GRUENHEIDE, GERMANY – SEPTEMBER 3: Tesla boss Elon Musk speaks to the press as he arrives to take a look at the construction site of the new Tesla Gigafactory near Berlin on September 3, 2020 near Gruenheide, Germany. Musk is currently in Germany, where he met on Tuesday with vaccine maker CureVac, with which Tesla has a cooperation to build devices to produce RNA vaccines, as well as yesterday with German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier .
Maja Hitij | Getty Images
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has announced that it will give $ 100 million in a prize for the best technology capable of capturing carbon dioxide.
Musk, who surpassed Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in becoming the richest person in the world this month, made the announcement on Twitter Thursday afternoon, saying he would share more details next week.
“I’m giving away $ 100 million to get a prize for the best carbon capture technology,” Musk sent to his 42.7 million followers.
Carbon capture is the process of capturing carbon dioxide waste directly from the air or just before it is emitted from factories and power plants.
With the latter, the first step is often to install solvent filters in factory chimneys, which capture carbon emissions before they are released into the Earth’s atmosphere. Once captured, carbon dioxide can be sent or channeled to a place where it cannot escape (often to underground depths) to prevent it from contributing to global warming.
Most of the captured carbon dioxide remains underground, but can also be used to make plastics and soft drinks.
Why is carbon capture necessary?
Global carbon dioxide emissions have increased over the past 100 years, leading to global warming and unprecedented climate change.
Currently, according to the International Energy Agency, there are about 20 carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) projects that operate commercially worldwide.
The agency said 30 new projects had been agreed since 2017, but stressed that much more was needed to prevent carbon emissions from raising the temperature on Earth to more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above levels. preindustrials.
The IEA estimates that CCUS projects could reduce carbon emissions by almost a fifth, while reducing the cost of tackling the climate crisis by 70%. Adapting heavy industry to run on clean energy is relatively difficult and costly compared to installing carbon capture systems.
U.S. President Joe Biden has pledged to focus more on reducing emissions than his predecessor and has said he wants the United States to be carbon neutral by 2050.
“Plant more trees”
The award Musk said he will contribute is related to the Xprize Foundation, TechCrunch reported, citing an anonymous source. The foundation is a non-profit organization that organizes competitions to promote and support innovation.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, Musk has a total net worth of $ 201 billion, while Bezos has $ 193 billion. Microsoft founder Bill Gates is the next richest person, with a total net worth of $ 134 billion.
Recently, Musk asked his Twitter followers what he should do with his money.
“Critical feedback is always much appreciated, as are ways of giving money that really make a difference (much harder than it sounds),” he tweeted on January 8th.