Calling All Crazy Green Ideas

Have you heard of the Ansari X Prize? That was a contest that gave $10 million to the first team to go to space twice in two weeks. Burt Rutan won that prize and now Richard Branson will introduce that technology as Virgin Galactic to give tourists a ride into space.

Now the X Prize Foundation is focusing on energy and they are looking far and wide for ideas. In fact, they have launched a $25,000 prize on YouTube to call for prize concepts. Check out the prize contest on YouTube.

Easy to win! Just enter a 2 minute video with an idea for what would be a good X Prize for Energy. Get some friends together and make a video -- all crazy ideas welcome!

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Comments

[JuniorNorman]

Hey how about legalizing HEMP? You get 8 times more bio-diesel than soybeans or canola! You get 6 times more fiber than cotton. You could sell the seeds for animal feed. Extract the bio-diesel. Sell the fiber thats left over.
HEMP IS NO-TILL FARMING!

[TimberGhost]

Right with you there, bro.

[KillTheMessenger]

You only get more of anything out of it after smoking it. Looked at with a clear head the numbers are far less favorable.

Psst... you get infinitely more oil from hemp than from grass. That's an even higher number you can advertise!

[billofgoods]

almost all green ideas are crazy

[DarthVector]

Geez - with all this negativity about, i'm a shoo-in to win....

;^)

[fumes]

crazy idea #2: shut down crazy idea #1. just how much co2, heat energy and water vapor does it take to go sight seeing in outer space? at least take the electric rocket! what, there's no such thing? crazy idea #3: electric rockets! how hard can that be?

[KillTheMessenger]

Electric rockets? Well, we got them, but ion propulsion is technically harder than we thought, even though the last generation of engines work pretty reliably now.

See e.g. the Dawn mission to Ceres and Vesta:

http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/

If this is successful, it will be one of the coolest space missions, ever.

Of course, these things don't get you into orbit. They just give an ever so gentle push once you are in space.

And I wholeheartedly agree on the space tourism thing. That's just a higher form of waste for those who got everything else already.

[fumes]

say kill, tell me again about that invisible water vapor, where it comes from and how it's the cause of global warming.

[cylindar]

They are not getting my good ideas for a measly $25,000. Nice try but no cigar to X prize. I can license out my ideas for a lot more than that.

[KillTheMessenger]

The Ansari X price is far from green. The environmental cost of these space joy rides will be staggering (not because of the rockets but because of the conventional flights people will take to get to the launch sites).

A $25,000 price for an environmental contribution? Are they kidding? Once they offer $10 million for a green technology price I will probably be able to take them seriously.