A Prize Idea
Hudson, James F.
A Prize Idea Reward the invention, not the feasibility study. by James F. Hudson Last year a man-powered craft, the Gossamer Condor, flew across the English Channel. When it landed in France,...
...Then, there will be five years of paper studies into the feasibility (I'd be happy to get one of the contracts...
...Prizes for successful technology would go straight into the pockets of the inventors and investors, appealing shamelessly to their prurient desire to get rich...
...If it does, the R&D effort wins its prize-the profits...
...Then there would be some puzzling cases where a technology is sure to be developed, but will take so long to show a profit that business might not put up the money...
...In commercial work there is a singie test of performance-does the result sell...
...Sorry, my idea to mix plutonium with cattle feed didn't pan out...
...Sounds mad, you say...
...Would you want a lot of unsupervised entrepreneurs testing their devices...
...DOE has $2.3 million to encourage development of a commercial tires-toenergy project...
...What are we ~oing about dirty smokestacks...
...That is, the prize was for performance...
...You bet...
...It wouldn't if you'd been doing what I've been doing lately, which is evaluating proposals for Department of Energy R&D funding...
...But invest toward a payoff 30 years away, when the chairman of the board who authorized the investment has long since gone to the Great Golf Course in the Sky...
...You have to meet rigid program requirements, surrendering the free-wheeling laboratory latitude to test things on instinct...
...DOE, for instance, predicts that a fusion power plant will be on-line by 20 I O. It plans to spend $14 billion for R&D to achieve that goal...
...Let's say 'that to win, the process would have to convert 500 tons of tires to usable energy, work in two places (to prove the system had wide applications, or "transferability"), run for a year, and show an operating profit after audit...
...That cash was the Kramar Prize-set aside years ago as the reward for the first lunatic to huff across the Channel unassisted...
...If the winning system is profitable, the patents could be worth a lot...
...You might require the winner to license whatever technology he develops, so all could share it-but it would be a license with royalties, to insure that the winner gets the greatest profit...
...Instead of bankrolling two demonstration plants that will probably devote all their efforts to demonstrating their need for further funding, why not establish a $2- million prize for the first decent tires-toenergy project...
...There would be somber professors writing papers about humanoid aeronautics and proposals for second-generation man-powered supersonic crop dusters, but nothing would be flying...
...Massachusetts firm that is not offered prizes for its government work...
...The proposals I was inspecting for DOE had to do with recycling old auto tires...
...You don't even get a patent if you devise something, because the results of government-funded R&D are public property...
...a Cambridge...
...Prizes for finishing, not for thinking about finishing...
...For its money, DOE can (assuming the standard inflated bids) fund one, maybe two "demonstration" plants...
...But if the multinational conglomerates fund a winning project, won't they, as investors, grab most of the prize money...
...If you make a breakthrough, there's no need for further study, so your grants stop...
...Pumping Up Tires I'll give you an example...
...government was funding man-powered flight...
...Holding conferences...
...There would be research and development grants to analyze the updrafts from the lower calf muscles, thermodynamic studies of sweat evaporation, and doodles on every drawing board in America...
...You won't mind roping off Kansas, will you...
...Fortunately, the number of R&D areas where there is potential for a lab catastrophe is small enough that this shouldn't be much of a problem...
...Government would withdraw most of its funding for R&D...
...Given federal government lag times, that would be pretty dynamic action...
...And here's the key that would make it attractive to investors financing the competitors: the results of all the R&D would be proprietary, not pUblic...
...In the meantime, just be glad the federal government didn't decide to fund research into man-powered flight...
...Tires have a higher energy value than coal-about 15,000 BTU per pound of tire, compared to 12,000 BTU per pound of coal...
...Might not work...
...The main difference between business R&D and government R&D is that business will only put up money for projects that work...
...This is not to suggest that scientists everywhere are deliberately knocking over test tubes to stall their work...
...Hard, but far from impossible...
...It's also what will encourage them to move an idea from concept to working model as rapidly as possible...
...by James F. Hudson Last year a man-powered craft, the Gossamer Condor, flew across the English Channel...
...Now stop for a minute and suppose that instead of Kramar, the l).S...
...It wouldn't be too hard to set the criteria...
...In government research, the only test of performance is the ability to get grants...
...Once you're funded to study, you get the same amount of money whether you solve the problem or not...
...Say $100 billion...
...Somehow, government deems it acceptable to spend zillions on thinking about whether an idea is feasible, but highly offensive to actually build something and find out for sure...
...For then, as commonly happens, the demonstrators go on to get other grants for R&D on something else...
...Where will the development capital come from if government won't provide it...
...Well, maybe there is a warpdrive principle, but the chances of uncovering it are slim...
...There is in the strictest sense nothing to be gained by solving a problem...
...it runs...
...So government R&D funding of long-term ideas, regrettably, would probably have to continue...
...If the demonstration fails, great...
...But above all, you fear a breakthrough more than a failure...
...And discarded tires are such a pain in the neck, people will pay to get rid of them...
...There's no goal, no thrill of achievement, and no personal profit...
...From the standard sources, of coursebanks, venture capitalists, and the dreaded multinational conglomerates...
...Basic research is the investigation of scientific areas that have no potential for immediate benefits...
...No prizes, no patents, not even a ceremonial key to the DOE washroom...
...And what will insure that most of their money is spent on hard research and equipment construction, instead of "feasibility studies" and 'other "seed" work...
...Start giving out prizes, just like Kramar...
...Instead of encouraging technological breakthroughs by rewarding performance, the government discourages them with a grants structure that rewards inaction...
...I certainly think so...
...How big a prize would government have to offer to get corporate marketing directors to rush to Fermi Lab and Brookhaven waving their checkbooks...
...But I won't be surprised if it sits around for five to ten years, until somebody junior enough for it to affect is senior enough to influence some money...
...Of course, this isn't much of a problem, because government-funded work seldom produces anything worth patenting...
...Reassessmg...
...That's how most business projects are funded...
...So you'd get to keep the patents...
...What are we doing about nuclear safety...
...What are we doing about solar energy...
...It would certainly speed the development of this much-needed system...
...It is to state that our current system inspires only process, not performance...
...When it landed in France, its builders collected lots of...
...To win the Kramar Prize, you had to get to the other side...
...But if the demonstration plant ever does get running, the demonstrators run the risk that their funds will be shut off...
...With government R&D, there's nothing to be gained by solving a pro blem...
...That $10 billion would be mighty tempting to industry, especially since the plant itself would make a profit, too...
...You don't even get the patent...
...How about, let's say, a $1 billion prize for the first large, reliably functioning large colli liquefaction plant...
...That's exactly what will encourage them to put the capital on the table to begin with...
...Studyil1g it...
...Sure...
...And ten years later, there may be a demonstration involving parallel projects, with one working toward a prize and the other direct-funded...
...But then government R&D seldom produces anything worth patenting...
...Gone Fusion Are there drawbacks to this plan...
...How different government R&D is from commercial research...
...Suppose, instead, we left $4 billion around for training people in fusion physics, then put up $10 billion as the prize for the first plant...
...Instead of bestowing grants for study and research, the government should post prizes...
...What should we do about the whole mess in R&D...
...And it would be a lot more selective about selecting the ideas that are most likeiy to work (that is, the ideas that are worthwhile) because if the idea didn't work, industry would take the loss...
...fthe prize for actual completion of a project were fat enough, industry would put up the R&D money...
...James F. Hudson is a vice president of Urban Systems Research & Engineering...
...Suppose there was a need for basic research into the physics of warpdrive, so that we could build a spaceship (not man-powered, let's hope) to reach other galaxies...
...It is in society'S interest that such information be public, so it is proper that the government finance basic research...
...Without Feathers Isn't this a wonderful idea...
...Strictly controlled government R&D would have to continue in fields like this...
...going on and on about response of the market, environmental impact, federal staff impact, methods for setting prizes and performance requirements, what color the blueprints should be, and so on...
...Government funding of "basic" researchabstract lab work like high-energy particle physics-would have to continue...
...It sounds like a promising idea...
...Prizes for getting something to work-for building it, testing it, breaking it, swearing at it, and fixing it til...
...Right now, almost all the government's R&D money goes into seed activities-the perpetual study of whether or not it's a good idea to try something...
...So I'll see you again in 25 years...
...Likewise, it would be ill-advised to remove government's role in R&D for hazardous projects...
...Equally important, the products of basic researchusually scientific principles that describe the world's workings-should never be proprietary...
...We'd still be gluing feathers to our arms...
...The longer it takes these plants to start operating, the better it is for the demonstrators-because once DOE is committed to a project, it will find more grants to extend the work and thus protect the agency's image...
...We need a truly safe means to dispose of nuclear wastes, for instance...
...publicity, free drinks at local bars, and $80,000 in cash...
...Obviously, that's out of the question...
...I'll have to drop out of the contest...
Vol. 12 • July 1980 • No. 5
