Huge bonuses attract and encourage innovators to develop and scale carbon removal solutions to combat climate change
Los Angeles--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- XPRIZE is a global leader in this field by designing and implementing incentive competitions to solve major challenges facing humanity. XPRIZE announced today that under the sponsorship of Elon Musk and the Musk Foundation, it will launch the XPRIZE carbon removal competition with a prize of up to 100 million U.S. dollars.
This four-year global competition invites innovators and innovation teams from all over the world to create and showcase solutions that can directly extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or ocean and store it permanently in an environmentally friendly way. In order to win the competition, the participating teams must come up with a rigorous and effective solution scale model, with a carbon removal of 1 ton of carbon dioxide per day, and must further prove to the review team that the solution can achieve economic scale, reaching one billion Ton level. The XPRIZE competition aims to brainstorm, promote the large-scale development of effective solutions, and strive to jointly achieve the annual carbon removal target of tens of billions of tons by 2050, in order to better combat climate change and restore the planet's carbon balance.
Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, said: "We want to make a real and far-reaching impact to achieve the goal of negative carbon, not just carbon neutral. The ultimate goal is'per ton Fully considered the cost' (including environmental impact) to obtain a large-scale carbon extraction program. This is not a theoretical competition. We hope that the participating teams can create a truly practical system that can bring about a huge impact. And expand to the billion-ton level. At all costs. Time is of the essence."
Peter H. Diamandis, Founder and Executive Chairman of XPRIZE, said: “We challenge engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs to convene them to create and demonstrate effective carbon removal systems. The system can have a truly feasible level of carbon removal under small-scale conditions. , The daily carbon removal amount reaches 1 ton, and then, the contestants have to prove to us that these systems can be scaled in a cost-effective manner to reach a considerable billion tons level. The purpose of this competition is to encourage entrepreneurs and engineers Create effective carbon dioxide removal solutions, many of which are currently only at the stage of discussion and consideration. We hope to see these solutions implemented, tested, and have real effects. We hope that this XPRIZE competition will enable the public and private sectors Actively participate in it-just as the Ansari XPRIZE competition with a prize money of tens of millions has injected great vitality into the commercial aerospace industry."
For mankind to achieve the goal of the "Paris Agreement" and to control the temperature rise of the earth within 1.5°C, or even within 2°C, compared with the pre-industrial level, we need to take bold and active technological innovation and continue to expand the scale. This is not only to control carbon dioxide emissions, but actually also requires us to remove the carbon dioxide that already exists in the atmosphere and oceans. If human activities continue business as usual, the global average temperature will rise by 6°C by 2100.
The complete rules of the competition will be announced on "Earth Day" on April 22, 2021, and team registration will also be open on that day. The contest will last for four years until the end of "Earth Day" in 2025.
The $100 million prize will be awarded in the following way:
After 18 months, the top 15 participating teams will each receive US$1 million after being assessed by the competition judges. The Milestone Award will initiate team fundraising to raise the operating budget for the comprehensive demonstration necessary to win the contest.
At the same time, a total of 25 scholarships of US$200,000 each will be awarded to the participating student teams.
The remaining $80 million in prize money will be awarded in the following manner:
- Grand Prize Winner (First Place): 50 million USD
- Second place: 20 million US dollars
- Third place: US$10 million
Participating teams can submit registrations for natural, engineering and hybrid solutions. The contest judges will judge the participating teams based on four basic criteria:
- An effective carbon removal prototype can be rigorously verified to prove that the daily carbon removal can reach at least 1 ton.
- The participating teams were able to prove to the judges that their solutions can achieve economic scale, reaching the billion-ton level.
- Fully considered cost per ton is the main measurement indicator of this competition, including all considerations necessary for judging environmental benefits, durability, and various value-added products; and
- The last metric is the length of time the removed carbon can be stored. The minimum target is 100 years.
Anousheh Ansari, CEO of XPRIZE, said: “The changing climate of the earth is a huge threat to mankind. But if we take action now, it is not too late! Human imagination and creativity can shape a brighter home for our planet. , A more sustainable future. Through cooperation with Elon and the Musk Foundation, we will brainstorm and find cost-effective solutions that can be implemented on a large scale in the real world. With the XPRIZE carbon removal competition, we hope The participating teams create history, reshape the future, and become our climate heroes.
"We look forward to the participation of many teams with diverse backgrounds from all over the world. A hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend. This is the charm of the XPRIZE competition. This fits well with the theme of the carbon removal competition, because the carbon dioxide is extracted from the atmosphere and ocean. There are also a variety of methods. We look forward to seeing engineered direct air capture, mineralization and enhanced weathering, natural solutions based on plants and trees, or solutions focused on the ocean in the competition. Now we hope that Seeing a large number of feasible and scalable solutions, so that we can work together to deploy the best solutions as soon as possible."
For the latest information on the competition schedule and important dates for the competition, please visit XPRIZE.org/prizes/elonmusk .
The epoch-making XPRIZE contest has a prize of up to 100 million U.S. dollars, except for the carbon scale of one billion tons. Welcome to watch and share the 90-second promotional video of the contest .
About XPRIZE
XPRIZE is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and a global leader in the design and implementation of innovative competition models to solve difficult global challenges. Ongoing competitions include: prize money of 2,000 million dollars NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE contest, prize money of 1,000 million dollars of XPRIZE Rainforest contest, prize money of 1,000 million dollars of ANA Avatar XPRIZE contest, prize money 600 million dollar XPRIZE new crown virus rapid test competitions, prizes 500 million dollar IBM Watson artificial intelligence XPRIZE competition (IBM Watson AI XPRIZE) , prize money 500 million dollar XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling contest, and prize money 50 million dollars in response to the epidemic challenge. For more information, please visit xprize.org .
About the Musk Foundation
The Musk Foundation raises funds to support: renewable energy research and promotion; human space exploration research and promotion; pediatric research; science and engineering education; and the development of safe artificial intelligence for the benefit of mankind.