Topic: The H Prize

[Dracho]

 March 24, 2006 | 1:15 a.m. ET
A vote for hydrogen power: A House subcommittee chairman says he will introduce legislation next week to create a multimillion-dollar series of prizes to promote the transition to a hydrogen fuel economy, dubbed the "H-Prize" program.

The idea is inspired by the $10 million Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight, an incentive that sparked the construction of the history-making SpaceShipOne rocket plane and jump-started the private spaceflight industry. The H-Prizes could be far richer, said U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis, the South Carolina Republican who chairs the House Science Committee's research subcommittee.

"I envision a grand prize perhaps as much as $100 million, reflecting the transformational value of changing our energy dependence and the political world balance by providing a clean, abundant source of energy," Inglis said in a statement Thursday.

Inglis proposes three categories of competition:

Up to four prizes would be awarded for the best technology advancements in hydrogen production, storage, distribution and utilization.
A prize would be awarded for the best working prototype in a category using hydrogen technology.
The grand prize would be reserved for "transformational technologies that meet or exceed far-reaching objective criteria in hydrogen production and distribution to the consumer."
The idea is to move America's energy economy from petroleum fuels to hydrogen-powered fuel-cell systems. Of course, the concept would probably do little good if the hydrogen is produced merely by converting fossil fuels — as is usually the case today. The grander challenges would be to make hydrogen using "green" technologies, such as wind or bioconversion techniques, then distribute the fuel in a safe and convenient way.

Inglis' proposal calls for the Energy Department to contract with a private, nonprofit organization to administer the prizes. The prizes would be funded by public as well as private sources.

All that is music to the ears of Mark Goodstein, who is the X Prize Foundation's executive director for a yet-to-be-announced automotive prize program. Goodstein told me that there's not yet any connection between what he's doing and the "H-Prize" plan, but he saluted Inglis' initiative. "If it's done right, it will encourage a billion-dollar investment by folks trying to win the prize," Goodstein said.

Goodstein is taking a slightly different tack with the X Prize program. First of all, he doesn't envision the prize being tied to any particular energy technology. His ideal prize-winner could use hydrogen, or ethanol, or solar, or maybe even an ultra-efficient petroleum-powered engine. "Our preference is to remain technology-agnostic," he said.

He also would prefer to have market forces help determine the winner. For example, it would do no good to create a super-duper-efficient hydrogen fuel cell if it cost $99 million to build. Finally, he sees the automotive X Prize as a contest with a guaranteed winner: The prize would go to the contestant who has the best energy technology at the end of, say, two or three years.

All that being said, Goodstein can easily envision a shorter-term X Prize (or MPG Prize, if you will) being offered alongside a longer-term H-Prize. "They are entirely compatible," he told me

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3217961