Change I Can Believe In - Transterrestrial Musings - The prize part is in the comments:
I was also checking out the former blog of Peter Orszag (from his time as director of the Congressional Budget Office), who Obama just named as director of the Office of Management and Budget. From one of his recent posts, he seems to be a fan of using prizes to encourage technological breakthroughs:
http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=181
Peter Orszag and Technology Prizes - Mark Whittington - Mark speculates on what it might mean.