Energy X-Prize: Reduce Home Energy Usage

Our "crazy green idea" tackles the demand side of our energy crisis and gives Americans an incentive to reduce their energy consumption!

See http://web.mac.com/jondreher for more information, including our sources and calculations!

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• X-Prize
• Energy
• Efficiency
• Solar
• Wind
• Consumption
• Electricity
• Environment
• Renewables
• CFL
• Insulation
• Money

[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.

[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.

[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]

@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!

[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]

sorry I can't spell :(

[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]

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.

[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.