An Indian company that publishes broken rocks on farmers’ fields was awarded to help draw carbon dioxide, which calms the climate from the atmosphere, a major prize of $ 50 million in an international competition funded by the Elon Musk Foundation.
Mati Carbon was among more than 1,300 teams from 88 countries that participated in the four -year carbon removal competition, which was launched in 2021 to encourage the deployment of carbon removal techniques. Many scientists believe that carbon removal is crucial in global warming, caused by burning fossil fuels such as gasoline, coal and oil, which releases carbon dioxide.
“It is important not to enhance the removal of carbon dioxide as an alternative to reducing emissions,” said Michael Leich, the technical lead of the competition. “But the race is both to reduce our current emissions (and) also … Spreading the solutions of carbon dioxide removal with very large standards worldwide.”
The award is awarded at a time when Musk and the Ministry of Government Agency are severe discounts for federal financing and employees of the National Oceanic and Air Country Administration, the National weather service and other agencies based on science that carry out important climate research. The Trump administration has also moved to countless environmental regulations, including some of them regulating carbon emissions.
while Musk Foundation sponsored the XPrize Carbon RemoveXPrize officials said that a total of $ 100 million is officially not officially to the California -based organization.
XPrize operates other competitions to try to solve societal challenges. CEO Nikki Bacchilor said the organization is studying more climate -related competitions that deal with issues such as removing a strong greenhouse gas, re -embarrassment and adaptation to climate and flexibility.
Shantano Agawwal, CEO of Mati Carbon, believes that his relatively low -cost company approach “has the ability to solve some planetary domain problems” with the help of young farmers who often carry climate change, as harsh weather events such as drought and floods of crops are destroyed.
“When it rains, a mixture of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, said the way that is called improved rocky rock, is somewhat clear. Carbonnic acid is converted into a mineral called bicarbonate, which cannot restore gas to the atmosphere and ultimately wash to the ocean, as it has been stored about 10,000 years ago.
Jordan said that Matti Carbon is spreading the basalt rock that has already been crushed-and in many parts of the world-in the fields “to accelerate something that happens anyway.” Broken rocks also release nutrients that help renew the soil and increase productivity.
Smaller prizes in the last year of the competition were awarded to many other teams that have succeeded in removing 1000 tons of carbon dioxide, a threshold that shows the ability to expand to remove Gigatons in the coming decades.
This included 15 million dollars to the runner -up NetZero, which converts the residue of crops such as coffee peels into coal -like molecules, which can be used in fields to help storage carbon in the soil while improving nutrient and water retention.
Other projects included storing deep underground organic waste, enhancing the ability of the oceans to store carbon and remove carbon directly from the air.
Scientists were exploring a series of so -called geological engineering solutions for climate change, from drying Alawite atmosphere to Pumping minerals in the ocean Carbon absorption.
Rick Spinrad, a former NOAA official, called the final candidates’ solutions “unusual scientific concepts” and said that the best way to reduce carbon may be a mixture of technologies.
Leich, of XPRIZE, said that some solutions that have not won – including direct air and the direct ocean capture of carbon dioxide – may have a widely published feature.
“It takes a lot of time and money for construction, so I think the time will tell him,” Leich said.
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