Dark Star

Instead of upfront government grants. All for it.

Recharging McCain’s Battery Prize by Max Schulz on National Review Online

Offering prizes to spur innovation is not exactly new, of course. In 2004, the Ansari X-Prize awarded $10 million to the winners of a contest to develop a reusable, manned spacecraft. More recently, Virgin’s Richard Branson announced his offer of a $25-million prize for the development of a commercially viable design to remove man-made greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere. Skeptical environmentalist Bjørn Lomborg suggests that Western nations spend .05 percent of their GDP on clean-energy R&D — but in the form of prizes for technological breakthroughs, rather than straight government subsidies. Such prizes have been effective in the past as well. Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic in 1927 not just for glory, but to claim a $25,000 bounty.

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