Who are the 15 winning teams in the Elon Musk-funded decarbonization competition?

In celebration of Earth Day, April 22, 2022, XPRIZE, a leader in competitions, awards and achievements that benefit humanity, announced that 15 winning teams have been selected during the current phase of the XPRIZE Carbon Removal competition. With $100 million in funding from famous entrepreneur Elon Musk.

It is the largest motivational award in history, and the XPRIZE Decarbonization teams represent the largest group of innovators working to decarbonise.

Announcing the award

In January 2021, Elon Musk, the developer of Tesla electric cars and SpaceX rockets, announced his intention to award the prize to inventors working to combat global warming, combat climate change and rebalance the carbon cycle on a global scale. ground.

The rules of the competition were revealed to coincide with Earth Day, April 22, 2021. The organizers of the competition said that it will last 4 years until Earth Day in 2025. 

“Even if we cut CO2 production, it might still not be enough,” says Peter Demandis, founder and CEO of the nonprofit XPRIZE. “We need mechanisms to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and oceans.” So this award was announced for finding promising ways to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by extracting it directly from the air.

The award announcement comes as the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns in stark terms of the danger of rising global temperatures, including worsening temperatures, fires, storms and droughts.

Many companies are working to find a solution to the issue of removing carbon dioxide, which costs $300 to remove one metric ton from the atmosphere at a time when greenhouse gas emissions are equivalent to 50 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year.

$1 million per team

According to XPRIZE, each of the 15 winning teams received $1 million in the early 'milestone round', to recognize their efforts to date and support their ongoing work to scale solutions.

The winners represent 9 countries: Australia, Canada, France, Iceland, Kenya, the Netherlands, the Philippines, the United Kingdom and the United States. Unlike previous prizes, each of the 15 teams remains eligible to compete and win the grand prize in 2025, with the single jackpot winner receiving $50 million, while $30 million will be distributed to the 3 contestants in the following places.

According to the competition website, the conditions for the competition were very strict, with the number of advanced teams being reduced from 1,133 teams to 287 teams who meet the eligibility criteria for the main stage prizes. Then 70 expert reviewers screened and ranked the received proposals for scientific validation, and selected the top 60 teams.

Next, the judges delved deeper into operations plans, performance data, life-cycle analysis, and cost estimates in order to select the ultimate top 15 teams for the million-dollar prizes.

There is still a chance to sign up

According to the XPRIZE website , the winners of the main round are not necessarily advanced or prioritized for the $80 million final prize money. Anyone can still participate in the contest until December 1, 2023. It is likely that they will receive a share of this money.

The final winning team or teams will need to demonstrate that they can remove 1,100 tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year, show the cost of removing 1.1 million tons per year, and figure out a way to remove billions of tons of carbon dioxide annually.

Note that a third party, neither the Participants nor the XPRIZE, will independently validate the work submitted for the Grand Prize to be announced on April 20, 2025.

In addition to the 15 winning teams, XPRIZE also announced $5 million in prizes for college student teams last fall. Announced Earth Day winners propose a variety of ways to remove carbon dioxide.

Examples of winning companies

The teams applying to the competition seek a mixture of well-known solutions and new methods of decarbonization such as ecosystem restoration, biochar, agricultural solutions, organic and inorganic ocean solutions, etc. Any solution is eligible to participate in the competition as long as it actually works.

“One year on, we are already seeing the positive impact of the award, with hundreds of teams working on a wide range of promising solutions for decarbonization. Not just ideas, but plans for development and deployment, and that's exactly that,” says Dr. Marcius Extavor, Senior Scientist and Vice President Climate and Environment at XPRIZE. What we need."

The ideas of reducing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were varied by the winning teams, whether through the cultivation of algae or the production of a type of artificial limestone, among others. According to a report published on the science website Phys.org, the Canadian company Planetary Technologies, one of the winners of the competition, seeks to increase the ocean's capacity to absorb greenhouse gases by controlling the rising acidity of sea water. Using antacids produced from metal mining residues.

Another winner, 8 Rivers Capital of Durham, North Carolina, is trying to trap atmospheric carbon dioxide in calcium carbonate crystals, similar to how dissolved gas in the ocean helps In the composition of seashells and limestone.

"The calcium cycle is how the Earth regulates carbon dioxide over millions of years. We're kind of accelerating that natural cycle," says company spokesman Adam Joffe.

And Global Algae, based in California, won a plan to grow algae to help restore rainforests, which capture vast amounts of carbon dioxide. Company director Mark Haslebeck says the algae could be a more efficient and profitable alternative to raising livestock, soybean and palm oil crops on cleared rainforest land. "We're actually producing more oil and protein at the same time we're reforesting," Hazlebeck adds.

Source : Phys.org + Websites

Turkey prepares to launch its satellite "Imge" in January 2023

Turkish Minister of Industry and Technology Mustafa Varank announced that his country is preparing to launch its "Imge" satellite into space in mid-January 2023.

Turkish Minister of Industry and Technology Mustafa Varank announced that his country is preparing to launch its "Imge" satellite into space in mid-January 2023, to reduce dependence on the outside and meet the needs of Turkish institutions for high-resolution satellite images.

This came in statements made by Varank on Tuesday on the sidelines of his visit to the Space Systems Testing and Integration Center (USET) in the capital, Ankara, where the development of the aforementioned satellite is continuing.

The minister pointed out that work is continuing to put the final touches on the local satellite, explaining that after the completion of the final tests, the "image" will be sent to the United States of America to be ready for launch as of next November.

The minister referred to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's statements about Turkey's intention to launch the aforementioned satellite by mid-January 2023.

In the same context, Varank confirmed that the "Imge" satellite is entirely produced and developed by Turkish engineers and scientists, indicating that the most important feature of it is the locally manufactured camera lenses as well.

It is noteworthy that after President Erdogan announced Ankara's launch of the "National Space Program" in 2021, the country began to accelerate work on its program in the field of space studies and satellite development.

The project aims to develop value-added commercial equipment and enhance Turkey's role in the domestic and international markets through the development of displays, communications, satellite management and energy-related subsystems.

Through the project, which was developed in TUBITAK laboratories, the equipment used in the aerospace industries, the production of flight models, the improvement of structural and thermal efficiency, electrical integration systems, and the successful conduct of the necessary tests were carried out.