A new XPrize competition has been announced that takes aim at the problem of carbon pollution, with hopes of unearthing new technologies that can remove it from the atmosphere and ocean. The prize money is being put up by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who highlights the need for “carbon negativity” and warns that “time is of the essence.”

The US$100 million Carbon Removal competition is the latest contest from XPrize designed to tackle the globe’s most pressing problems with technology, and is its largest one to date in terms of incentive. It will take place across four years and involve entrants around the world who will be tasked with developing prototype systems capable of removing one ton of carbon dioxide from the air per day.

As part of this, the teams will need to show how the captured carbon can be locked away safely, with the criteria dictating that teams should aim for a 100-year period minimum. Teams will be judged mainly on the cost per ton of carbon captured, and will need to demonstrate how it can be scaled up to the gigaton level.

“We want to make a truly meaningful impact,” says Musk. “Carbon negativity, not neutrality. The ultimate goal is scalable carbon extraction that is measured based on the ‘fully considered cost per ton’ which includes the environmental impact. This is not a theoretical competition; we want teams that will build real systems that can make a measurable impact and scale to a gigaton level. Whatever it takes. Time is of the essence.”

“The goal of this competition is to inspire entrepreneurs and engineers to build the carbon dioxide removal solutions, many of which have only been discussed and debated. We want to see them built, tested, and validated,” says Peter H. Diamandis, Founder and Executive Chairman of XPrize.

https://newatlas.com/environment/elon-musk-carbon-removal-100-million-xprize-global-warming/

PermeateFree said:

A new XPrize competition has been announced that takes aim at the problem of carbon pollution, with hopes of unearthing new technologies that can remove it from the atmosphere and ocean. The prize money is being put up by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who highlights the need for “carbon negativity” and warns that “time is of the essence.”

The US$100 million Carbon Removal competition is the latest contest from XPrize designed to tackle the globe’s most pressing problems with technology, and is its largest one to date in terms of incentive. It will take place across four years and involve entrants around the world who will be tasked with developing prototype systems capable of removing one ton of carbon dioxide from the air per day.

As part of this, the teams will need to show how the captured carbon can be locked away safely, with the criteria dictating that teams should aim for a 100-year period minimum. Teams will be judged mainly on the cost per ton of carbon captured, and will need to demonstrate how it can be scaled up to the gigaton level.

“We want to make a truly meaningful impact,” says Musk. “Carbon negativity, not neutrality. The ultimate goal is scalable carbon extraction that is measured based on the ‘fully considered cost per ton’ which includes the environmental impact. This is not a theoretical competition; we want teams that will build real systems that can make a measurable impact and scale to a gigaton level. Whatever it takes. Time is of the essence.”

“The goal of this competition is to inspire entrepreneurs and engineers to build the carbon dioxide removal solutions, many of which have only been discussed and debated. We want to see them built, tested, and validated,” says Peter H. Diamandis, Founder and Executive Chairman of XPrize.

https://newatlas.com/environment/elon-musk-carbon-removal-100-million-xprize-global-warming/

A carbon negative earth?

so the equivalent of someone on $50k a year forgoing their 1 week of 50 L petroleum consumption in the name of saving the planet

Be interested to see the results of this

dv said:

Be interested to see the results of this

Reverse engineering. Turn it back into coal and oil and put it back where it was?

roughbarked said:

dv said:

Be interested to see the results of this

Reverse engineering. Turn it back into coal and oil and put it back where it was?

Take it out of the air and bury it.

Grow stuff with lots of leafy mass. Turn it into charcoal via pyrolysis using solar thermal as the heat source. Collect up the carbon and add it to farm soils, or bury it deeper underground. Maybe fill in old abandoned mines with it. You can use the gas produced from pyrolysis as a low grade fuel for a power station or something.

party_pants said:

roughbarked said:

dv said:

Be interested to see the results of this

Reverse engineering. Turn it back into coal and oil and put it back where it was?

Take it out of the air and bury it.

Grow stuff with lots of leafy mass. Turn it into charcoal via pyrolysis using solar thermal as the heat source. Collect up the carbon and add it to farm soils, or bury it deeper underground. Maybe fill in old abandoned mines with it. You can use the gas produced from pyrolysis as a low grade fuel for a power station or something.

Could we actually fill in mines with coal dust, you could get rid of a lot of it that way, it comes from there on somewhere like that in the first place.

SCIENCE said:

so the equivalent of someone on $50k a year forgoing their 1 week of 50 L petroleum consumption in the name of saving the planet

Yes he was clever enough to make a lot of money and is now using in a most constructive manner. Who could say more?

Cymek said:

party_pants said:

roughbarked said:

Reverse engineering. Turn it back into coal and oil and put it back where it was?

Take it out of the air and bury it.

Grow stuff with lots of leafy mass. Turn it into charcoal via pyrolysis using solar thermal as the heat source. Collect up the carbon and add it to farm soils, or bury it deeper underground. Maybe fill in old abandoned mines with it. You can use the gas produced from pyrolysis as a low grade fuel for a power station or something.

Could we actually fill in mines with coal dust, you could get rid of a lot of it that way, it comes from there on somewhere like that in the first place.

Probably. But I though the whole point is to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Preventing new carbon being burnt and ending up as CO2 is important too, but I was not thinking along those lines.

party_pants said:

Cymek said:

party_pants said:

Take it out of the air and bury it.

Grow stuff with lots of leafy mass. Turn it into charcoal via pyrolysis using solar thermal as the heat source. Collect up the carbon and add it to farm soils, or bury it deeper underground. Maybe fill in old abandoned mines with it. You can use the gas produced from pyrolysis as a low grade fuel for a power station or something.

Could we actually fill in mines with coal dust, you could get rid of a lot of it that way, it comes from there on somewhere like that in the first place.

Probably. But I though the whole point is to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Preventing new carbon being burnt and ending up as CO2 is important too, but I was not thinking along those lines.

Not burning anymore coal but at least get rid of the currently existing waste

the introductory course to terraforming, and related building smaller enclosed habitable environments

yeah should all be handy, probably a good investment given the present uncontrolled and insane expansion of the species, good press too you know, while the megastupid unfolds

Cynical reaction.

Well, to remove carbon from the ocean, mine the coral reefs, they contain carbonate.

To put it another way, remove all dead coral from the ocean. That deepens the water enough for a new spurt of coral growth. Coral growth is the fastest way to remove carbon from the ocean.

They were talking of spraying the oceans with iron oxide to vitalise plankton weren’t they ?

Did they ever do that ??

wookiemeister said:

They were talking of spraying the oceans with iron oxide to vitalise plankton weren’t they ?

Did they ever do that ??

Happens every time we have a dust storm. Has been doing it for thousands of years.

Got nothing to do with climate change and carbon though.

wookiemeister said:

They were talking of spraying the oceans with iron oxide to vitalise plankton weren’t they ?

Did they ever do that ??

I don’t think so. They needed the funding for it from government grants and trading schemes and so on. Too hard to quantify and come up with any solid numbers.

It should work in theory though. Photosynthetic nitrogen fixing bacteria need iron oxide to make nitrogenase. Once they get enough of that they are away fixing nitrogen, which gets taken up by microalgae, swhich gets eaten by zooplankton, which gets eaten by larger animals. The animals digest the good bits and shit out the carbon as waste. Shit sinks to the bottom of the ocean floor, locking the carbon away. In some places of the world’s oceans the lack of iron oxide is the limiting factor in kicking off the whole food chain.

party_pants said:

wookiemeister said:

They were talking of spraying the oceans with iron oxide to vitalise plankton weren’t they ?

Did they ever do that ??

I don’t think so. They needed the funding for it from government grants and trading schemes and so on. Too hard to quantify and come up with any solid numbers.

It should work in theory though. Photosynthetic nitrogen fixing bacteria need iron oxide to make nitrogenase. Once they get enough of that they are away fixing nitrogen, which gets taken up by microalgae, swhich gets eaten by zooplankton, which gets eaten by larger animals. The animals digest the good bits and shit out the carbon as waste. Shit sinks to the bottom of the ocean floor, locking the carbon away. In some places of the world’s oceans the lack of iron oxide is the limiting factor in kicking off the whole food chain.

The plant algae of course consume carbon dioxide in their photosynthesis.

wookiemeister said:

They were talking of spraying the oceans with iron oxide to vitalise plankton weren’t they ?

Did they ever do that ??

Who was talking about that?

Some nut?

wookiemeister said:

They were talking of spraying the oceans with iron oxide to vitalise plankton weren’t they ?

Did they ever do that ??

That’s a good point. I haven’t heard. (Checks web)

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization

There have been 12 international ocean studies since 1995.
“The most recent open ocean trials of ocean iron fertilization were in 2009 (January to March) in the South Atlantic by project Lohafex, and in July 2012 in the North Pacific off the coast of British Columbia, Canada, by the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation”.

“The parties to the London Dumping Convention adopted a non-binding resolution in 2008 on fertilization. The resolution states that ocean fertilization activities, other than legitimate scientific research, should be considered as contrary to the aims of the Convention and Protocol and do not currently qualify for any exemption from the definition of dumping.”

See also: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2019.00022/full

humans are disastrously attracted to expanding the extent the entire world conforms to their ideas about it, as a species they keep increasing their ‘understanding’ of the world, eventually the entire thing will be maintained in whatever state by human ideas, if they don’t lose control of it, but they’ll push it right to the edge, everyone hanging on the thermostat and whatever, apparently saving it, but like so many ideas humans have they really are to distract from a potentially very uncomfortable other dimension of reality

the problem won’t decline any with the projected billions more of the future, the population overshoot and peak (followed by a rapid decline)