GRUENHEIDE, GERMANY – SEPTEMBER 03: Tesla chief Elon Musk speaks to the press when he arrives to take a look at the construction site of the new Tesla Gigafactory near Berlin on September 3, 2020 near Gruenheide, Germany. Musk is currently in Germany, where he met vaccine maker CureVac on Tuesday, with which Tesla has a cooperation to build devices for the production of RNA vaccines, as well as with German Minister of Economy Peter Altmaier, yesterday.
Maja Hitij | Getty Images
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced that he is donating $ 100 million to an award for the best technology that can capture carbon dioxide.
Musk, who overtook Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to become the richest person in the world this month, made the announcement on Twitter Thursday night, saying he would share more details next week.
“I’m donating $ 100 million to the award for best carbon capture technology,” Musk tweeted to his 42.7 million followers.
Carbon capture is the process of trapping residual carbon dioxide directly from the air or before it is emitted by factories and power plants.
With the latter, the first step is usually to install solvent filters in factory chimneys, which capture carbon emissions before being released into the Earth’s atmosphere. Once captured, carbon dioxide can be sent or channeled somewhere it cannot escape (usually underground) to prevent it from contributing to global warming.
Most of the captured carbon dioxide remains underground, but some of it can also be used to make plastics and soft drinks.
Why is carbon capture necessary?
Global carbon dioxide emissions have skyrocketed in the past 100 years, leading to unprecedented global warming and climate change.
There are currently about 20 carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) projects operating commercially worldwide, according to the International Energy Agency.
The agency said 30 new projects had been agreed since 2017, but stressed that many more are needed to prevent carbon emissions from increasing Earth’s temperature by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
The IEA believes that CCUS projects can reduce carbon emissions by almost a fifth, while cutting the cost of tackling the climate crisis by 70%. Adapting heavy industry to run on clean energy is relatively difficult and expensive compared to installing carbon capture systems.
US President Joe Biden has pledged to put more focus on cutting emissions than his predecessor and said he wants the US to be carbon neutral by 2050.
‘Plant more trees’
The award to which Musk said he will contribute is connected to the Xprize Foundation, TechCrunch reported, citing an anonymous source. The foundation is a non-profit organization that holds competitions to promote and support innovation.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, Musk has a total net worth of $ 201 billion, while Bezos has $ 193 billion. Microsoft founder Bill Gates is the second richest person, with a total net worth of $ 134 billion.
Musk recently asked his Twitter followers what to do with their money.
“Critical feedback is always highly appreciated, as are ways to donate money that really make a difference (much harder than it looks),” he tweeted on January 8.