We all complain about high fuel costs but here’s an opportunity to do something about it. The X Prize Foundation, which awards prizes encouraging scientific innovation has recently set theor sites on green aviation and put their money where their mouth is.
The lucky inventor who develops an environmentally sustainable jet fuel could earn themselves a cool $10 million. Of the ten large, $500,000 arrives thanks to a US Department of Transport (DOT) grant.
This isn’t the first time the X Prize gang has come up with such a reward for ingenuity as in 2004 they slapped $10m to the inventor of a reuseable craft designed for sub-orbital space flight. That winner was Scaled Composites,led by Burt Rutan by the way for those trivia buffs. Since 2004, three more annual X Prizes have been awarded for genomics, lunar exploration and (here’s the topic of the moment) the design of more efficient cars.
This year the X Prize committee wants potential entrants to turn their attention to the friendly skies by lessening our dependency on what comes from the ground. Sounds like a worthy cause to us.
