| This 4-year competition with a total award amount of 100 million US dollars has promoted the industry to take a big step towards a carbon negative emission solution that changes the rules of the game
LOS ANGELES, May 10, 2024/AP/-- As the world's leading design and operation agency for large-scale incentive competition to solve major challenges facing mankind, XPRIZE today announced that 20 teams have been selected for the final of the XPRIZE Carbon Removal Competition and will participate in the final stage of the competition. The four-year global competition aims to combat climate change by rebalancing the Earth's carbon cycle. The competition provides innovators with a $100 million prize to encourage them to design and demonstrate solutions that remove carbon dioxide (CO2) directly from the atmosphere or the ocean and store it permanently and sustainably. The award catalyzes the development of a new industry and encourages more than 1300 teams to develop new plans for carbon dioxide removal (CDR). These 20 finalists represent leading carbon dioxide removal solutions and are expected to make significant contributions to diversified and sustainable gigabit ton carbon dioxide removal worldwide.
The excessive carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere and oceans is the main driving factor of climate change, and the carbon dioxide emissions generated by humans account for about two-thirds (71%) of the total greenhouse gas emissions. In addition to significantly reducing emissions, sustainable and scalable carbon removal solutions are also needed to prevent the global average temperature from rising more than 1.5 ° C, and to avoid the risks of extreme high temperatures, abnormal climate patterns, as well as the pressure on food production and water resources acquisition. Without effective climate intervention measures, the global average temperature may rise by 6 ° C in this century.
"In order to effectively address the issue of greenhouse gas emissions globally, carbon removal is a key element on the road to net zero emissions. If carbon is not extracted from the atmosphere and oceans, it is impossible to reverse the human impact on climate." Anousheh Ansari, CEO of XPRIZE, said. "In order to manage the large amount of carbon dioxide released into the environment and having an impact on the earth, we need a series of bold and innovative CDR solutions. The teams participating in the competition for this award are committed to creating a set of robust and effective solutions, and the 20 teams entering the final stage of the XPRIZE Carbon Removal Competition will have the opportunity to demonstrate their potential to have a significant impact on the climate."
The finalists were selected based on their performance in three key areas: operations, sustainability and cost. The shortlisted team made a substantive demonstration that the amount of carbon dioxide removed in the last year of the competition was close to the competition target of 1000 net tons. By understanding the environmental and social impacts of the solutions they adopted, they pointed out a practical path to achieve the goal of removing millions of tons of carbon dioxide in the next few years, and finally removing gigabit tons of carbon dioxide.
The following are 20 finalists arranged according to the four carbon removal paths of the competition: atmosphere, rock, ocean, land and ocean.
Atmosphere, direct air capture (DAC)
1. Airlive - headquarters location: UK, demonstration location: Canada
Airlive technology uses low-cost, non-toxic metal oxide adsorbent to achieve rapid removal of carbon dioxide. Airlive cooperates with carbon dioxide storage provider Extrara, which will react the atmospheric carbon dioxide captured by Airlive with mine tailings through its proprietary process.
2. Heirloom - headquarters location: America, demonstration location: America
Heirloom has created a low-cost DAC technology, which can greatly accelerate the natural process of capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and form limestone within a few days, thus permanently removing carbon dioxide on a scale of one billion tons.
3. Octavia Carbon - headquarters location: Kenya, demonstration location: Kenya
Octavia Carbon is the leading DAC company in the south of the world, focusing on the design, construction and deployment of highly modular machines, and using advanced DAC technology to extract carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere.
4. Project Hajar (44.01&Air Capture) – Headquarter location: Oman and the United States, demonstration location: Oman
Project Hajar is a cooperation project between 44.01 and AirCapture. It combines the most advanced DAC technology deployed by AirCapture in Oman with the pioneering carbon dioxide mineralization technology of 44.01, aiming to convert captured carbon dioxide into rocks.
5. Skyrenu - headquarters location: Canada, demonstration location: Canada
Skyrenu combines the DAC system with the rock carbonization process for the treatment of asbestos tailings, which is intended to permanently store carbon.
rock
6. Arca - headquarter location: Canada, demonstration location: Australia
Arca's patented technology can accelerate the carbon mineralization process in mine tailings and waste rocks, and transform ultramafic tailings into huge carbon sinks by activating magnesium silicate minerals, thus creating an industrial scale carbon dioxide removal solution.
7. Lithos - headquarters location: America, demonstration location: America
Lithos Carbon accelerates the natural carbon cycle of the earth by promoting the enhanced rock weathering (ERW) technology in the agricultural field, so as to permanently remove carbon dioxide from the air, increase farmers' crop yield and improve soil health. The organization uses organic volcanic basalt dust and advanced science and technology to measure the removal effect of carbon dioxide, aiming to achieve decarbonization of the food system.
8. Mati - headquarter location: America, demonstration location: India
Mati uses basalt to permanently remove carbon from the atmosphere in small farmers' rice fields based on Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW) technology. This process can not only remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but also supplement key nutrients in the soil, which is conducive to the restoration of degraded soil, thus benefiting small farmers.
9. Silicate - headquarters: Ireland, demonstration location: Ireland
Silicate Carbon uses the surplus concrete in the construction industry to improve agricultural land. It permanently removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by accelerating the natural geochemical process of mineral weathering, while improving the pH value of soil, increasing crop production, and reducing dependence on pesticides and fertilizers.
10. UNDO - Headquarters location: UK, demonstration location: UK
UNDO makes use of natural enhanced rock weathering (ERW) to obtain permanent and high-quality carbon removal credits, and provides support on the path of enterprises to achieve net zero emissions, providing synergy.
11. Yuanchu - Headquarter location: China, demonstration location: China
As a start-up company focusing on the development of disruptive direct air mineralization (DAM) technology, Yuanchu aims to remove carbon dioxide from the air at a cost of less than $200 per ton of carbon dioxide at a scale of gigatonnes, and permanently store it in solid carbonization materials. Its mineralized products can be stable for 1000 years.
land
12. Climate Robotics - Headquarter location: America, demonstration location: America
Limate Robotics makes it possible to apply biochar in a wide range in agriculture. Biochar can improve soil health and remove excess carbon in the atmosphere. The company's mobile technology can transform crop stalks in the air and in the field into durable biochar, thus creating economic benefits for farmers and ecosystems.
13. Mash Makes – headquarter location: Denmark, demonstration location: India
MASH Makes pioneered the pyrolysis and gasification technology to convert agricultural wastes into negative carbon emission energy and biochar that can be used to improve soil, aiming to actively respond to carbon emissions.
14. Net Zero - headquarters location: France, demonstration location: Brazil
NetZero's mission is to promote biochar as a climate and agricultural solution on a large scale by focusing on developing rich crop straw resources that are not used in tropical areas. The company is both a biomass supplier and a biochar customer. It uses its proprietary technology to produce medium-sized, automated, highly optimized and easy to replicate pyrolysis devices, and adopts an end-to-end business model to improve the participation of local farmers. This model simplifies the logistics process, enhances traceability, and promotes local procurement.
15. Takachar - headquarters location: India, demonstration location: Kenya
Takachar has built a decentralized Internet of Things reactor network using MIT technology to rapidly and economically expand the deployment of biochar without relying on carbon offset credits. The organization uses low-cost and portable hardware devices that are being patented. This makes it possible to use local crop straws to produce customizable fertilizers with biochar as raw material in the village, thus ultimately increasing crop output by 30%, net income by 50%, and promoting climate justice.
16. Vaulted Deep - Headquarters location: America, demonstration location: America
Vaulted uses geological storage technology to treat carbon containing organic waste, thus providing scalable and permanent carbon removal services. Its patented slurry storage technology involves injecting minimally treated waste into geology to achieve permanent (over 10000 years) carbon removal.
ocean
17. Captura - headquarter location: the United States, demonstration location: the United States
Captura provides a scalable, low-cost direct ocean capture (DOC) carbon removal solution that uses seawater and renewable energy to generate high concentration carbon dioxide streams for storage without the need for other external additives or by-products. DOC technology requires no fresh water, occupies a small area, and can supply power intermittently.
18. Ebb - Headquarter location: America, demonstration location: America
Ebb Carbon is creating a new carbon removal solution, which aims to safely store carbon dioxide by strengthening the natural function of the ocean. This electrochemical ocean alkalinity enhancement method is expected to become one of the methods with the largest scale and lowest cost to reduce the ocean acidity while removing excess carbon dioxide.
19. Kelp Blue - Headquarter location: Netherlands, demonstration location: Namibia
Kelp Blue has cultivated giant kelp (giant kelp) in Namibia, New Zealand, and is about to plant giant kelp (giant algae) in the offshore farm of Alaska, overcome the expansion limit of enclosed waters by using the pioneering underwater structure, and benefit from the local nutrient upwelling system at the same time. The harvested canopy biomass is processed into sustainable agricultural and packaging products, while the remaining biomass has the natural ability to store carbon, promote biodiversity and provide ecological benefits.
20. Planetary - headquarters location: Canada, demonstration location: Canada
Planetary uses ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) technology to enhance the natural carbon removal capacity of the ocean, cooperates with stakeholders to carry out global projects, uses the ocean carbon platform (OCP) to identify alkali sources, automate operations, ensure marine safety, and measure carbon removal and profit from it.
Nikki Batchelor, executive director of XPRIZE Carbon Removal, said: "These outstanding teams represent innovative solutions for the diversification of different CDR paths, and demonstrate the significant progress made by the industry in a short time. In the past three years, the competition has accelerated the development of technology and injected vitality into a new industry aimed at providing high potential solutions to reverse climate change. "
In addition, the judges also selected three "XFactor teams" - Metaplant, Gigabit and Alaska Future Ecology Institute - although these teams could not reach the final, they are exploring exciting new concepts with significant impact potential. XPRIZE also released the list of the top 100 teams, which represent a new generation of promising solutions involving various carbon removal paths.
Since the first XPRIZE Carbon Removal Competition was held in 2021, more than 1300 teams from 88 countries and regions have participated in the competition through the four carbon removal paths provided by the competition. The total number of members of these teams is more than 8400, with various backgrounds, including scientists, engineers, technicians, students and new entrants.
"To achieve gigaton carbon removal, many innovators must be involved, and everyone must work together to promote climate recovery. The XPRIZE Carbon Removal Award is the industry's highly anticipated innovation catalyst. "Ben Rubin, executive director and co-founder of Carbon Business Council, and an important partner of the Carbon Removal Award, said." The efforts of these teams are promoting the improvement of carbon removal paths of the same kind, so as to achieve the best of the best. We expect influence not only from the winning team, but also from the whole competition. "
The final stage of the competition will be held in the next year. The final team will challenge the removal of 1000 net tons of carbon dioxide, and finally participate in the selection based on the total cost, operating performance and satisfaction of the expansion requirements for sustainability. Up to now, the XPRIZE Carbon Removal Competition has awarded 20 million dollars in prizes, including 5 million dollars to 23 student teams and 15 million dollars to 15 landmark winners. The winner will receive a prize of 50 million dollars, and the runner up selected by the judges in April 2025 will share the prize of 30 million dollars.
XPRIZE Carbon Removal Competition was held on the basis of XPRIZE's previous work in the field of carbon management, including NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE. The project provided $20 million to innovators, aiming to develop breakthrough technologies that can capture and transform industrial carbon dioxide emissions into usable products. The award of the competition was first awarded in 2021, and the award-winning technology will mineralize carbon into concrete to reduce the carbon footprint of the building environment.
XPRIZE Carbon Removal Competition is sponsored by the Musk Foundation. |
