Elon Musk to award $100 million for best Carbon Capture Technology
Through his Twitter handle, Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted that he would be giving away $100 million towards a prize for creating the best technology to capture carbon emissions from the air.
Elon Musk, CEO and Co-founder of Tesla Inc, is once again ruling the airwaves, this time for donating $100 million as prize money for development of the best technology to capture carbon dioxide, an announcement he shared on his personal Twitter handle.
“Am donating $100M towards a prize for best carbon capture technology,” he had tweeted further adding that he would be sharing “details next week”.
Ever since the dawn of the industrial revolution, an immense amount of carbon dioxide has been released into the atmosphere as a result of human activities. According to scientific reports, this excess CO2 has led to global warming, resulting in the melting of ice caps and extreme weather. The effects of Climate Change can be noticed as an increase in the number of forest fires and faster melting of glaciers, putting our earth at risk.
Elon Musk’s announcement is coming as the world tries to limit the increase in global temperatures to two degrees Celcius, in line with the Paris Climate Agreement, and several studies suggest that the goal cannot be achieved without removing carbon from the atmosphere.
Carbon Capture Technology (CCT) involves trapping carbon dioxide at the source of its emission and transporting it to a storage facility and isolating it. This can pave way for a much greener future.
Elon Musk, Founder of Tesla.
Last week, Elon Musk’s philanthropic organisation ‘Musk Foundation’ donated $5 million to non-profit education platform Khan Academy, to accelerate their educational content.
Earlier this month, he became the world’s richest man, after which he dropped a spot. But at that time, he even asked his followers on how he could give his money away.
“Critical feedback is always super appreciated, as well as ways to donate money that really make a difference (way harder than it seems)," Musk had tweeted.
So far, he has donated about $257 million to the Musk Foundation, which provides support through grants for many causes, including renewable energy research and advocacy, human space exploration research and advocacy, paediatric research, science and engineering education, and the development of safe artificial intelligence to benefit humanity.
Edited by Kanishk Singh