XPrize, a nonprofit organization that designs and hosts public competitions aimed at benefiting humanity through innovation, will manage the $100 million incentive from Elon Musk’s gigaton carbon removal competition. Musk announced that he would be donating $100M, which was funded by the Musk Foundation, as a prize for the best carbon capture technology last month.
XPrize shared details about the 4-year global carbon removal competition dedicated to fighting climate change and rebalancing Earth’s C02 cycle. Elon Musk and the Musk Foundation’s donation will be distributed in several ways.
First, $1 million will be given to 15 teams with the best CO2 removal solutions. Teams and innovators from around the world are invited to demonstrate their Carbon Removal solutions with a validated scale model to competition judges.
Teams can register to enter the competition and learn more about its guidelines on Earth Day, April 22 2021. The basic criteria for the competition are listed below.
- A working carbon removal prototype that can be rigorously validated and capable of removing at least 1 ton per day.
- The team’s ability to demonstrate to the judges that their solution can economically scale to the gigaton level.
- The main metric for this competition is fully considered cost per ton, inclusive of whatever considerations are necessary for environmental benefit, permanence, any value-added products; and
- The final criteria is the length of time that the removed carbon is locked up for. A minimum goal of 100 years is desired.
Besides the $1 million each of the 15 top teams will received, XPrize will also award a total of 25 student scholarships worth $200,000 to student teams in the competition.
The remaining $100M donation will be allocated prize money given to the winners of the competition, with the first place receiving a grand prize of $50 million, the second place receiving a price of $20 million, and the third place receiving $10 million.
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