Energy X-Prize: Reduce Home Energy Usage

[wheelori814]

If we in arizona could all live in cob houses what a savings that would be. It most likely wouldnt need an air conditioner or heater or electric. They are pretty cheap to build, just time consuming, although if everyone in the neighborhood would participate for each home, it wouldnt take that long to build each home. Use composting toilets, and if your in an area that can have a well, put and hand pump inside and outside have a communal one.

[wheelori814]

why dont you just go to a zip code, find enough people that would like solar or wind energy, and put the 20,000 dollars for each home worth of solar panels up! If you are going to give that much away anyways! Morons!

[thethingthatwants]

the problem I see here is not that it's a bad idea it's just not the "X-Prize" the only insintive for lowing your energy usege is the prise and onece that gose away everything falls back to where it was, X-Prize's goal is to increace tecnology that will say long after the prise money had been spent.

[thethingthatwants]

exsamples of this would be to make a battery that needed less power to charge and last longer, I don't mean put less in them, but get it in with less waist. say for instance (I don't know the real numbers) 10% of all energy in battieries is lost during the first charging then if you made a new batiery that only waisted 5% that alone would do wonders.

(the fix to a leaky pipe is not to just use less)

[thethingthatwants]

sorry I can't spell :(

[wheelori814]

@thethingthatwants batteries arent green at all, imagine if every house hold in arizona had solar panels, every 10 years those batteries need to be changed. Where would they all go? Not "green" at all! The Amish, and those that live like the amish are the most green people i know!

[justkanishk]

It is a great idea. I can see your point here that by motivating people to reduce consumption, we can conserve energy. But I feel that it is a challenging task in itself. A small observation: CFLs have been in market for such a long time, but still we don't see them in regular home use.

Good luck with the prize! I voted for this idea.

[vecter]

I like your idea the most because I think it's the most practical. The others are wishing for magic. However, in order to make your idea workable, you need to work out

-The specifics of how different communities are judged in their energy gain. Will you be measuring energy savings per capita? What designates "a community"? Etc.

-The prize incentives must be well planned out (ie. managing expectations). You may also want to consider having many prize tiers.

(more ideas, but char. count limit).

[jondreher]

Thanks vecter, those are definitely key considerations.

This video presented our concept midway through its development and we're currently finishing up the details and addressing the two concerns you listed in your comment. I'd like to hear you other ideas, though, so please PM me with your other thoughts.

[CanOfSpam]

What? Lowering the thermostat in the winter and rising it in the summer? How does raising it in the summer help at all?

[jondreher]

Raising your thermostat temperature by just two degrees when it is warm outside greatly reduces the amount of energy required to cool your home. Air conditioning uses a tremendous amount of electricity and even using it slightly less saves a significant amount of energy.

[CanOfSpam]

Ok, but then you should of mentioned "raising your air conditioner in the summer".

I live en Europe and having air-con is not a common thing to have in the home. So it sounded strange.

[plimmin]

This is by far the best of the three finalists. Please VOTE FOR IT!

[BSRGodfather]

I agree people should reduce their consumption, but it's not truly a valid long-term option. Creative, but not really viable over the long run (people get bored easy, and will return to their excessive ways).

[jondreher]

Hi BSR, thanks for the comment

We disagree, however, and believe that reducing consumption is the only viable long-term option. Given target rates for population and economic growth throughout the world, consumption will have go down for the world population to sustain itself.

New technologies take years to develop but reducing consumption can have an immediate effect. If organized and implemented correctly, reduced consumption will not require any change in lifestyle and can be permanent.

[jondreher]

Thanks, Velkoze, we appreciate the support!

[alexrouse1]

Awesome video! Very well done!

[noreast77]

This doesn't really foster innovation, but it should be done anyway

[jondreher]

Thanks for the comment and support. Though past X-Prizes have focused on technological innovation, we feel that social innovation to create behavioral change is equally appropriate in this scenario, as well.

[spidisimisu]

Cool... Incentives may not be as effective as innovations or implementation of new technologies, but they are definitely more reliable, once in effect, and also complementary. People do a lot even for small incentives. I believe the ones you are proposing would work.

I like this idea too...

[markpolarbear39]

Totally different than everything else I've seen. I really like this idea.

[GlennDoty]

Good idea.

Definitely out of the box...

For the record, I think you are drastically over-estimating the motivation that this prize would have. I'd be surprised if many communities competed. But it is something to consider - especially for government energy policy.

Thanks for entering this. It's a VERY good idea.

I'm going to modify it and start including it in some of my political blogging for energy policy - if you don't mind (it shouldn't effect this competition).

[GlennDoty]

Sorry about the double-comment... I don't know why I got posted twice.

[jondreher]

No problem, thanks for the comment!

You are right, it will be a challenge to maximize participation but we believe marketing and corporate sponsorships, along with the right prize and reward, can make this happen.

Please let me know if you use any of our video for your blog; I would be interested in seeing it. My only concern would be if you reproduced copyrighted images we had to purchased rights for to use in our video.

Thanks again for your interest!

[GlennDoty]

Oh, I just do text.. But in the political world this is just AWESOME...

My one concern with the X-Prize is that I'm not sure how many people it would reach. When I told my friends and family that I was competing for an X-Prize, then near universal reaction was: "what's an X-Prize?"

If government was doing this, I think participation would meet your expectations...

But I'm not sure here.

Anyway, I'm definitely impressed. Good idea, and good luck.

You should call your congressmen.