I don't know if an option.... but why not contacting such philanthrops for support?
I hope the X-Prize people come through. That would be a great source of philanthropic funding because it would generate a lot of publicity. Some other philanthropic organization might want to keep the funding confidential, but the X-Prize people put it on their website and talk it up. One of their goals is to put the spotlight on the projects they fund.
Bizarrely, none of the finalists won - and the winner was a complete outsider, that happened to be based about a 9 minute taxi ride from the XPrize head office.
Looks like a free mason did run out of money and his fellows had to help him. Nothing special. US state is a free masons self service station. See CDC, FDA, DOD,...hundreds of billions/year switch pockets from state to FM friends. Russia gives you the answer how the end of such a process looks alike. Nobody is anymore willing to defend the country.
Furthermore, the winner didn't even fulfil some of the criteria - and their concept could only work in an area that had an ample free supply of vegetable matter - something that is usually lacking in the arid places the project was supposed to be aimed at. Note that the winning company now seems to have disappeared (at least according to a quick google search).
That is hilarious! Infuriating but hilarious. How much money did they "win."
Creating this thread to move posts here from another thread where they became off topic but nevertheless interesting for wider discussion.
In general terms X Prize like initiatives are seen as good for innovation. Other matter entirely is the transparency with which the prize is granted, as the example that Frogfall posited to us.
On a side note, Because of my reality of living in the Atacama desert, the concept of “air wells” is very known to me and I know of several initiatives that are basically versions of air conditioners that condense atmospheric water by refrigeration of air to cause humidity to condense. These work more or less well if you can afford the huge cost of the apparatus and the energy to run them. Their use for agricultural purposes is completely unsustainable from the economic point of view, tho. I have stated often that my interest in LENR stemmed from the search of an energy source that would make this kind of constraints to agriculture in the Atacama desert a thing of the past. We have a very good weather for crop production year round, but saying that water is scarce is an understatement.
There’s a second type of systems based on chemical adsorption of humidity, they are much more energy efficient but they are in a much earlier stage of development.
In general terms X Prize like initiatives are seen as good for innovation. Other matter entirely is the transparency with which the prize is granted, as the example that Frogfall posited to us.
On a side note, Because of my reality of living in the Atacama desert, the concept of “air wells” is very known to me and I know of several initiatives that are basically versions of air conditioners that condense atmospheric water by refrigeration of air to cause humidity to condense. These work more or less well if you can afford the huge cost of the apparatus and the energy to run them. Their use for agricultural purposes is completely unsustainable....
I think unsustainable is the speed and magnitude of lithium mining in countries like Chile. I think your people are aware of this, but often only a few benefit and this is probably not the farmer of the Atacama desert.
Shame on the (European) car makers exporting our environmental problems to your country!
Regarding an X-price..... we will see.
LENR will have an huge strategic impact, probably larger than quantum communication. (just refer to recent Physics noble prize)
...and therefore I believe there are powerful acteurs out there, who try to keep the lit on the LENR pod.
A bad joke is also this €10 Mio. placebo funding of the EU! I don't get it!..every small road work project exceeds €10 Mio. easily and we can still afford to throw tonnes of money out of the window?
And the worst thing by doing so, we hurt other countries!
If we just can get it rid of 1% of such practices, we would have enough to fund LENR!
About research management, funding, and motivating researchers, maybe an interesting article.
Prize are useful in one of the 4 quadrant they describe.
