[olePigeon]

Most everyone knows about the X Prize that was something like $10 million for making a civilian flight into outerspace using a reusable "shuttle." No disposable rockets or extras, and I think it had to take off like a plane and land like one.

Anyway, now it's been expanded to include objectives for prizes ranging from $5 million to $20 million:

1) Decode the DNA of 100 or more people in under 2 weeks.
2) Combustion engines that get more than 50 Mpg
3) Educational objectives (prime number equation for instant testing)
4) Computing objectives (quantum computers, etc.)

Here's an article on it as well:

http://www.livescience.com/othernews...prize_new.html

I love it. Why keep these advancement within rich corporations. Now there're a lot more opportunities for private investors and individuals.

[leehotti]

Originally Posted by olePigeon

Most everyone knows about the X Prize that was something like $10 million for making a civilian flight into outerspace using a reusable "shuttle." No disposable rockets or extras, and I think it had to take off like a plane and land like one.

Anyway, now it's been expanded to include objectives for prizes ranging from $5 million to $20 million:

1) Decode the DNA of 100 or more people in under 2 weeks.
2) Combustion engines that get more than 50 Mpg
3) Educational objectives (prime number equation for instant testing)
4) Computing objectives (quantum computers, etc.)

Here's an article on it as well:

http://www.livescience.com/othernews...prize_new.html

I love it. Why keep these advancement within rich corporations. Now there're a lot more opportunities for private investors and individuals.

Weird. I would think making a 50mpg engine would be easy... the problem is once you put them into a chassis with people and steering and suspension it weighs everything down. Maybe they mean 50mpg car? Because engines don't really travel 'miles' unless they have a transmission and all that.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by leehotti

Weird. I would think making a 50mpg engine would be easy... the problem is once you put them into a chassis with people and steering and suspension it weighs everything down. Maybe they mean 50mpg car? Because engines don't really travel 'miles' unless they have a transmission and all that.

VW already sells a 70 Mpg diesel Jetta. But not in America.

[Krypton]

Originally Posted by olePigeon

2) Combustion engines that get more than 50 Mpg

I think you were probably being sarcastic when you wrote that, but most saloon cars in Europe get that or better; VW make some inner city cars that are closer to 80 mpg.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by Krypton

I think you were probably being sarcastic when you wrote that, but most saloon cars in Europe get that or better; VW make some inner city cars that are closer to 80 mpg.

Yeah, I mentioned that.

The automotive one is stuff like more efficient (as in refueling) hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles, more cost-effective ways of producing ethonal, non-corrosive and bio-friendly batteries (non-fuel-cell), lighter, stronger building materials, etc.

We won't know until the first X Prizes come out.

[Krypton]

Sorry, your post wasn't there when I hit reply (honest!)

The car fuels issue is very interesting considering all the options currently being investigated, such as the ones you list. I remember seeing recently a programme on Hydrogen powered buses in Iceland (they have huge balloons on top, and refuel at high security refilling stations).

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by Krypton

Sorry, your post wasn't there when I hit reply (honest!)

The car fuels issue is very interesting considering all the options currently being investigated, such as the ones you list. I remember seeing recently a programme on Hydrogen powered buses in Iceland (they have huge balloons on top, and refuel at high security refilling stations).

We have Hydrogen fuel-cell buses in Sacramento and parts of the greater Santa Clara County. But they also have their own gas stations at the main terminal. That's a little different then installing hydrogen refueling stations at every ARCO and Exxon (especially when Exxon is reporting billions of dollars and record profits over any corporation in the world (even Citi! The single largest corporation!)

[Fyre4ce]

The "50 mpg" thing is ridiculous. What most people don't realize about cars and fuel efficiency is that the technology to make cars that get well over 50 mpg has existed for DECADES! There are absolutely no technical hurdles to designing a car that is light, areodynamically streamlined (low drag coefficient), has a small frontal area, small low-resistance tires, and a small efficient engine and that gets 100 mph. It's a simple matter of consumer demand - no one would buy it, so there's no financial justification for anyone to build one! Take any freshman-level economics class and you'll learn that consumers control the economy.

On the topic of engine efficiency, the major automakers have collectively poured countless millions, if not billions, of dollars into improving engine efficiency. It has reached a point where automakers have equivalency figures for the amount consumers are willing to pay for improvements in engine efficiency (dollars per percentage point). On some radical concept that has not been thoroughly explored by R&D teams from big corporations, I can see the value in an Ansari prize, but on something like engine efficiency I struggle to see the point.

But what good is improving the efficiency of the engine 0.5% if consumers want to buy 5000+ pound SUV's with large frontal areas, high drag coefficients, high rolling-resistance tires, and that do 0-60 in less than eight seconds? Want to make a really useful Ansari prize? Offer someone 10 million dollars to convince the American public to buy vehicles that are reasonably sized for their needs. That will save far far more barrels of crude oil than some incrimental improvement in engine efficiency. Heck, I'd probably even throw in a few grand of my own into that prize if someone pulled it off.