Elon Musk raises $ 100 million as part of a new X Prize Foundation competition focusing on carbon removal technology. The match, which was announced Monday morning, lasts four years and is open to teams around the world.
Fifteen teams will be selected for the competition within 18 months. They will each receive $ 1 million, and 25 separate $ 200,000 scholarships will be awarded to student teams who enroll. The winner of the grand prize will be awarded $ 50 million, the second place will receive $ 20 million and the third place will receive $ 10 million.
Winners will need to ‘demonstrate a solution that can extract carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere or oceans and permanently shut it off in an environmentally friendly way’, according to the X Prize Foundation. Judges will look for solutions that can remove one tonne of CO2 per day that could increase to gigaton levels. Complete competition guidelines will be published on April 22nd.
“We want to make a significant impact. Carbon negativity, not neutrality, ”Musk said in a statement. “This is not a theoretical competition; we want teams that will build real systems that can make a measurable impact and scale to a gigaton level. Whatever it takes. Time is of the essence. ”
Musk first announced that he would donate money for a prize in January, not long after Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos succeeded in becoming the richest person in the world. When that happened, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX asked his millions of Twitter followers for “ways to donate money that can really make a difference.” The $ 100 million comes from Musk’s own foundation. This donation roughly doubles the amount he has donated so far in public through the Musk Foundation.
Carbon removal technology is an expensive idea that has not yet been proven on a large scale, with options ranging from financing reforestation projects to physically extracting greenhouse gases from the air. But it has become fashionable as the world warms. It is especially popular among large enterprises. Last year, Stripe made it possible for businesses using its payment processing platform to donate portions of their carbon removal development revenue. technology.
Most importantly, in 2020, Microsoft announced that it wanted to capture the equivalent of all the carbon dioxide it had ever released. The company pledged $ 1 billion for the effort.
Last month, we got our first look at the slight progress Microsoft has made with the goal. The company has procured contracts to capture 1.3 million tonnes of CO2, or just 11 percent of its total emissions for 2020 alone.