[HN Gopher] xPrize Wildfire - $11M Prize Competition
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xPrize Wildfire - $11M Prize Competition
Author : TheBlapse
Score : 45 points
Date : 2023-04-21 17:29 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.xprize.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.xprize.org)
| gcheong wrote:
| Sponsored in part by PG&E a major cause of wildfires. Seems like
| a bit of deflection to me.
| mNovak wrote:
| 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').
| Steven420 wrote:
| 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
| Etheryte wrote:
| 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.
| exabrial wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| soperj wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| oatmeal1 wrote:
| > The majority of the logging industry is a good thing for
| the planet.
|
| Absolutely not. The amount of carbon sequestered is
| inconsequential relative to the habitat destruction, habitat
| fragmentation, species going extinct, etc.
| davidbanham wrote:
| For clear felling in a rainforest, sure. For clear felling
| in a timber plantation, probably? For selective logging
| outside particularly sensitive areas, nah.
| soperj wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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).
| soperj wrote:
| You haven't sequestered anything by getting it to the
| sawmill, that's only one portion of the journey. Also
| Using the Environmental Protection Agency's Greenhouse
| Gas Equivalency Calculator, one ton of carbon is
| equivalent to 413 gallons of gasoline, so I think your
| math is off.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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)
| stonogo wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Why do you get that impression?
| soperj wrote:
| 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).
| barathr wrote:
| 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....
| JediLuke wrote:
| [dead]
| tomrod wrote:
| 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.
| sam1r wrote:
| 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.
| uoaei wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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"
| devindotcom wrote:
| 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.
| giarc wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| hellotomyrars wrote:
| The access issue is huge and crosses over in to other issues
| (Inaccessible public land). I didn't do wildland firefighting
| when I was a volunteer firefighter but the other people around
| talked about it a lot. There were areas that had to pay more to
| be served by neighboring agencies.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| Yep, you don't fight massive fires with whizbang technical
| novelties. In the context of fires big enough to matter the
| only tools in your toolbox that are sufficiently scalable are
| very low tech.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| > In the context of fires big enough to matter the only tools
| in your toolbox that are sufficiently scalable are very low
| tech.
|
| Isn't that the whole point of this X Prize, to improve the
| tools available?
| ortusdux wrote:
| The #1 tool in our toolbox is prevention. This is a
| multipart prize, with $5m going to fire detection, and $5m
| going to fire response. To me it feels like pushing for
| research into reducing fevers when the virus is the
| problem.
|
| The low tech solutions are typically fuel load reduction,
| fire breaks, controlled burns, and community education. The
| first two are standard techniques used by the forestry
| industry, and they funnel a lot more than $11m into R&D.
|
| That being said, new tech for monitoring and controlling
| controlled burns would be great.
|
| Biden-Harris cut loose almost $200m for wildfire defense a
| month ago. California got more than half of it, WA got
| $25m, and OR got $24m. I'm very interested to see the
| results.
|
| https://www.usda.gov/media/press-
| releases/2023/03/20/biden-h...
| seltzered_ wrote:
| Thanks for this comment. When reading the part where the xprize
| site says "especially in the expanding Wildland-Urban
| Interface, where homes, businesses, and major infrastructure
| are most at risk"
|
| It reminded me of the excerpt from the film 'Tending the Wild'
| about California natives where one argues one needs to learn to
| 'smell the smoke':
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=42&v=Z-EXQ9be8mE&feature=you...
|
| To me, this is more of a predicament around what our human
| expectations are and how to appropriately live, especially if
| populations are desiring to build settlement structures in ways
| that create wildlife urban interface.
| westurner wrote:
| Wildfire suppression:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildfire_suppression#Tactics
|
| 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
|
| > _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
|
| 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-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._
| mrandish wrote:
| That's a good list of useful links. From my experience as a
| home owner in a high-risk area, I'd add some of the things
| which can make a big difference are often surprisingly
| simple. In addition to managing your own land properly, make
| sure you have a large enough water tank to support
| firefighters in protecting your land. We got a well tank five
| times bigger than our typical usage needs. Another key thing
| is to put your tank next to where a fire truck can access it
| easily and get the proper adapter installed so the fire truck
| can direct connect to your tank (it's not included in most).
|
| We also widened the access road on our property to support
| larger fire trucks and dozers. Obviously, fire-resistant
| construction materials and techniques are a huge help and not
| all require extensive retrofitting. There are spark resistant
| attic air access covers which are easy to install. We needed
| to re-roof and remodel anyway so we went with fire-resistant
| roofing and concrete siding. It's also important to have non-
| cellular local communications because the cell towers often
| go out first (our community uses 2-meter handsets for
| emergency comms). Doing those things along with the fact
| we've cleared all trees and brush out beyond 300 feet and
| only have metal out-buildings caused our local fire chief to
| comment that if everyone did what we've done, protecting the
| whole region would be three times easier. We also have enough
| generator power (on auto-failover) to pump our own well water
| to wet down our house and surroundings. With that our house
| has a really strong probability of surviving with no external
| help even if our property is directly hit by a major
| wildfire.
|
| Edit to Add: I forgot to mention another key thing. If you
| live in a place like this, there's often only a single narrow
| public road serving your property and others nearby. Make
| sure you have transportation that'll let you get out cross-
| country if the road is blocked by either fire or heavy
| equipment. We have AWD ATVs fueled and always ready to go
| (plus they are handy around big properties like this).
| Between us and our neighbors we have a plan to get everyone
| on our road out without outside help - including a few
| elderly folk who will need assistance. Firefighters needing
| to rescue unprepared residents diverts vital resources from
| fighting the fire and clogs roads - which just makes
| everything else worse.
| mackid wrote:
| Great comments and advice. My neighborhood burned in the
| #GlassFire [0]. While our property was severely damaged,
| our home survived, due to many of the hardening techniques
| you mentioned and great work by CalFire. We had evacuated
| the night before and were staying in a local hotel watching
| the flames advance on our house via our security cameras.
| (Redundant net connections and a generator kept everything
| online). As our deck started to burn I called 911 to report
| it, figuring nothing would happen. About 20 minutes later a
| fireman walked into the frame of the camera and 2 minutes
| later the deck was out and the house was saved. I was
| cheering like I won the Super Bowl. So I really appreciate
| all the hardening I did, on-site water and CalFire.
|
| When we rebuilt the exterior, I installed a set of
| sprinklers that ring the house and cover the roof/deck.
| They are not designed to fight the fire, instead I can
| activate them before a fire arrives to get things good and
| wet. This perimeter reduces the available fuels, reduces
| the heat load on the structure and reduces the risk of
| ember cast. It was a fun project with an ESP controller to
| sequence the valves and provide remote control.
|
| Over the last few years, the Alert Wildfire Camera system,
| now over 700 cameras, has been a valuable resource. [1]
| Early detection of the fire, before it grows to extreme
| size has made a big difference. In the North Bay of
| California last year, this early detection and CalFire
| having nearby Air Attack resources on standby kept many
| small fires from becoming large ones in this area.
|
| Another great resource is the Watch Duty app. [2] This is a
| non-profit, volunteer, but extremely professional service.
| They started in Northern California and are rapidly
| expanding. It is the go-to resource for Wildfire related
| information in the area.
|
| Lastly, if anyone is looking at the X prize for satellite
| detection, I'd spend some time researching MODIS/VIIRS data
| products from NASA. [3]. A good starting point in some of
| the challenges of wildfire detection from space.
|
| [0]. Fire tornado outside my window.
| https://youtu.be/1tZjWqh3-EU
|
| [1]. https://www.alertwildfire.org/
|
| [2]. https://www.watchduty.org/
|
| [3]. https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/
| westurner wrote:
| > _Hydrogel_
|
| From https://twitter.com/westurner/status/1572664456210948104
| :
|
| >> _What about #CO2 -based #hydrogels for fire fighting?_
|
| >> _/? Hydrogel firefighting (2022)
| https://www.google.com/search?q=hydrogel+firefighting_ [...]
|
| >> _IDEA: How to make #hydrogels (and #aerogels) from mostly
| just {air*, CO2, algae, shade, and sunshine,} [on earth, and
| eventually in space,]?_
| westurner wrote:
| > _Aerogel_
|
| From
| https://twitter.com/westurner/status/1600820322567041024 :
|
| > _Problem: #airogel made of CO2 is an excellent insulator
| that 's useful for many applications; but it needs
| structure, so foam+airogel but that requires smelly foam_
|
| > _Possible solution: Cause structure to form in the
| airogel._
|
| Backpack shoulder straps on e.g. Jansport backpacks have a
| geometric rubber mesh that's visible through a plastic
| window.
|
| ## Possible methods of causing structure to form in aerogel
|
| - EM Hz: literally play EM waves (and possibly deliberately
| inverse convolutions) at the {#airogel,} production process
|
| - Titratation
|
| - Centrifugation
|
| - "Volt grid": apply volts/amps/Hz patterns with a probe
| array
|
| - Thermal/photonic bath 3d printing
|
| - Pour a lattice-like lens as large as the aerogel sections
| and allow solar to cause it to slowly congeal to a more
| structural form in advantageous shapes
|
| - Die-casting, pressure-injection molding
| westurner wrote:
| > _Water-based batteries have less fire risk FWIU_
|
| CAES Compressed Air Energy Storage and Gravitational
| potential energy storage also have less fire risk then
| Lithium Ion batteries.
|
| FWIU we already have enough abandoned mines in the world to
| do all of our energy storage needs?
|
| Could CAES tanks filled with air+CO2 help suppress wildfire?
| aaron695 wrote:
| [dead]
| pwython wrote:
| 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-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.
| csh0 wrote:
| 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. :)
| jpgvm wrote:
| 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/
| pupppet wrote:
| Nothing like a video thumbnail of the entire planet on fire to
| make me question your intent.
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