10 ms·

xPrize Wildfire – $11M Prize Competition

73 points by TheBlapse 3y ago

Steven420 3y ago
Not sure that completely stopping wildfires is a good idea as many species of plants depend on fire for seed germination. I think controlled burns may be the way to go instead of preventing wildfires completely
- exabrial 3y ago
  Controlled burns have been shown to be carbon negative. The destroy invasive species that have not evolved to handle the natural processes native to an area. Humans are actually the biggest issue, once again. Prescribed burns are healthy for ecosystems and for the planet itself.
- Etheryte 3y ago
  And the competition is not about completely stopping wildfires, as is clearly stated on the linked page. They target what they call Extreme Wildfire Events which are roughly 3% of all wildfires. The focus is on detecting and suppressing those, as those 3% of all wildfires account for 80% of the total damages.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
soperj 3y ago
Best way to end destructive fires is to light destructive fires. The real purpose of fighting these fires seem to be protecting the logging industry.
- exabrial 3y ago
  The majority of the logging industry is a good thing for the planet. When you log sustainably, you take fixated carbon, turn it into a product that can be used, then allow the area to regrow, fixated more carbon as a building product. The vast majority of the time, it's a win-win. The negatives are supplying things like cheap paper to the post office for marketing departments to across to spam people using US Postal Mail. _Thats_ what needs to be stopped, as it's just a waste.
  - soperj 3y ago
    I honestly would be very surprised if they didn't make more CO2 logging and turning that tree into a building product than they sequester. Postal spam is likely even more damaging.
    - danielvf 3y ago
      Trees are roughly 50% carbon by weight. Each pound of carbon represents 3.67 pounds of cleaned carbon dioxide. Each pound of lumber represents 1.8 pounds of carbon dioxide our of the air. It looks like both logging trucks and flatbed timber trucks can carry around 24 tons of lumber, which would be 43 tones of carbon dioxide. Sawmills are efficient, and would make a negligible contribution to total carbon. Transportation would be the biggest carbon cost. At least on the East Cost US there's a lot of timber growing so distances aren't too far. Let's say 200 miles total from logging to sawmill to use. 400 miles round trip. Using average US freight truck emissions that's about 0.07 tons of carbon dioxide released. So let's round that up a bit and say 43 tons sequestered for for 0.1 tons expended. Seems like a win.
      - danielvf 3y ago
        Another way of thinking about this: if you burned 1,600 gallons of gasoline to sequester one 3,000 lb pine tree, you'd be net ahead. Unless I'm really off on my math.
        boplicity 3y ago
        You can't get ahead if you're pulling carbon out of the ground. That's the fundamental problem. Go ahead and burn all of the carbon you want, as long as it's not coming from long-term storage (e.g. fossil fuels), and is rather already part of the carbon cycle (e.g. trees).
        danielvf 3y ago
        I did do my math wrong. 220 gallons of gasoline for 3,000 lbs of timber
      - 3y ago
- stonogo 3y ago
  Spoken like someone who hasn't had to spend weeks with off-the-charts smoke-based air quality problems, followed by hundreds of thousands of people having to replace air filters in houses and cars.
  - mkoubaa 3y ago
    Why do you get that impression?
    - stonogo 3y ago
      Because not all wildfires are forest fires, and even when they are they can occur in wildlands which are not subject to logging. Some people see "wildfire" and think about the impact on people near the fire as well as downwind communities. Other people see the term and immediately leap to economic considerations.
  - soperj 3y ago
    I live in the pacific northwest... If they light the fires in Spring when it's still wet, you don't get the same magnitude of fire in the summer. It would also help if they didn't spray the areas afterwards with round-up so that Aspen (a fire break species) doesn't grow, so that they can plant round-up ready Pine (a species that promotes fires).
    - stonogo 3y ago
      Forest management is crucial, and prescribed burns are an important element there, but it does nothing to stop other wildfires, like the Vantage Highway fire and the one which destroyed so much property around Lind, WA. Not all wildfires are forest fires.
- idiotsecant 3y ago
  There is very little focus on protecting logging and a lot of focus on protecting suburban sprawl. We live further and further into ecosystems that up until recently could have burned with minimal impact to humans. Now those same forests are full of cabin-mansions and summer homes of people who are rich enough for the system to care about them.
  - soperj 3y ago
    In my Canadian province (BC) most of the trees (and fires) are where people don't live, it's very much about protecting their #1 export (tied with Coal)
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- notatoad 3y ago
  >The real purpose of fighting these fires seem to be protecting the logging industry. also, the rural property owners.
JediLuke 3y ago
[dead]
uoaei 3y ago
It seems like the prize is not evaluated based on being able to predict wildfire behavior, but specifically on technologies for quashing wildfires as they start. The former makes a lot of sense, while the latter assumes an outdated perspective on wildland management. Who does this serve?
- stonogo 3y ago
  It serves the people whose houses are burned and the even larger population who has to live in smoke-polluted air for days or weeks at a time. The prize targets extreme wildfire events, as it says explicitly. Not one of the prizes relates to quashing anything, it's all detection and tracking.
  - uoaei 3y ago
    Then someone should probably inform their copywriter that "End Destructive Wildfires" is not an accurate framing of the goals. More like "End Community Destruction By Wildfires"
    - stonogo 3y ago
      The copy is fine, because it's not intended for consumption by robots who cannot derive context. Anyone unwilling to read the entire front page, which contains specifics as to the type and scale of wildfires targeted, is unlikely to either find much success as a contestant or otherwise have a meaningful impact on either the xPrize or wildfires.
giarc 3y ago
It's not really a competition at putting out wildfires, moreso detecting and tracking them. There are 3 separate prizes, so to speak. $5M Autonomous Wildfire Response Track $5M Space-Based Wildfire Detection and Intelligence Track $1M Lockheed Martin Accurate Detection Intelligence Bonus Prize
mrandish 3y ago
On one hand this effort sounds like a good way to generate some interesting concepts. On the other hand, as a long-time resident of a rural, wildfire-prone area, it's also important to educate the public and politicians that there is a large body of proven land management best practices that can already significantly improve prevention, control and mitigation. While we can always do better, we often aren't sufficiently utilizing the tools and techniques we already have. The issues are more often political, economic and systemic than they are not knowing effective ways to further reduce risks and harm. Things like properly managed controlled burns are under-utilized because they are politically controversial. Enacting and enforcing codes mandating land management around private structures are politically unpopular. Out where I live, the local fire rangers just point-blank tell property owners "If you don't clear out all the brush and downed trees within a couple hundred feet of your structures, we're defending your house after the others that meet code" but no politician is willing to tell voters that. Worse, land owners continue to get permits issued to construct permanent dwellings in isolated locations which are extremely difficult to defend. If they want to build there, I say let them but also issue fair warning if they choose to proceed, they are on their own in the event of fire. Volunteer firefighters shouldn't need to risk their lives to defend houses which should never have been built in inaccessible, indefensible locations.
- westurner 3y ago
  Wildfire suppression: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildfire_suppression#Tactics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildfire_suppression#Tactics History of wildfire suppression in the United States: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_wildfire_suppression_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_wildfire_suppressio... Controlled burn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_burn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_burn > A controlled or prescribed burn, also known as hazard reduction burning, [1] backfire, swailing, or a burn-off, [2] is a fire set intentionally for purposes of forest management, fire suppression, farming, prairie restoration or greenhouse gas abatement. A controlled burn may also refer to the intentional burning of slash and fuels through burn piles. [3] Fire is a natural part of both forest and grassland ecology and controlled fire can be a tool for foresters. Hydrogel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogel Aerogel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerogel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerogel Water-based batteries have less fire risk FWIU "1,000% Difference: Major Storage Capacity in Water-Based Batteries Found" (2023) https://scitechdaily.com/1000-difference-major-storage-capacity-in-water-based-batteries-found/ https://scitechdaily.com/1000-difference-major-storage-capac... > The metal-free water-based batteries are unique from those that utilize cobalt in their lithium-ion form. The research group’s focus on this type of battery stems from a desire for greater control over the domestic supply chain as cobalt and lithium are commonly sourced from outside the country. Additionally, the batteries’ safer chemistry could prevent fires.
devindotcom 3y ago
The tagline "ending" wildfires is definitely misleading as of course they are a natural occurrence. But climate change has made them increasingly intense and frequent and although this may also be "natural" in a way it is also increasingly irreversibly destructive as the forests are not replacing themselves "naturally" but rather with invasive or otherwise undesirable species. Xprize stuff is of course somewhat self-serving and this requires real investment to address (I am writing about one such effort in another tab) but better awareness and intelligence is not a bad thing. No one is talking about eliminating controlled burns or other measures, in fact as the environment macro factors shift we need more information to make informed decisions about when and how to do those. It does serve the logging industry sure, but also major national forests and parks that serve many purposes. Fisheries and fishing companies benefit from watershed restoration and species-based protections but we don't think of it that way. Besides logging is not inherently evil, where do you think all those compostable paper products come from? A better timber industry is needed to support renewables and wildfire mitigation is a part of that evolution.
pupppet 3y ago
Nothing like a video thumbnail of the entire planet on fire to make me question your intent.
gcheong 3y ago
Sponsored in part by PG&E a major cause of wildfires. Seems like a bit of deflection to me.
sam1r 3y ago
I wonder what format the winners’s submission would be. Maybe I’m missing something going through the website. Would it be similar to that of a white paper? Or an actual demo. Or additional working detection hardware… Under the past challenges, one mentions re-engineering a covid mask, so the end point is clear. For this one, it feels much more open ended. Exciting, but I’m also quite curious, if anyone has an idea or examples.
jpgvm 3y ago
Wildfires aren't really the problem on a global scale. They are a bit of a pain in Australia, and US West coast sure. The real problematic fires are currently man-made and entirely purposefully lit, i.e slash and burn agriculture. They are destroying the air and huge amounts of rainforest and jungle in places like Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, Brazil, etc. So while I commend the effort I think the bigger problem at hand is working out how to switch these agriculture systems over to more modern techniques and prevent further destruction of perhaps irreplaceable forests. Most wildfires are generally in fire-prone areas where fires is a frequent and necessary part of life, detecting it sooner to save lives is good, developing better back-burning techniques to reduce intensity during fire season is also good. Just not as much impact on the world as aforementioned agricultural burning. Even though we are at the tail end of the burning season in SEA you can still see how massive the problem is from this satelite detector run by NASA: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/ https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/
- fwlr 3y ago
  Eh, I think they’re more than “a bit of a pain” in Australia. Bushfire season always kills a few people every year, but it’s only because of us taking fires very seriously and having defense in depth and early evacuation protocols that it doesn’t kill way more. There are cases like 2009 where more than 170 people died, which still may not sound like much for a population of 20 million, but it was mostly in the Kinglake and Marysville areas (roughly 100 deaths out of the area’s population of several thousand). It is a very grave risk with very serious mitigation efforts that largely work. If fire management and response were to break down even a little bit, though, the number of deaths will skyrocket. XPRIZE success on wildfires will be deeply appreciated here.
  - jpgvm 3y ago
    Yeah I grew up in rural Australia. I get why it would be useful. Just travelling opened my eyes to much bigger fire problems is all. The pollution caused by slash and burn is estimated to cause ~11k deaths a year in Thailand alone, I imagine the numbers are much worse in Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos. I'm not saying I don't appreciate improvements in detecting and maybe preventing bush fires just trying to raise awareness of a larger more dangerous issue in the world that gets little to no attention because it's outside of Western media sphere.
barathr 3y ago
Unless I'm misreading this, it doesn't include passive fire mitigation approaches. For example, for low-frost areas of California -- which is about half the state currently (expanding all the time), we developed models for planting bananas and irrigating with recycled water, producing a profitable crop yield and providing a non-flammable barrier at the wildland-urban interface: https://raghavan.usc.edu/papers/ediblefirebuffers-biorxiv21.pdf https://raghavan.usc.edu/papers/ediblefirebuffers-biorxiv21....
pwython 3y ago
Relevant article that explains how Trump may have actually been correct in mitigating forest fires by "raking the floor," stemming from a conversation he had with Finland's president: https://www.talouselama.fi/uutiset/finns-mock-trump-on-raking-the-forests-but-what-they-dont-know-is-that-raking-is-an-actual-forest-treatment-method-in-us/588b7311-772f-3f5b-baa6-8bc56398fb67 https://www.talouselama.fi/uutiset/finns-mock-trump-on-rakin... Before the downvotes, please read the article. I have no political affiliation in the US, and this may be one of the only things Trump sorta maybe got right.
tomrod 3y ago
Fire is healthy for the ecosystem. What if instead of fighting the fires, we hardened our dwellings in some way so that they are mildly annoying instead of community ending? Buried utilities, thick brick walls, bunker designs, breaker areas around infrastructure, drone tech to identify and, if possible, cull tumbleweeds, etc.
mNovak 3y ago
While a nice thought, the timeline (<18mo for the space-based sensor track) isn't aligned for developing anything truly new or revolutionary, just some quick reaction rehashing of existing tech (read: now with 'AI').
csh0 3y ago
Anyone interested in linking up to register as a team for either track? “Track A: Space-Based Wildfire Detection and Intelligence In the Space-Based Wildfire Detection & Intelligence track, teams will have one minute to accurately detect all fires across a landscape larger than entire states or countries, and 10 minutes to precisely characterize and report data with the least false positives to two ground stations. Track B: Autonomous Wildfire Response In the Autonomous Wildfire Response track, teams have 10 minutes to autonomously detect and suppress a high-risk fire in a 1,000 km2, environmentally challenging area, leaving any decoy fires untouched.” I think these would be a fun problems work on. You can reach me at: Fire(AT)cynical.io I don’t work in this space normally, currently I work as an SRE, but I am motivated. :)
aaron695 3y ago
[dead]
pedalpete 3y ago
One of Australia's mining magnates has been supporting a similar initiative through his non-profit for the last few years with the goal of having any forest fire extinguished (probably managed) within an hour [1]. He's tipped into the XPrize as well [2]. [1]https://www.minderoo.org/fire-and-flood-resilience/fire-shield/ https://www.minderoo.org/fire-and-flood-resilience/fire-shie... [2] https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/andrew-forrest-chips-in-for-a-global-prize-to-fight-bushfires-20230421-p5d268 https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/andrew-forrest-chips...
billclerico 3y ago
I’m a VC specializing in startups addressing wildfire. If I can be helpful to anyone thinking about this problem, I’m bill at convectivecapital.com
griffinkelly 3y ago
This reminds me of the competition to try and stop Asian carp from hitting the great lakes: https://www.outdoorlife.com/stop-asian-carp-earn-1-million/ https://www.outdoorlife.com/stop-asian-carp-earn-1-million/ I hope that's enough to generate some innovation in the area to solve a very large and growing problem.
- stevespang 3y ago
  [dead]
baseline-shift 3y ago
I've read a lot of answers which suggest the usual things that are considered in the wider community, so it is a bit surprising that there are no AI type solutions put forth in this site for hackers. Surely some way to detect and extinguish the beginnings - where these escape notice far from human eyes and noses - has a coding or robotics solution?
- davidbanham 3y ago
  Yeah a bunch. Satellite monitoring of lightning strikes has been happening for years. We also have hot spot detection from himawari and other satellites. Also very common to have aircraft do FLIR camera runs over the bush on high danger days. A few startups/researchers are looking at distributed sensor arrays with microphones and thermometers to detect ignitions earlier. That’s mostly in plantation forestry at this stage. There’s also some work being done to enable the thermal/linescan flights from drones rather than aircraft. Idea being to bring the cost down and thus coverage up.
ListenLinda 3y ago
I worked with a friend competing for a 0.5M prize to build a robot to collect material on the moon. The project was sponsored by NASA. After that experience, I would be hesitant to enter these kinds of completions. At first it seemed straight forward but as things got closer to the end, tiny details about how to the communicate with the robot and other things were changed. It was discouraging to put in all that work, have everything tested perfectly and then at the last minute some rule change comes along or they change things in the environment that was already tested in.
aerialcloud 3y ago
Increasing groundwater will lead to much less wildfire, because trees can bring up groundwater up to hydrate the landscape. There are many ways communities can work to recharge groundwater in their area.

73 points by TheBlapse 3y ago

Not sure that completely stopping wildfires is a good idea as many species of plants depend on fire for seed germination. I think controlled burns may be the way to go instead of preventing wildfires completely

exabrial 3y ago
Controlled burns have been shown to be carbon negative. The destroy invasive species that have not evolved to handle the natural processes native to an area. Humans are actually the biggest issue, once again. Prescribed burns are healthy for ecosystems and for the planet itself.
Etheryte 3y ago
And the competition is not about completely stopping wildfires, as is clearly stated on the linked page. They target what they call Extreme Wildfire Events which are roughly 3% of all wildfires. The focus is on detecting and suppressing those, as those 3% of all wildfires account for 80% of the total damages.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

soperj 3y ago

Best way to end destructive fires is to light destructive fires. The real purpose of fighting these fires seem to be protecting the logging industry.

exabrial 3y ago
The majority of the logging industry is a good thing for the planet. When you log sustainably, you take fixated carbon, turn it into a product that can be used, then allow the area to regrow, fixated more carbon as a building product. The vast majority of the time, it's a win-win. The negatives are supplying things like cheap paper to the post office for marketing departments to across to spam people using US Postal Mail. _Thats_ what needs to be stopped, as it's just a waste.
- soperj 3y ago
  I honestly would be very surprised if they didn't make more CO2 logging and turning that tree into a building product than they sequester. Postal spam is likely even more damaging.
  - danielvf 3y ago
    Trees are roughly 50% carbon by weight. Each pound of carbon represents 3.67 pounds of cleaned carbon dioxide. Each pound of lumber represents 1.8 pounds of carbon dioxide our of the air. It looks like both logging trucks and flatbed timber trucks can carry around 24 tons of lumber, which would be 43 tones of carbon dioxide. Sawmills are efficient, and would make a negligible contribution to total carbon. Transportation would be the biggest carbon cost. At least on the East Cost US there's a lot of timber growing so distances aren't too far. Let's say 200 miles total from logging to sawmill to use. 400 miles round trip. Using average US freight truck emissions that's about 0.07 tons of carbon dioxide released. So let's round that up a bit and say 43 tons sequestered for for 0.1 tons expended. Seems like a win.
    - danielvf 3y ago
      Another way of thinking about this: if you burned 1,600 gallons of gasoline to sequester one 3,000 lb pine tree, you'd be net ahead. Unless I'm really off on my math.
      - boplicity 3y ago
        You can't get ahead if you're pulling carbon out of the ground. That's the fundamental problem. Go ahead and burn all of the carbon you want, as long as it's not coming from long-term storage (e.g. fossil fuels), and is rather already part of the carbon cycle (e.g. trees).
      - danielvf 3y ago
        I did do my math wrong. 220 gallons of gasoline for 3,000 lbs of timber
    - 3y ago
stonogo 3y ago
Spoken like someone who hasn't had to spend weeks with off-the-charts smoke-based air quality problems, followed by hundreds of thousands of people having to replace air filters in houses and cars.
- mkoubaa 3y ago
  Why do you get that impression?
  - stonogo 3y ago
    Because not all wildfires are forest fires, and even when they are they can occur in wildlands which are not subject to logging. Some people see "wildfire" and think about the impact on people near the fire as well as downwind communities. Other people see the term and immediately leap to economic considerations.
- soperj 3y ago
  I live in the pacific northwest... If they light the fires in Spring when it's still wet, you don't get the same magnitude of fire in the summer. It would also help if they didn't spray the areas afterwards with round-up so that Aspen (a fire break species) doesn't grow, so that they can plant round-up ready Pine (a species that promotes fires).
  - stonogo 3y ago
    Forest management is crucial, and prescribed burns are an important element there, but it does nothing to stop other wildfires, like the Vantage Highway fire and the one which destroyed so much property around Lind, WA. Not all wildfires are forest fires.
idiotsecant 3y ago
There is very little focus on protecting logging and a lot of focus on protecting suburban sprawl. We live further and further into ecosystems that up until recently could have burned with minimal impact to humans. Now those same forests are full of cabin-mansions and summer homes of people who are rich enough for the system to care about them.
- soperj 3y ago
  In my Canadian province (BC) most of the trees (and fires) are where people don't live, it's very much about protecting their #1 export (tied with Coal)
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
notatoad 3y ago
>The real purpose of fighting these fires seem to be protecting the logging industry. also, the rural property owners.

JediLuke 3y ago

[dead]

uoaei 3y ago

It seems like the prize is not evaluated based on being able to predict wildfire behavior, but specifically on technologies for quashing wildfires as they start. The former makes a lot of sense, while the latter assumes an outdated perspective on wildland management. Who does this serve?

stonogo 3y ago
It serves the people whose houses are burned and the even larger population who has to live in smoke-polluted air for days or weeks at a time. The prize targets extreme wildfire events, as it says explicitly. Not one of the prizes relates to quashing anything, it's all detection and tracking.
- uoaei 3y ago
  Then someone should probably inform their copywriter that "End Destructive Wildfires" is not an accurate framing of the goals. More like "End Community Destruction By Wildfires"
  - stonogo 3y ago
    The copy is fine, because it's not intended for consumption by robots who cannot derive context. Anyone unwilling to read the entire front page, which contains specifics as to the type and scale of wildfires targeted, is unlikely to either find much success as a contestant or otherwise have a meaningful impact on either the xPrize or wildfires.

giarc 3y ago

It's not really a competition at putting out wildfires, moreso detecting and tracking them. There are 3 separate prizes, so to speak. $5M Autonomous Wildfire Response Track $5M Space-Based Wildfire Detection and Intelligence Track $1M Lockheed Martin Accurate Detection Intelligence Bonus Prize

mrandish 3y ago

On one hand this effort sounds like a good way to generate some interesting concepts. On the other hand, as a long-time resident of a rural, wildfire-prone area, it's also important to educate the public and politicians that there is a large body of proven land management best practices that can already significantly improve prevention, control and mitigation. While we can always do better, we often aren't sufficiently utilizing the tools and techniques we already have. The issues are more often political, economic and systemic than they are not knowing effective ways to further reduce risks and harm. Things like properly managed controlled burns are under-utilized because they are politically controversial. Enacting and enforcing codes mandating land management around private structures are politically unpopular. Out where I live, the local fire rangers just point-blank tell property owners "If you don't clear out all the brush and downed trees within a couple hundred feet of your structures, we're defending your house after the others that meet code" but no politician is willing to tell voters that. Worse, land owners continue to get permits issued to construct permanent dwellings in isolated locations which are extremely difficult to defend. If they want to build there, I say let them but also issue fair warning if they choose to proceed, they are on their own in the event of fire. Volunteer firefighters shouldn't need to risk their lives to defend houses which should never have been built in inaccessible, indefensible locations.

westurner 3y ago
Wildfire suppression: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildfire_suppression#Tactics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildfire_suppression#Tactics History of wildfire suppression in the United States: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_wildfire_suppression_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_wildfire_suppressio... Controlled burn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_burn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_burn > A controlled or prescribed burn, also known as hazard reduction burning, [1] backfire, swailing, or a burn-off, [2] is a fire set intentionally for purposes of forest management, fire suppression, farming, prairie restoration or greenhouse gas abatement. A controlled burn may also refer to the intentional burning of slash and fuels through burn piles. [3] Fire is a natural part of both forest and grassland ecology and controlled fire can be a tool for foresters. Hydrogel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogel Aerogel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerogel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerogel Water-based batteries have less fire risk FWIU "1,000% Difference: Major Storage Capacity in Water-Based Batteries Found" (2023) https://scitechdaily.com/1000-difference-major-storage-capacity-in-water-based-batteries-found/ https://scitechdaily.com/1000-difference-major-storage-capac... > The metal-free water-based batteries are unique from those that utilize cobalt in their lithium-ion form. The research group’s focus on this type of battery stems from a desire for greater control over the domestic supply chain as cobalt and lithium are commonly sourced from outside the country. Additionally, the batteries’ safer chemistry could prevent fires.

devindotcom 3y ago

The tagline "ending" wildfires is definitely misleading as of course they are a natural occurrence. But climate change has made them increasingly intense and frequent and although this may also be "natural" in a way it is also increasingly irreversibly destructive as the forests are not replacing themselves "naturally" but rather with invasive or otherwise undesirable species. Xprize stuff is of course somewhat self-serving and this requires real investment to address (I am writing about one such effort in another tab) but better awareness and intelligence is not a bad thing. No one is talking about eliminating controlled burns or other measures, in fact as the environment macro factors shift we need more information to make informed decisions about when and how to do those. It does serve the logging industry sure, but also major national forests and parks that serve many purposes. Fisheries and fishing companies benefit from watershed restoration and species-based protections but we don't think of it that way. Besides logging is not inherently evil, where do you think all those compostable paper products come from? A better timber industry is needed to support renewables and wildfire mitigation is a part of that evolution.

pupppet 3y ago

Nothing like a video thumbnail of the entire planet on fire to make me question your intent.

gcheong 3y ago

Sponsored in part by PG&E a major cause of wildfires. Seems like a bit of deflection to me.

sam1r 3y ago

I wonder what format the winners’s submission would be. Maybe I’m missing something going through the website. Would it be similar to that of a white paper? Or an actual demo. Or additional working detection hardware… Under the past challenges, one mentions re-engineering a covid mask, so the end point is clear. For this one, it feels much more open ended. Exciting, but I’m also quite curious, if anyone has an idea or examples.

jpgvm 3y ago

Wildfires aren't really the problem on a global scale. They are a bit of a pain in Australia, and US West coast sure. The real problematic fires are currently man-made and entirely purposefully lit, i.e slash and burn agriculture. They are destroying the air and huge amounts of rainforest and jungle in places like Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, Brazil, etc. So while I commend the effort I think the bigger problem at hand is working out how to switch these agriculture systems over to more modern techniques and prevent further destruction of perhaps irreplaceable forests. Most wildfires are generally in fire-prone areas where fires is a frequent and necessary part of life, detecting it sooner to save lives is good, developing better back-burning techniques to reduce intensity during fire season is also good. Just not as much impact on the world as aforementioned agricultural burning. Even though we are at the tail end of the burning season in SEA you can still see how massive the problem is from this satelite detector run by NASA: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/ https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/

fwlr 3y ago
Eh, I think they’re more than “a bit of a pain” in Australia. Bushfire season always kills a few people every year, but it’s only because of us taking fires very seriously and having defense in depth and early evacuation protocols that it doesn’t kill way more. There are cases like 2009 where more than 170 people died, which still may not sound like much for a population of 20 million, but it was mostly in the Kinglake and Marysville areas (roughly 100 deaths out of the area’s population of several thousand). It is a very grave risk with very serious mitigation efforts that largely work. If fire management and response were to break down even a little bit, though, the number of deaths will skyrocket. XPRIZE success on wildfires will be deeply appreciated here.
- jpgvm 3y ago
  Yeah I grew up in rural Australia. I get why it would be useful. Just travelling opened my eyes to much bigger fire problems is all. The pollution caused by slash and burn is estimated to cause ~11k deaths a year in Thailand alone, I imagine the numbers are much worse in Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos. I'm not saying I don't appreciate improvements in detecting and maybe preventing bush fires just trying to raise awareness of a larger more dangerous issue in the world that gets little to no attention because it's outside of Western media sphere.

barathr 3y ago

Unless I'm misreading this, it doesn't include passive fire mitigation approaches. For example, for low-frost areas of California -- which is about half the state currently (expanding all the time), we developed models for planting bananas and irrigating with recycled water, producing a profitable crop yield and providing a non-flammable barrier at the wildland-urban interface: https://raghavan.usc.edu/papers/ediblefirebuffers-biorxiv21.pdf https://raghavan.usc.edu/papers/ediblefirebuffers-biorxiv21....

pwython 3y ago

Relevant article that explains how Trump may have actually been correct in mitigating forest fires by "raking the floor," stemming from a conversation he had with Finland's president: https://www.talouselama.fi/uutiset/finns-mock-trump-on-raking-the-forests-but-what-they-dont-know-is-that-raking-is-an-actual-forest-treatment-method-in-us/588b7311-772f-3f5b-baa6-8bc56398fb67 https://www.talouselama.fi/uutiset/finns-mock-trump-on-rakin... Before the downvotes, please read the article. I have no political affiliation in the US, and this may be one of the only things Trump sorta maybe got right.

tomrod 3y ago

Fire is healthy for the ecosystem. What if instead of fighting the fires, we hardened our dwellings in some way so that they are mildly annoying instead of community ending? Buried utilities, thick brick walls, bunker designs, breaker areas around infrastructure, drone tech to identify and, if possible, cull tumbleweeds, etc.

mNovak 3y ago

While a nice thought, the timeline (<18mo for the space-based sensor track) isn't aligned for developing anything truly new or revolutionary, just some quick reaction rehashing of existing tech (read: now with 'AI').

csh0 3y ago

Anyone interested in linking up to register as a team for either track? “Track A: Space-Based Wildfire Detection and Intelligence In the Space-Based Wildfire Detection & Intelligence track, teams will have one minute to accurately detect all fires across a landscape larger than entire states or countries, and 10 minutes to precisely characterize and report data with the least false positives to two ground stations. Track B: Autonomous Wildfire Response In the Autonomous Wildfire Response track, teams have 10 minutes to autonomously detect and suppress a high-risk fire in a 1,000 km2, environmentally challenging area, leaving any decoy fires untouched.” I think these would be a fun problems work on. You can reach me at: Fire(AT)cynical.io I don’t work in this space normally, currently I work as an SRE, but I am motivated. :)

aaron695 3y ago

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pedalpete 3y ago

One of Australia's mining magnates has been supporting a similar initiative through his non-profit for the last few years with the goal of having any forest fire extinguished (probably managed) within an hour [1]. He's tipped into the XPrize as well [2]. [1]https://www.minderoo.org/fire-and-flood-resilience/fire-shield/ https://www.minderoo.org/fire-and-flood-resilience/fire-shie... [2] https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/andrew-forrest-chips-in-for-a-global-prize-to-fight-bushfires-20230421-p5d268 https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/andrew-forrest-chips...

billclerico 3y ago

I’m a VC specializing in startups addressing wildfire. If I can be helpful to anyone thinking about this problem, I’m bill at convectivecapital.com

griffinkelly 3y ago

This reminds me of the competition to try and stop Asian carp from hitting the great lakes: https://www.outdoorlife.com/stop-asian-carp-earn-1-million/ https://www.outdoorlife.com/stop-asian-carp-earn-1-million/ I hope that's enough to generate some innovation in the area to solve a very large and growing problem.

stevespang 3y ago
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baseline-shift 3y ago

I've read a lot of answers which suggest the usual things that are considered in the wider community, so it is a bit surprising that there are no AI type solutions put forth in this site for hackers. Surely some way to detect and extinguish the beginnings - where these escape notice far from human eyes and noses - has a coding or robotics solution?

davidbanham 3y ago
Yeah a bunch. Satellite monitoring of lightning strikes has been happening for years. We also have hot spot detection from himawari and other satellites. Also very common to have aircraft do FLIR camera runs over the bush on high danger days. A few startups/researchers are looking at distributed sensor arrays with microphones and thermometers to detect ignitions earlier. That’s mostly in plantation forestry at this stage. There’s also some work being done to enable the thermal/linescan flights from drones rather than aircraft. Idea being to bring the cost down and thus coverage up.

ListenLinda 3y ago

I worked with a friend competing for a 0.5M prize to build a robot to collect material on the moon. The project was sponsored by NASA. After that experience, I would be hesitant to enter these kinds of completions. At first it seemed straight forward but as things got closer to the end, tiny details about how to the communicate with the robot and other things were changed. It was discouraging to put in all that work, have everything tested perfectly and then at the last minute some rule change comes along or they change things in the environment that was already tested in.

aerialcloud 3y ago

Increasing groundwater will lead to much less wildfire, because trees can bring up groundwater up to hydrate the landscape. There are many ways communities can work to recharge groundwater in their area.