Winners of the international $100m XPRIZE carbon removal competition funded by the charitable Musk Foundation have been announced and can now press on with scaling their technologies.
Mati Carbon received the $50m grand prize for its enhanced rock weathering solution – beating 20 finalists across 11 countries – and runners up NetZero (a French biochar company), Vaulted Deep (a US waste management firm) and Undo Carbon (a rock weathering company operating in Scotland and Canada) were awarded $15m, $8m, and $5m respectively.
The winning firm demonstrated “a highly durable approach to CDR [carbon dioxide removal], by applying finely crushed basalt over agricultural lands in India to accelerate a natural weathering process that permanently draws down atmospheric CO2,” according to a statement. It aims to remove 100 million tonnes of CO2 by 2040 while creating agronomic and financial benefits for smallholder farmers in the global south.
The four-year competition was designed to combat climate change by challenging teams around the world to develop CDR solutions that are scalable to gigatonne level, and sustainably remove CO2 from the atmosphere and oceans.
Anousheh Ansari, CEO of XPRIZE, said, “The technologies developed by these winning teams represent hope with a broad range of approaches that are suitable for different geographies and can help the world reach Net Zero and ultimately reverse climate change.”
Two awards of $1m each were awarded to Planetary Technologies and Project Hajar, a partnership between Aircapture and 44.01, which removes atmospheric CO2 using direct air capture and mineralises it in peridotite rock formations deep underground in the UAE’s Hajar mountains.
Carbon capture projects are moving forward but have been slowed at times by public concerns, complex permitting, and supply chain hurdles.
Planetary Technologies recently had to shelve a project in St Ives, Cornwall, in the UK, due to commercial and logistical challenges, though it is working on its improved-CO2-absorption-in-the-oceans tech in other locations.
