Tesla CEO Elon Musk has announced that he will donate $ 100 million as a prize for the best carbon capture technology.
Carbon capture
Carbon capture, also called ‘carbon capture and storage’ (CCS), is what people call processes that involve the capture of carbon dioxide (CO2) at the source of emissions and sequestration so that it cannot leak into the air.
It sometimes also involves technologies to use the carbon for other purposes.
The concept has been proposed as a possible solution to slow down climate change by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere or even reversing it in the future.
However, current carbon capture technologies have often proved inefficient and have cost energy production, making them uncompetitive without carbon prices.
Elon Musk gets involved
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, announced a plan to encourage the development of carbon capture technology by offering a $ 100 million prize to the ‘best carbon capture’:
He did not say more about how the prize would go, but he said more information would be released next week.
How it plays out in Tesla’s plan
Musk said earlier that Tesla’s mission is to accelerate the advent of electric transport and renewable energy to address climate change.
At a conference on the sidelines of the Paris Agreement, the CEO of Tesla described the emission of large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as the ‘dumbest experiment in history’.
He explained that as human beings, due to the finite nature of fossil fuels, we will eventually have to switch to renewable energy.
Therefore, it is ‘stupid’ not to want to move as quickly as possible if we do not know the consequences of changing the atmosphere content, and the worst case scenarios are quite devastating.
Musk said:
‘The worst case scenario, however, is more displacement and destruction than all the wars in history combined. These are the best / worst case scenarios. Then we have about 3 percent of the scientists who believe in the best case. About 97 percent believe in the worst case. That’s why I call it the dumbest experiment in history ever. Why would you do that? ‘
Tesla’s mission is to accelerate the transition to try to avoid the worst – case scenario, but if necessary, carbon capture may be necessary to limit or reverse the impact of this ‘dumb scientific experiment’.
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