According to non-profit marketing organization SmartPower, even though 80 to 90 percent of the public agrees that energy from renewable sources is better than energy produced from fossil fuels, and they are willing to pay $5 or $10 more per month for that energy, the market penetration of renewable energy products still remains below 5 percent. The company aims to change that by researching exactly what barriers consumers face when they are considering a clean energy or energy efficiency purchase, and then combining innovative marketing campaigns with grass-roots action to overcome these barriers.
SmartPower’s latest campaign is the Energy Smart Ad Challenge, offering a $10,000 prize for the best 30-second Public Service Announcement (PSA) promoting how young adults can save money by being Energy Smart through energy efficiency and conservation. The 10 finalist videos were posted on YouTube Friday, and viewers are invited to comment on how well the videos “speak to young people about being energy smart.” Each day, one video will be eliminated from the competition, presumably with the viewer input weighing heavily in the decision. As of this writing, the video titled “Generation”, (posted at the top of this article), was far and away the viewers’ favorite.
In the glorious Past Before Television, adventurous men and women gained fame and fortune by testing their skills in competitions designed to expand the limits of human knowledge and innovation. Several organizations are bringing back this kind of “innovation prize” in a big way, with competitions designed to solve some of humanity’s greatest challenges, and expand its horizons beyond terrestrial limits.
One of the greatest scientific breakthroughs in history was the result of a prize offered by the British government in the 18th century. At that time, many ships were being lost due to the inaccuracies involved in calculating their longitude at sea. The previous method, dead reckoning, introduced greater errors the farther the ship got from a known point, usually ending in loss of life and heated discussions about the velocity of various types of swallows. The British Parliament offered the modern equivalent of $4.56 million for a solution to the Longitude Problem.
One of the potential solutions to the problem required invention of a marine chronometer of such high accuracy that even Sir Issac Newton doubted that it could be created. But, in 1730, clockmaker John Harrison set himself to the task, and effectively solved the multiple problems of corrosion, temperature, humidity and durability within 5 years, (although it took him another thirty to collect his prize) a task which has been compared to the landing of men on the moon in the 1960s.
In years to come, we may look back on 2009 as the year that electric vehicles became mainstream, at least as far the media is concerned. The past few weeks have been no different as a number of organizations from all over the automotive industry made EV-related announcements. One of these organizations, the Cleantech Group, seems to be bucking the trend with its prediction that so-called Smart Mobility will overtake EVs in 2010, although AutoBlogGreen’s Sebastian Blanco disagrees, and argues that, as far as the media is concerned, 2010 will be even bigger for EV news.
Fueling the Imagination
For example, just hearing the words “X-Prize” is bound to conjure up images of maverick entrepreneurs competing for millions of dollars of prize money to achieve new milestones in air and space flight. That’s exactly what the founders of the X-Prize Foundation want you to think about when you hear about the Progressive Automotive X-Prize, a new competition which focuses on environmentally-friendly automobiles instead of airplanes and rockets. As we reported in a previous article, the competition awards a $10 million dollar prize to the car that, in addition to being the winner in a series of speed and endurance trials, must achieve an effective 100 miles per gallon, have a 200 mile range, and adhere to a large number of very stringent design and safety criteria.
According to the New York Times, the new X-Prize is receiving a boost from the Federal government in the form of $5.5 million of stimulus money from the Department of Energy. This support of competition seems like a good way to promote fairness and innovation, especially since the DOE has been previously accused of stifling innovation in the automotive sector with its Advanced Technology Manufacturing Loan program.
Steve Puma is a sustainability and strategy consultant, technologist and writer. He lives with his wife Cori and pug dog Miles in Northern California. More...
or example, just hearing the words “X-Prize” is bound to conjure up images of 
