Xprize invites entries, Rajasthan Patrika associates to promote in India

The XPRIZE Carbon Removal competition, funded by The Musk Foundation, aims to address humanity's greatest  challenge ever: combating climate change and rebalancing the carbon cycle on the planet. Climate change needs  urgent attention globally, Rajasthan Patrika is in association with the initiative to promote the noble cause in India.  Rajasthan Patrika is always proactive in support of such environmental causes.  

The XPRIZE Carbon Removal competition, a $100M competition, is the largest incentive prize in history. This five year global competition invites participants from around the world to create and demonstrate solutions that can  extract carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere or oceans, and can be stored durably and sustainably. 

“This is not a theoretical competition; we want teams that will build real systems that can make a measurable  impact and scale to a gigaton level. Whatever it takes. Time is of the essence,” says Elon Musk (CEO and Co founder, Tesla, SpaceX and THE BORING COMPANY). 

In order to win the grand prize, teams must demonstrate a working solution at a scale of at least 1000 tonnes  removed per year, model their costs at a scale of 1 million tonnes per year, and show a path to achieving a scale of  gigatons per year in the future. 

It is better late than never to rewrite history. This competition is an opportunity for all of us to contribute human  creativity and innovation for a better future of all residents of the planet earth,” says Anousheh Ansari (CEO,  XPRIZE). 

Any carbon-negative solution is eligible, including nature-based, direct air capture, oceans, mineralization, and  anything else that achieves net negative emissions, sequesters CO2, and helps in achieving low cost at gigatonne  scale. 

“We hope this XPRIZE will activate the public and private sectors to get involved in the same way that the $10M  Ansari XPRIZE brought about the commercial spaceflight industry”, states Peter H. Diamandis (Founder and CEO,  XPRIZE).  

“From G20 to COP26 everyone is discussing the climate change emergency. Not just the governments but future  minded corporate leaders, innovators and thought leaders need to embrace the cause and create environmental  consciousness. Patrika has stepped in to make the cause a cause of people”, said Siddharth Kothari (AMD, PATRIKA  GROUP). 

Divided in two phases, proof of concept and full demonstration, the prize money awarded to 15 milestone winners  in the first phase is US$15Million, with 15 teams able to receive $1M each. Whereas the grand prizes will total  US$80 Million, with $50M going to first place. The grand prizes will be announced on 22nd April, 2025.  

In the first phase, a team of students --Srinath Iyer (PhD student), Anwesha Banerjee (PhD student), Srushti  Bhamare (BTech+MTech student), and Shubham Kumar (Junior Research fellow-Earth Science) from Indian  Institute of Technology, Bombay who created a tri-modular technology that can capture carbon dioxide from point  sources of emission and transform them into salts were awarded in the student’s category.  

Entries from all over the world are invited to register to compete. Rajasthan Patrika readers can scan a QR code  placed in the newspaper and get complete information about the ongoing competition.