GRUENHEIDE, GERMANY – SEPTEMBER 03: Tesla boss Elon Musk speaks to the press as he takes 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 is cooperating to build devices for the production of RNA vaccines, as well as German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier yesterday.
Maja Hitij | Getty Images
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, announced that he is donating $ 100 million for a prize for the best technology that can capture carbon dioxide.
Musk, who overtook Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to become the richest person this month, made the announcement on Twitter late Thursday, saying he would share more details next week.
“We donated $ 100 million to a prize for the best carbon capture technology,” Musk wrote to 42.7 million followers.
Carbon sequestration is the process of capturing residual carbon dioxide either directly from the air or even before it is emitted from factories and power plants.
With the latter, the first step is often to install solvent filters on the chimneys, which capture carbon emissions before they are released into the Earth’s atmosphere. Once captured, carbon dioxide can then be transported or transported to the country from somewhere it cannot escape (often in the depths of the ground) to prevent the contribution to global warming.
Most of the captured carbon dioxide remains underground, but some of it can also be used to make plastics and soft drinks.
Why is it necessary to capture carbon?
Global carbon dioxide emissions have increased over the last 100 years, leading to global warming and unprecedented climate change.
There are currently about 20 carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) projects operating commercially worldwide, according to the International Energy Agency.
The agency said 30 new projects had been agreed since 2017, but stressed that much more was needed to prevent carbon emissions from rising to more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
The IEA estimates that CCUS projects could reduce carbon emissions by almost a fifth, while reducing the costs of tackling the climate crisis by 70%. Adapting heavy industry to clean energy is relatively difficult and expensive compared to installing carbon capture systems.
US President Joe Biden has pledged to put more emphasis on reducing emissions than his predecessor and has said he wants the US to be carbon neutral by 2050.
‘Plant more trees’
The award Musk said he would 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 rich person, with a total net worth of $ 134 billion.
Musk recently asked his followers on Twitter what he should do with his money.
“Critical feedback is always highly valued, as well as ways to donate money that really make a difference (much harder than it seems),” he wrote on Twitter on January 8th.