X Prize offers $1.4 million for Gulf of Mexico oil-removal solution
by Steven Mostyn - Jul 30 2010, 11:53
Do you have the solution to BP's problem? Image: NASA/Flickr.
With BP having lost $32 billion USD during its efforts to end the current catastrophic oil disaster, the non-profit X Prize Foundation has revealed an ambitious $1.4 million USD challenge seeking fresh solutions to help assist clean up efforts throughout the savaged Gulf of Mexico.
Officially announced during a press conference in Washington D.C., the ‘Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X Challenge’ is looking to hook the attentions of “entrepreneurs, engineers, and scientists” able to develop “innovative, rapidly deployable, and highly efficient methods of capturing crude oil from the ocean surface.”
The latest X Prize competition, which is the foundation’s sixth major incentive-based contest, was named after Wendy Schmidt, president of the Schmidt Family Foundation responsible for providing the $1.4 million USD prize fund.
Wendy Schmidt is also the wife of Erich Schmidt, chairman and CEO of online search giant Google Inc.
Submissions for the competition can be entered until April of 2011, after which time a panel of judges will invite 10 teams to demonstrate exactly how their ideas work in removing oil from the ocean’s surface.
The short-listed demonstrations will take place at the National Oil Spill Research Energy Test Facility, which is located in New Jersey.
“The fact of the matter is there are thousands of deep sea [oil] platforms. There are hundreds of thousands of miles of old pipelines, and billions of barrels of tankers,” said Peter Diamandis, founder and CEO of the X Prize Foundation.
“There are going to be more spills,” he added. “Until we transition to solar or other alternative energy, we have to use the best technology to watch guard and clean up when these disasters hit, because [this] is not the last one.”
A first prize of $1 million USD will be awarded to the team able to recover oil “at the highest rate and with the highest efficiency,” while second and third-placed teams will receive $300,000 USD and $100,000 USD respectively.
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