ConocoPhillips offers $300,000 prize for clean energy break throughs

US energy giant ConocoPhillips yesterday announced the launch of a new awards initiative offering up to $300,000 in cash prizes to researchers developing ideas and technologies capable of curb US greenhouse gas emissions.

The Energy Prize Awards, which are being run in conjunction with Penn State University's Energy Institute, will be offered to "new ideas and original, actionable solutions " capable of delivering alternative energy sources, improving energy efficiency, or otherwise reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The company said it was accepting applications for the awards up to the end of May. A panel of energy and environmental experts will then select five finalists based on the creativity, scalability, commercial viability and sustainability of their idea. The selected finalists will then present their concepts at a two-day awards event in October.

Jim Mulva, chairman and chief executive officer of ConocoPhillips, said that the prize would help "generate excitement and interest in fostering new energy ideas and solutions".

The new awards represent the latest in a series of cash prizes on offer to researchers, engineers and scientists working on clean technology projects. Most notably, Virgin boss Richard Branson last year offered $25m to the first scientist to develop a workable means of removing one billion tonnes of carbon dioxide form the atmosphere.

The awards were unveiled on the same day as ConocoPhillips also announced it has inked an alliance with the US Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Iowa State University to cooperate on research into new second generation biofuel technologies capable of turning cellulosic biomass into fuel.

"The thermochemical and biochemical conversion of cellulosic biomass into liquid fuels has great promise to be a clean and renewable source of energy that doesn't compete with our food supply," said Robert C. Brown, Iowa Farm Bureau director of the Bioeconomy Institute at Iowa State. "This research collaboration brings together the complementary strengths of a major energy company, a national energy laboratory and a land-grant university to advance these technologies and move them closer to the marketplace."