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Excuse my cynicism…
By cr82 on 7/12/2008 4:18:30 PM , Rating: 2
But seriously… 10, 20, 30 million $ incentives to developed technology like this. That’s enough to get you a handful of decent scientists/engineers for a few years, some half-rate equipment, and a couple guys running around begging for money from anyone willing to see them. I think the time has come to realize that whining about expensive oil and tossing nickels at the problem is not the solution. This, and some other problems for that matter, are going to take several billion $ and a lot of people to figure out in a reasonable timeframe. It’s time to pony up.

RE: Excuse my cynicism…
By Ringold on 7/12/2008 7:57:04 PM , Rating: 2
If that's all there was, a few million in prize money, you'd be right.

But it's not. A winner gets the prize money, the attention, and like what we saw with the original X-Prize, some times massive corporate deals. If this goes like how the X-Prize went, teams may end up spending much more money than they could recoup even if they did win. Even teams that didn't win have found some commercial success.

As in almost all cases with government, throwing more money at a problem isn't always either the answer or necessary. ;)

