Prize as Motivator

It can be an incentive for alternative fuel usage... The big prize harnesses the free market subsidies work against the market. So, can you guess which tool our guvmint uses to promote alternative fuels? The big prize has changed the history of aviation almost since the beginning of the industry. Lindbergh and his investors sought the Orteig Prize of $25,000, offered for the first nonstop flight from New York to Paris. Seaplanes tend to be slow, yet for years between World Wars I and II the world's fastest airplanes were seaplanes. Why? Because the Schneider Trophy was for seaplanes only. The first airplane to fly 400 miles per hour was a Schneider winner, and the famed British Spitfire was a derivative of a Schneider winner. Why did Burt Rutan and Paul Allen combine Rutan's skills and know-how with Allen's MicroSoft fortune? To fly into space and win the Ansari X Prize of $10,000,000. In each of these cases the total money spent by all who tried for the prize exceeded the value of the prize. (It has been estimated that $400,000 was spent by people trying for the $25,000 Orteig prize.) Yet only the winner in each case got any money at all. Note also that each prize motivated huge spurts in aviation/aerospace. And how is the guvmint trying to encourage alternative fuel use? By subsidizing each gallon of ethanol so it can "compete" with gasoline. But that subsidy also diminishes the incentive for anyone to come up with alternative fuels that cost less than gasoline! Perhaps the guvmint should instead provide a huge prize to the first company to produce an alternative fuel that costs less than gasoline.  We'd like to post your comment. Just click on the box at the top.