UC Irvine students Bryan Le and Kyle Good stumbled upon the “What’s Your Crazy Green Idea” X Prize competition while searching online for contests they could enter. And surfing the web never paid off this much because — not only did they participate — they won the $25,000 prize!

On Sept. 10, 2008 the X Prize Foundation announced the competition and asked contestants to submit two-minute videos through YouTube that address a possible breakthrough on an energy-and-environment-related issue. (For more information, read Think Crazy Green Thoughts and Maybe Win $25,000.) More than 100 videos were submitted and three finalists were chosen. Then, it was up to the public to determine the final winner.

Over 4,000 viewers decided that the “craziest” green idea was “The Capacitor Challenge,” which challenges the X Prize Foundation to develop a new storage medium. You can see the winning video below.

For future X Prize reading, check out Jack McCornack’s blog about building a 100-mpg car for the Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize.

The X Prize Foundation chose three videos out of 133 for their $25,000 “What’s Your Crazy Green Idea?” Contest. The competition encouraged people to create a two-minute YouTube video that explained their idea for the next X Prize in Energy and Environment.

Submissions ended on Oct. 31 — and now it’s up to you to decide which idea is best. The three ideas involve creating a more efficient battery, reducing home energy usage, and making it easier for homes to have complete energy independence. Which one is most important to you?

The public can vote here through November 30.

News from the X PRIZE Foundation this weekend: Submit your idea for the newest X PRIZE contest for a chance to win $25,000. 

Remember when Scaled Composites won $10 million for the invention of SpaceShipOne, which carried three people into space and ended NASA’s monopoly on space travel? That was the X PRIZE Foundation, and they didn’t stop there. More contests are currently underway, including the Archon Genomics X PRIZE, which seeks to revolutionize health care by awarding $10 million to the first team of scientists to successfully sequence 100 human genomes in 10 days. There’s also the Google Lunar X PRIZE — $30 million will go to the team that manages to land a robot on the moon, move it 500 meters over the lunar surface, and send images and data back to us on Earth. And don’t forget the Progressive Auto X PRIZE, in which Mother Earth News is participating through contributor Jack McCornack. This prize is designed to speed along the development of a 100 mpg(e) automobile with a sound marketing plan, again for a prize of $10 million. You can watch the car develop here, and read an overview of the entry here and here. McCornack even blogs about the progress in our Energy Matters Blog. 

Now’s your chance to contribute. With the Foundation’s “What’s Your Crazy Green Idea” contest, you can submit a video containing your idea for the next X PRIZE in the energy and environment category (and hopefully cash in)! 

Best of luck to you all …

Photo by VLADIMIR VLADIMIROV/ISTOCKPHOTO

The X Prize Foundation wants to find solutions to the on-going problems involving energy and the environment, and the video below encourages just that. On Sept. 10, the foundation hosted a forum titled “Seeking Radical Breakthroughs in Alternative Energy — What I Would Advise the Next President.” Experts Dr. George Church, Dr. Saul Griffith and Dr. Ray Kurzweil came to present their ideas, which can be found here (Church), here (Griffith) and here (Kurzweil).

And now the foundation wants to hear ideas from the public.

At the forum, Peter Diamandis, chairman and CEO of the X Prize Foundation, announced the foundation’s new “What’s Your Crazy Green Idea?” video contest, sponsored by Prize Capital. The winner will receive a $25,000 prize for the best video with a new, world-changing X Prize competiton, relating to energy and the environment. The foundation’s goal is to gather ideas from a global perspective to find breakthroughs in clean fuels, renewable energy, energy efficiency, energy storage, carbon reduction and sustainable housing. They’re asking for contestants to submit two-minute videos on their YouTube Web site that answer these questions:

1. What is the specific prize idea?
2. What is the grand challenge or worldwide problem that you are trying to solve?
3. How will this prize benefit humanity?

Three finalists will be identified, and then visitors to www.xprize.org will make the final vote to decide who wins.

The deadline is Oct. 31, 2008, so hurry up, and get started! For more information visit the X Prize Web site.