XPRIZE & Musk Foundation Award $15 Million To Carbon Removal Prize Winners

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XPRIZE and the Musk Foundation have awarded $15 million to prize milestone winners. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO donated $100 million to fund a carbon removal competition with the goal of fighting climate change while also rebalancing our planet’s carbon cycle. In November 2021, XPRIZE announced 23 carbon removal student award winners.

On Earth Day, XPRIZE and the Musk Foundation announced that a total of 15 teams from 9 countries were awarded $1 million milestone awards each as part of the next stage of the $100 million XPRIZE carbon removal competition.

The organizations also said that the overall winners will be awarded $80 million in 2025. The milestone winners represent the following countries:

• Australia.
• Canada.
• France.
• Iceland.
• Kenya.
• The Netherlands.
• The Philippines.
• The United Kingdom.
• The United States.

Dr. Marcius Extavour, chief scientist and vice president of climate and environment at XPRIZE, spoke of the positive impact of the prize just one year in.

“One year in, we already see the positive impact of the prize: hundreds of groups working on a wide range of promising carbon removal solutions. Not just ideas, but development and deployment plans, which is exactly what we need. The pace and depth of initiatives in carbon removal and other crucial climate solutions has never been greater, but we still need more — more and deeper emissions cuts, and more reliable, validated carbon removal solutions. That’s why we launched this prize in the first place.”

The Winning Teams

Each of the winning teams has been organized into four primary solution types: Air, Land, Ocean, and Rocks. The list of the winning teams are as follows:

Air

• Calcite from 8 Rivers Capital — U.S.
• Carbyon — Netherlands
• Heirloom & Carbfix — U.S. & Iceland
• Project Hajar — U.K.
• Sustaera — U.S.
• Verdox & Carbfix — U.S. & Iceland

Land

• Bioeconomy Institute Carbon Removal Team from Iowa State — U.S.
• Global Algae Innovations — U.S.
• NetZero — France
• PlantVillage from Penn State — U.S.
• Takachar & Safi Organics from University of British Columbia — Kenya

Ocean

• Captura from California Institute of Technology — U.S.
• Marine Permaculture SeaForestation from the Climate Foundation — U.S., the Philippines & Australia
• Planetary — Canada

Rocks

• Carbin Minerals from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver — Canada