition reflect a sound understanding of scientific and engineering principles, particularly in the case of evaluating novel phenomena?

X-Factor – 5%

Are there other notable aspects of the competition design that could drive valuable technological, environmental, social, narrative, public engagement or other benefits during a prize competition?

 

Design Competition Rules

Eligibility

The Challenge is open to all individuals age 18 or older.  Innovators may originate from any country. Submissions must be made in English. All prize-related communication will be in English.

To be eligible to compete, you must comply with all the terms of the Challenge as defined in the Challenge-Specific Agreement.

Registration and Submissions:

All competitors must be registered prior to submitting an entry. Final submissions must be received on or before April 11, 2017 at 4:59 pm EDT. No late submissions will be accepted.

Submissions must be made online via upload to the HeroX.com website. All document uploads must be in PDF format (2 MB maximum). Minimum margins are one inch. Font must be minimum 12 pt, single-spaced (text in tables and figures may be as small as 9 pt).

Any video submissions must first be uploaded to YouTube, Vimeo, or other video sharing site. Double-check that all of your links are working and that they are set to Public.

Selection of Winners and Judging:

Winners will be judged by the XPRIZE team, including professionals with expertise in energy science and engineering, and developing and operating prize competitions and Grand Challenges.

Wiki prizes will be selected from submitted entries based on the number of additions made, taking into account the quality and quantity of the contributions and unique references cited. An expert panel will be used to evaluate the scientific relevance and veracity of entries made.

Winners will be announced on May 31, 2017.

Additional Information:

  • No purchase or payment of any kind is necessary to enter or win the competition.
  • Void wherever restricted or prohibited by law.
  • By participating in the challenge, each competitor agrees to submit only their own original ideas. All applications will go through a process of due diligence. Any application found to be misrepresentative, plagiarized, or sharing an idea that is not their own will be disqualified. Ineligible or disqualified applicants will be removed from the competition with no recourse or reimbursement.
  • Any indication of "copying" amongst competitors will be grounds for disqualification.
  • HeroX reserves the right to unequivocally disqualify any entry that HeroX in its sole discretion determines has contravened the Wiki rules, or has otherwise tried to circumvent the rules to gain advantage.
  • The Sponsor will require all content and assets submitted as part of a Finalist’s Design Submission to be released under open source licenses that permit free distribution, derivative works, and use in commercial and non-commercial settings.
  • All Innovators are welcome and encouraged to depend on or make use of other components, libraries, content, assets, and code. All such materials must be available under any Open Source Initiative (OSI) or Creative Commons license compatible with the OSI or Creative Commons license under which the Submission will be released. “Compatible” means that each Innovator’s entire Submission must be usable without violating the license terms of those components licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license, Apache License 2.0, or respective OSI license for the components. Source code licensed under the LGPL, BSD, MIT, or Apache licenses currently meets this criterion; other open source licenses may also meet it. If Innovators make modifications to existing open source projects, they are strongly encouraged to submit patches upstream and work to have them accepted. Patches that are not accepted upstream may be submitted as part of the code developed by the Innovator, under the same Apache License 2.0. Content and assets must be licensed under terms that permit commercial usage. The Creative Commons CC BY and CC-BY-SA licenses currently meet this criterion. Innovators cannot submit entries that include or rely on software or content that is either closed-source, proprietary, illegally sourced, or depends on per-seat licensing.
Updates13

Challenge Updates

A Breakthrough in XPRIZE Design!

May 31, 2017, 4:42 a.m. PDT by Paul Musille

 

We are proud to announce the winners in the Designing An Abundant Clean Energy XPRIZE Competition!

 

$10,000 Competition Design Prize

Joris van der Schot, Energy Miracle.

 

$10,000 Competition Design Prize

Adam Bostock, Paths to Quick and Ultimate Clean Energy Solutions  

 

$10,000 QuickStart Wiki Contribution Prize

Joris van der Schot’s 565 Wiki Contributions by February 28, 2017

 

$10,000 Final Wiki Contribution Prize

Adam Bostock’s 1,225 Wiki Contributions by April 11, 2017

 

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the innovators who entered the challenge. This unique challenge not only pushed innovators to think about breakthrough energy solutions, but to design an XPRIZE competition that could attract the very best ideas from around the world to address this goal. This is hard stuff! And we saw the ambition, the creativity, the struggle, and the audacity reflected in the design submissions we received. We received 28 submissions, and our evaluators selected four to receive Prizes. Altogether, there were so many other insightful solutions and dedicated wiki contributors, and we are confident that many of the innovators in this challenge will do great things in the future in the pursuit of clean energy. Thank you all for helping make this challenge a success.

 

What happens next? HeroX and XPRIZE celebrate the Prize winners, but also want to ensure that the collection of ideas submitted in this competition are used to maximum benefit. HeroX and XPRIZE will make the winning designs, the Wiki, and the other design submissions available to the XPRIZE Abundant Clean Energy Visioneers team. This team has embarked on a detailed prize design and impact proposal development process that will run through October 2017. The designs, data, and momentum of this Design Challenge will be a valuable resource for that effort. Stay tuned!

 

We would also like to thank all our supporters, partners, evaluators, commenters and anyone else who in any way contributed to our challenge community. Without you, we would not have had the challenge that we did.


Last call!

April 11, 2017, 12:48 p.m. PDT by Paul Musille

The submission deadline is just over an hour away.  It's time to finalize and submit your challenge designs before the 5pm EDT deadline!


One Week Left?!

April 3, 2017, 9:20 a.m. PDT by Maureen Murtha

Consider this your friendly reminder that there are just eight short days left before the Designing An Abundant Clean Energy XPRIZE Competition submission period closes. 

Now is the time to sure up that entry and put any final touches on -- we strongly advise all participants to get their entry in before the 5pm EDT deadline on April 11th. A last-minute bottleneck of users could result in the site running slower, which leads to a lot of frustration on your part...so put your best face forward and get it in by the 10th!

Questions? Comment directly on this update or even start a thread in the forum.
 

Thousands of Internet Points* to everyone who submits early! 


Best of luck to you all! 
 

*not redeemable for cash. :)


Missed the Webinar? Watch the Recording!

March 9, 2017, 2:18 p.m. PST by Maureen Murtha

If you missed out the live webinar and Q&A session yesterday you are in luck!  We have the recording on YouTube so you can watch anytime you'd like.  

 

Two other updates: 

  • Check out the new video on the challenge homepage!
  • The wiki scoring calculation has changed slightly.  The score no longer includes edits made to "talk" pages.  This didn't have a large effect of the scores since most of the edits are made on the main content pages.  The talk pages remain a great place to discuss content and editorial suggestions!

4 Ways Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

March 8, 2017, 7 a.m. PST by Maureen Murtha

Have you thought about a forming a team to compete in this challenge? You should!

Teams can be formed directly on the challenge page by connecting in the forum.
 

Some of the advantages of forming a team include:

1. Accountability
Those deadlines are less likely to get away from you when you’re working with a group.

2. Shared workload
You know the old “divide and conquer?”  It works well for challenges! By finding a solid collaborative stride, a group of just three people can churn out a lot more than one person working alone.

3. Camaraderie
It might be hard for other people to relate to your lone wolf journey toward incentive competition conquest, but your team will be right there with you! A source of inspiration, motivation, and perhaps even fire-under-your-butt lighting, teammates can provide a huge emotional advantage. Just think - new internet friends!

4. Specialization
Maybe you’re a real visionary with an incredible concept, but are stuck on how the “nuts and bolts” fit together? Yeah, YOU need a team. Teammates who have the skills and special working knowledge can be a huge resource. And the benefits go both ways!

Rome wasn’t built in a day. Your team will take some time to come together, so be sure to get ahead of it and start recruiting, reaching out, and networking about the challenge now. The forum is a great place to start. Also, feel free to browse the entire HeroX Community by specialization by checking out https://herox.com/Heroes. You can message as many people as you like to gauge interest!
 

Good luck everyone!


Forum41

What was the most difficult aspect of the challenge and how did you solve it?


Sam Hansson
Apr 18, 2017
01:21 AM PDT
I am curious to know what you found to be the most challenging when it comes to designing the competition.

I would also like to know how you solved it.
reply
14 Replies

Joris van der Schot
May 10, 2017
09:51 AM PDT
@Sam

Thanks for relaunching some activity on this forum – the subject is certainly worth continued engagement.

For me, one of the most difficult aspects of the design has been to set the minimum performance requirements that define the space of technologies we are targeting. Yes, it’s about breakthrough abundant clean energy, but what do we mean by that ? How can we outline, in some very simple rules, what we are really looking for ? It is only fair, and efficient, to be very clear about this upfront.

I’ve decided to stick closely to the idea of “forbidden energy”. I believe this XPrize will have most impact in research areas where traditional funding doesn’t flow because of scientific controversy. That is where the XPrize can really make the difference - partly through its monetary contribution, but most of all by conferring scientific credibility based on an exceptionally thorough validation process.

So my design is tailored to the few dozens of underfunded exotic energy researchers in the field of magnet motors, zero point energy, low energy nuclear reactions and the likes, not to the many thousands of researchers in wind, wave, solar, geothermal, hydro and other classes of technologies that extract energy from the natural environment.

To capture this distinction in a simple minimum performance requirement, I have proposed to consider only “indoor technologies” : the XPrize will be awarded to the researcher who will convincingly demonstrate to the jury that she has developed a new Abundant Clean Energy technology that can work anywhere on earth, indoors*.

There are obviously also some drawbacks to this choice, which is why I’ve found it a difficult nut to crack. Specifically, there may be instances of “forbidden energy” technology that do not work indoors. From our collective work on the ACE wiki, however, it would appear that the vast majority of currently known exotic technologies do meet this requirement.

Having seen at least a few credible claims in this space, I am cautiously optimistic about being able to designate a winner, but also realise that this choice could imply that the XPrize will not be won at all, at least not for a long time. I consider that a feature, not a bug.

Other design choices will lead to rather different, but equally workable XPrize structures. Which is of course the premise for this design challenge: to get a multitude of perspectives and then synthesize into a final XPrize.

*In addition, I’ve set some other minimum performance criteria relating to prototype performance as well as Abundance, Cleanliness and Energy quality.
reply

Adam Bostock
May 12, 2017
04:40 AM PDT
@Sam Hansson
Hi Sam. It has been a challenging challenge because:

* There are a diverse range of opportunities in the energy sector (e.g. generation, storage and distribution); and

* It's difficult to quantify (score) the overall impact of the benefits and the associated (environmental) costs.

So with regard to the first point I created two general purpose energy prizes: generation; and storage/distribution. Plus specific Community Power Prizes where the minimum criteria are much more defined (these solutions can be adopted by those off-grid, decentralised, and/or currently without electricity). Two breakthrough prizes were made available to push the limits of what might be possible ($/kWh costs 1/10th those of today, and deployment of power plant at 10x the speed and/or 1/10th the cost). I expect all prizes to be won, with the possible exception of the breakthrough prizes (not impossible, but very challenging :-)

The latter point took a huge amount of my time (coming up with a fair, relevant and objective scoring system). There are methodologies for scoring in the energy sector ($/kWh) and assessing environmental impacts (air, land, sea, waste, & pollution), but none are ideal - especially when dealing with some radically innovative prototype, for which the production, operation and environmental impact details are (as yet) largely unknown. I introduced scoring for those aspects that could be scored, but also left flexibility for the Judging Panel to apply their own expert interpretations.

The set of prizes, and minimum requirements, have been carefully chosen to ensure the Energy XPRIZE is a great success, delivering technologies better than those of today, and probably creating some huge breakthroughs too!
reply

Adam Bostock
May 12, 2017
04:43 AM PDT
@Sam Hansson
What about you Sam, did you make a submission and if so what were your challenging aspects?
reply

Sam Hansson
May 17, 2017
02:04 PM PDT
@Adam Bostock @Joris

I agree it was extremely challenging to nail down and define the technologies that can contend.

I envision the competition to be in a sense a showcase portfolio for new technology. The most challenge aspect thus for me was and still is how to design the competition into a platform for (very) efficient fund raising.

Basically, how can we help these teams to raise the money they need to compete and beyond.

(I'd love some feedback)
reply

Adam Bostock
May 18, 2017
09:07 AM PDT
@Sam Hansson
Funding beyond the XPRIZE will be helped by winning a prize, and the associated publicity should help to support that too.

Funding before entering the XPRIZE could be addressed by each inventor forming a team will other interested parties and funding organisations (perhaps).
reply

Joris van der Schot
May 19, 2017
06:14 AM PDT
@Sam

Agree with @Adam that winning the X-Prize in itself will be a great springboard to follow-up investment, provided the technical validation process has been rock-solid. I’d expect this investment not only to go to the winner, but also into basic R&D that seeks to better understand the working principle behind the winning prototype assuming it is outside of our current understanding of physics. It would be a major contribution of this XPrize if it unleashed, for example, renewed public funding into LENR as a result of a convincing device winning the competition.

Using the XPrize brand for broad fundraising for a range of technologies at an earlier stage might be problematic in the space of not-yet-accepted-science. By its very nature, a prize rewards the result, not the effort, and each innovator will make their own judgment of whether the potential reward stacks up to their cost. So I’m not sure whether XPrize should seek to become a platform as you’re envisioning… but perhaps you are thinking along different lines ?
reply

T R
May 19, 2017
06:37 PM PDT
The most difficult part of "free energy" is getting people to a place mentally and emotionally where they can even imagine and accept the possibility of a universe so abundant and infinite that the possibility energy needs can be fulfilled limitlessly by energy tech so advanced the energy comes clean and costs nothing.

For too long we've been programmed and deceived into a scarcity mentality. "Outer Space" has been defined as nothingness, empty, void and a vacuum, when in reality what lies between the planets and the sun in every Galaxy is infinite energy, magnetic and electrical interconnection our science world for all practical engineering purposes pretends isn't even there.

The solution is simple, and it was for me to start imagining a new energy revolution is possible. Nothing becomes a reality if it cannot first be imagined. If I cannot believe a better energy paradigm can exist and instead get angry and call it all conspiracy theory and quackery science, then I certainly won't be the one to make a change into a reality. It all starts with what we can personally allow into our imagination.

We all choose whether we want to live in a world of scarcity where we must fight, elbow, coerce and steal to not be the one left without a seat when the music stops, or whether we live in a infinite universe with limitless energy we just need to learn to tap into better...

I know what I chose, what about you?
reply

Sam Hansson
May 19, 2017
07:18 PM PDT
@Joris

Yes. I imagine that if a team actually takes home a prize it is probable their technology at that point should already be valued higher than the actual prize money.

I imagine a web platform / portal for the competition where you can among other things read about the competing technologies as well the competing team. This platform will provide great visibility which makes it a great portfolio for fundraising.

Some teams might prefer to use the platform as their showcase for venture capitalists who provide funding and incubation etc, while other companies who prefers to work more openly can use the platform for donations, crowd-funding and sponsorship.

As for donations, the more credible and charismatic teams should be able to acquire a lot of free equipment, software and services. After all, today it is very important to be seen to be green.

As for governmental funding I'm not expecting any directly, but indirectly if the teams work with universities and students some of the costs for the competing teams can be covered.

I am also very interested in the possibility of commercial revenue by partnership with the film industry, for example PBS Nova or Walt Disney. Xprize is know to earlier have partnered with an animation study so I propose that a reality show and/or a documentary is produced around the competition where a team travels around the world to meet the teams and teach about the various technologies.
Imagine a documentary in ten episodes about Cold Fusion, Sonoluminescence, Zero Point Energy etc - that's highly entertaining Science Fiction! While learning about the ideas behind the theory the audience will be educated about the need for clean energy and it's benefit. Xprize / HeroX provides the hook-up and everyone involved benefits from the pr and/or revenue.

Additional sources of revenue can be considered. For example, additional points (point system) can be rewarded from the public. People could use for example an sms service to vote and we could charge 20 cent for every vote. 1 Million votes would equal 200 000 dollars, money that could be donated to alternative energy research or making an 3rd world village energy self-sufficient.

My design suggestions are different from Adam's in the sense that I don't feel confident that the prizes actually will be paid out. I hope they will but my design aim for EPD (Epic Planetary Domination). I want to see quantum leap in technology that annihilates everything out there today.
reply

Joris van der Schot
May 22, 2017
01:42 AM PDT
@Todd

I appreciate you bringing in some passion into the debate. It reminds me of former astronaut professor Wubbo Ockels, in one of his last public speeches before losing his battle against cancer, where he held a passionate plea for sustainability and suggested that perhaps man would need something akin to religion to truly change, since reason alone has only limited power to change our behavior.

From a philosophical perspective I’m not sure that I subscribe to the dichotomy as you present it, but for the purpose of this XPrize I guess the engineer in me chooses to believe in convincing prototypes. I sincerely hope the competition will yield at least one working example of breakthrough new energy technology tapping into hitherto unexploited sources of energy. Such an experiment could then inform new theories as to where the energy is actually coming from, which might be from interplanetary energy fields as you seem to be suggesting, or from a completely different source such as the atom’s nucleus.

Of course we are all well aware that we are already tapping into the free and virtually limitless electromagnetic energy field of our local environment in the form of sunlight. And engineers all over the planet are working hard to capture ever larger portions of it for use in our modern society. But it turns out this field has a limited and fluctuating power density, requiring massive technical installations to capture it in significant quantities. There might be other energy fields to be tapped, but it remains to be seen whether any of those provide a higher density that would allow cheaper and more powerful clean energy systems…
reply

Adam Bostock
May 22, 2017
08:08 AM PDT
@Sam Hansson
There's some great ideas there Sam. I particularly like the idea of making a documentary and raising awareness globally. Great idea!
reply

Sam Hansson
May 22, 2017
04:56 PM PDT
@Adam Bostock
Thanks Adam, that means a lot coming from you.

The Xprize foundation teamed up with Walt Disney for Tommorowland and Big Hero 6. While I'm not sure to what extend they were collaborating it seems both movies are hihgly influenced by xprize innovative and futuristic mindset.

Big Hero 6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrpa3g8gHCw

Tomorrowland
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sH0__SpV88

The costs of making a PBS NOVA style quality production also has come down a lot, for example this presentation of Quantum Gravity Research's theories. What is Reality:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0ztlIAYTCU&t=1170s

Another example of highly visual and animated smaller scale movie productions is THRIVE: What On earth will it take. This full length movie was financed by Foster Gamble, a philanthropist connected to Todd Ridolph's New Energy Movement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEV5AFFcZ-s&t=5s

Due to the length of the projects and costs of making visuals and animations there are also other concepts of interests.

The Mythbusters could make a NetFlix specials serie on the Abundant Energy Competition contenders.

Of course, there is also a wealth of young and influential bloggers on Youtube with huge following that can produce informative and entertaining videos for next to nothing.

So, lots of possibilities...
The exotic energy community is not that big and influential in itself, and certainly not entertaining, so unless they are provided help with outreach the competition might not become very popular at all. The competition itself though, abundant energy, is one that have potential to be both popular, informative and highly entertaining. There's also great potential to get huge amounts of free pr due to it's controversial nature.

When the xprize arranged a contest for cleaning up oil spills the outcome of the competition was phenomenal, a huge success, but such a concept is no where near as promising for outreach as if working with the eccentric scientists in the field of alternative energy.
reply

T R
May 22, 2017
06:31 PM PDT
@Sam Hansson
Just an fyi, mythbusters really hasn't been a friend to New Energy, as they put out a soft hit piece on running a car on water. They reduced the concept to running a car on hydrogen but left rabbit hole covered, not discussing the greater issue with any depth whatsoever and debunking the claims of being able to run on water only as debunked and impossible.

Mythbusters long ago could of and imo should of done more with the genres within free energy, but they haven't.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QrcGqWcGsds

But, Hollywood is sooooo locked down and controlled, I would look instead to things like Thrive as you have mentioned and Unacknowledged, Steven Greers new movie and book which is doing very well from what I hear.

At least Greer and Gamble open the rabbit hole up wide and have an imagination...

http://youtu.be/M03yPfvLVKQ
reply

Adam Bostock
May 23, 2017
03:43 AM PDT
@Sam Hansson
I suggested in my submission that the XPRIZE could have PR activities at the start and end. This could allow some of your ideas to happen...
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Sam Hansson
May 24, 2017
05:49 AM PDT
@Adam Bostock @Everyone

Does anyone know how the Xprize foundation typically go about pr and outreach for their competitions?
reply

T R
Jun 01, 2017
06:24 AM PDT
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