Letter of Withdrawal to X-CHALLENGE Committee April 4, 2011

Text of Letter to David Locke

David Locke

Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X CHALLENGE

X PRIZE Foundation

5510 Lincoln Blvd. Suite 100

Playa Vista, CA 90094-2034

U.S.A

Dear David:

On July 29, 2010, the X PRIZE Foundation announced their newest challenge, promising, in their guidelines, to seek “bold new creative approaches, needed to make breakthrough oil spill technology commercially available.”

As stated: “The goal is to inspire a new generation of oil spill cleanup technologies that enable a more rapid pace of cleanup, and broaden the environmental conditions under which oil spill cleanup can take place.”

Contrary to these stated goals and objectives all solutions that involve sorbents have been eliminated irrespective of their merit and their adherence to the goals and objectives of the competition.

Nothing in the original Overview or the goals eliminated the use of sorbent technology. However, on March 29, 2011, during a Webinar called to discuss completing the required forms, Cristin Dorgelo Lindsay made it clear that a final judgement had been made to eliminate sorbent technologies.

Instead of allowing all reasonable solutions, she stressed that sorbent technologies would be “prohibited”. In reference to the use of sorbents, she warned that “if you intend to utilize that (sorbents) as part of your solution . . . you will not be moving forward as a Finalist Team - as those solutions are not eligible for this competition.”

With the prohibition on sorbents, we therefore withdraw ourselves from what has become an unfair, biased and profoundly flawed process, inconsistent with the X CHALLENGE’S goals and objectives. We earnestly challenge you to answer these simple questions:

1. Why are environmentally benign sorbents prevented from entry and excluded from consideration?

2. How can the Challenge be a fair opportunity to obtain the fastest, safest, and most efficient environmentally sustainable approach to oil spill cleanup with rules that prohibit potentially the best alternatives?

3. The test criteria conveniently create a low recovery threshold of 70 % for qualification (creating a bias toward skimmers that always leave a substantial percentage of oil in the water), yet disallows sorbents like MOP 201 that are known to have a 99% oil recovery rate. Is the X CHALLENGE intentionally lowering expectations?

Unfortunately, the Oil Cleanup X CHALLENGE, with its minimal recovery expectations, guarantees that the catastrophic failure of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill response will likely be repeated.