The
X Prize Foundation announced yesterday that it will give away
millions of dollars in prize money to participants who can submit
their best ideas on how to clean up the BP
oil spill.
The
competition is called the Oil Cleanup X Challenge, and aims to
encourage scientists, entrepreneurs and engineers to come forward and
design creative
ways to clean the oil from the ocean's surface, which was
left by the BP's oil spill that started April 20.
The
X Prize Foundation is a nonprofit group known for awarding prize
money to those who make great advancements in the benefit of mankind
in areas such as life science, energy and environment, global
development and exploration (space and oceans).
In
the past, the X Prize Foundation has ran competitions such as the $30
million Google Lunar X Prize, the $10 million Progressive
Insurance Automotive X Prize, the $10 million Archon X Prize for
Genomics and a $10 million Ansari X Prize, which was awarded to Burt
Rutan. Rutan was able to fly the SpaceShipOne private space vehicle,
which was a flight backed by Paul Allen, a Microsoft co-founder.
The
X Prize Foundation has not
yet released specific details to the contest yet, such as
the prize money amount, entry details, and actual goals of the prize.
But the foundation plans to share these details at a press conference
in Washington D.C. on Thursday.
Officials
from the Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanographic and
Atmospheric Administration, Congress, the White House and various
environmental groups will be at the press conference.
The
press conference will also have many big names in attendance such as
Peter Diamandis, X Prize Foundation founder and chairman; Dave Gallo,
from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; Phillipe Cousteau Jr.,
grandson of undersea explorer Jacques Cousteau and CEO of Earth Echo
International and Azure Worldwide; and Wendy Schmidt, president of
The Schmidt Family Foundation.
Some reports
have criticized that the competition may take too long to
find an answer for the BP oil spill cleanup, but the X Prize
Foundation works in a way that is time sensitive. For breakthroughs
that can be completed in one to two years, typically a $1 million
prize is given. But for "large-scale competitions" that
could take as long as three to eight years, the prize increases to
around $10 million or more. Depending on what kinds of solutions are
submitted will determine time frames.
