Film students scoop $25,000 X Prize for YouTube vid

Two students have scooped a $25,000 X Prize Foundation award after creating a YouTube video about clean energy storage.

UC Irvine students Kyle Good and Bryan Le created a video challenging developers to create an ultracapacitor that could be used to power consumer electronics.

The students won the "What's your crazy green idea" award, developed by the X Prize Foundation. The award tasked entrants with creating a video articulating a challenge that would form the basis for a potential future X Prize. The pair's video was selected from 133 entries by more than 4,200 people in a public vote.

The students' "Capacitor Challenge" involves producing an ultracapacitor that would exceed the energy density of average lead-acid batteries while costing less than twice their price. It would recharge in under one minute with a lifecycle of 500,000 charges, and use only self-contained capacitors. It must also be completely recyclable and incorporate non-toxic materials.

As proof of utility, the successful prize winner's ultracapacitor must provide enough energy to power an electric vehicle for 100 miles, and then drive it back again after recharging.

"A battery technology that allows a cellphone to go for a month without recharging or a laptop to go for weeks, those things have a personal value to people, and can transform things a lot faster than traditional technology," said Mark Bernstein, managing director of the University of Southern California Energy Institute, at the event where the prizewinners were announced.

Now, someone has to do the hard part. Firms such as eeStor are already working on commercial ultracapacitors designed to outperform traditional ultracapacitor technologies, which have thus far been restricted to low-energy, high-power storage solutions such as energy harvesters in hybrid vehicles.

In the meantime, the X Prize Foundation has said that the film and chemistry students will be spending the money on study trips to Europe, and a personal spiritual trip to India.