Virgin Earth Challenge
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The Virgin Earth Challenge was a competition offering a $25 million prize for whoever could demonstrate a commercially viable design which results in the permanent removal of greenhouse gases out of the
Earth's atmosphere The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing fo ...
to contribute materially in
global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
avoidance. The prize was conceived by Richard Branson, and was announced in
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
on 9 February 2007 by Branson and former US
Vice President A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on ...
Al Gore Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore was the Democratic no ...
. Among more than 2600 applications, 11 finalists were announced on 2 November 2011. These were Biochar Solutions, from the US; Biorecro, Sweden; Black Carbon, Denmark;
Carbon Engineering Carbon Engineering Ltd. is a Canadian-based clean energy company focusing on the commercialization of Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology that captures carbon dioxide (CO2) directly from the atmosphere. This captured can either be stored underg ...
, Canada; Climeworks, Switzerland; COAWAY, US; Full Circle Biochar, US; Global Thermostat, US; Kilimanjaro Energy, US; Smartstones – Olivine Foundation, Netherlands, and The Savory Institute, US. The prize was never awarded. In 2019, Virgin took the prize website offline after having kept the 11 finalists in suspension for eight years. Al Gore had withdrawn from the jury earlier and commented that he was not part of the decision to discontinue the contest.


The challenge

The Prize was to be awarded to "a commercially viable design which, achieves or appears capable of achieving the net removal of significant volumes of anthropogenic, atmospheric GHGs each year for at least 10 years", with significant volumes specified as "should be scalable to a significant size in order to meet the informal removal target of 1 billion tonnes of carbon-equivalent per year". One tonne of carbon-equivalent (C) equals 3.67 tonnes of
carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide ( chemical formula ) is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. In the air, carbon dioxide is trans ...
(). (Because of the relationship between their
atomic weight Relative atomic mass (symbol: ''A''; sometimes abbreviated RAM or r.a.m.), also known by the deprecated synonym atomic weight, is a dimensionless physical quantity defined as the ratio of the average mass of atoms of a chemical element in a giv ...
s, more precisely 44/12.) At present, fossil fuel emissions are around 6.3 gigatons of carbon. The prize would initially only be open for five years, with ideas assessed by a panel of judges including Richard Branson, Al Gore and
Crispin Tickell Sir Crispin Charles Cervantes Tickell (25 August 1930 – 25 January 2022) was a British diplomat, environmentalist, and academic. Background Tickell was the son of writer Jerrard Tickell and Renée ( Haynes), a great-granddaughter of Thomas ...
(
British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...
diplomat), as well as
scientist A scientist is a person who conducts scientific research to advance knowledge in an area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engaged in the philosoph ...
s
James E. Hansen James Edward Hansen (born March 29, 1942) is an American adjunct professor directing the Program on Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions of the The Earth Institute, Earth Institute at Columbia University. He is best known for his research ...
, James Lovelock and
Tim Flannery Timothy Fridtjof Flannery (born 28 January 1956) is an Australian mammalogist, palaeontologist, environmentalist, conservationist, explorer, author, science communicator, activist and public scientist. He was awarded Australian of the Yea ...
. The prize term was extended until 2019. Around two hundred billion metric tons of carbon dioxide have accumulated in the atmosphere since the beginning of the
industrial revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
, raising concentrations by more than 100 parts per million (ppm), from 280 to more than 380 ppm. The Virgin Earth Challenge was intended to inspire
inventors An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...
to find ways of bringing that back down again to avoid the dangerous levels of
global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
and
sea level rise Globally, sea levels are rising due to human-caused climate change. Between 1901 and 2018, the globally averaged sea level rose by , or 1–2 mm per year on average.IPCC, 2019Summary for Policymakers InIPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cry ...
predicted by organisations such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The Virgin Earth Challenge was similar in concept to other high technology competitions, such as the
Orteig Prize The Orteig Prize was a reward offered to the first Allied aviator(s) to fly non-stop from New York City to Paris or vice versa.Bak. Pages 28 and 29. Several famous aviators made unsuccessful attempts at the New York–Paris flight before the rel ...
for flying across the
Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...
, and the Ansari X Prize for
spaceflight Spaceflight (or space flight) is an application of astronautics to fly spacecraft into or through outer space, either with or without humans on board. Most spaceflight is uncrewed and conducted mainly with spacecraft such as satellites in o ...
.


Competing technologies

The eleven finalists represent five competing technologies, some being represented by multiple finalists.


Biochar

Biochar Biochar is the lightweight black residue, made of carbon and ashes, remaining after the pyrolysis of biomass. Biochar is defined by the International Biochar Initiative as "the solid material obtained from the thermochemical conversion of ...
, created by
pyrolysis The pyrolysis (or devolatilization) process is the thermal decomposition of materials at elevated temperatures, often in an inert atmosphere. It involves a change of chemical composition. The word is coined from the Greek-derived elements ''py ...
of biomass. Pyrolysis is a process where biomass is partially combusted in an oxygen-limited environment, which produces a char rich in carbon. This char can be distributed in soils as a soil amendment. Finalists competing with biochar designs: * Biochar Solutions, US * Black Carbon, Denmark * Circle Biochar, US


BECCS (Bio-energy with carbon capture and storage)

Bio-energy with carbon capture and storage Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is the process of extracting bioenergy from biomass and capturing and storing the carbon, thereby removing it from the atmosphere. The carbon in the biomass comes from the greenhouse gas carbon ...
(BECCS) combines combustion or processing of biomass with geologic
carbon capture and storage Carbon capture and storage (CCS) or carbon capture and sequestration is the process of capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) before it enters the atmosphere, transporting it, and storing it (carbon sequestration) for centuries or millennia. Usually th ...
. BECCS is applied to industries such as electrical power, combined heat and power, pulp and paper, ethanol production, and biogas production. There is 550 000 tonnes /year in total BECCS capacity operating, divided between three different facilities (as of January 2012). BECCS was pointed out in the
IPCC Fourth Assessment Report ''Climate Change 2007'', the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was published in 2007 and is the fourth in a series of reports intended to assess scientific, technical and socio ...
by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as a key technology for reaching low carbon dioxide atmospheric concentration targets.Fischer, B.S., N. Nakicenovic, K. Alfsen, J. Corfee Morlot, F. de la Chesnaye, J.-Ch. Hourcade, K. Jiang, M. Kainuma, E. La Rovere, A. Matysek, A. Rana, K. Riahi, R. Richels, S. Rose, D. van Vuuren, R. Warren, (200
"Issues related to mitigation in the long term context", In Climate Change 2007: Mitigation. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change
. Metz, O.R. Davidson, P.R. Bosch, R. Dave, L.A. Meyer (eds) Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
The negative emissions that can be produced by BECCS has been estimated by the
Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
to be equivalent to a 50 to 150 ppm decrease in global atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and according to the International Energy Agency, the BLUE map climate change mitigation scenario calls for more than 2 
giga Giga ( or ) is a unit prefix in the metric system denoting a factor of a short-scale billion or long-scale milliard (109 or ). It has the symbol G. ''Giga'' is derived from the Greek word (''gígas''), meaning "giant". The ''Oxford English Dic ...
tonnes The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the short ton (United States c ...
of negative CO2 emissions per year with BECCS in 2050. According to the
OECD The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate e ...
, "Achieving lower concentration targets (450 ppm) depends significantly on the use of
BECCS Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is the process of extracting bioenergy from biomass and Carbon capture and storage, capturing and storing the carbon, thereby Carbon dioxide removal, removing it from the atmosphere. The carbon in ...
". The sustainable technical potential for net negative emissions with BECCS has been estimated to 10  Gt of equivalent annually, with an economic potential of up to 3.5 Gt of equivalent annually at a cost of less than 50 €/tonne, and up to 3.9 Gt of equivalent annually at a cost of less than 100 €/tonne.
Imperial College London Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...
, the UK Met Office
Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research The Met Office Hadley Centre — named in honour of George Hadley — is one of the United Kingdom's leading centres for the study of scientific issues associated with climate change. It is part of, and based at the headquarters of the Met Of ...
, the
Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research is an organisation based in the United Kingdom that brings together scientists, economists, engineers and social scientists to "research, assess and communicate from a distinct trans-disciplinary p ...
, the Walker Institute for Climate System Research, and the
Grantham Institute for Climate Change Grantham () is a market and industrial town in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England, situated on the banks of the River Witham and bounded to the west by the A1 road. It lies some 23 miles (37 km) south of the Lincoln and ...
issued a joint report on carbon dioxide removal technologies as part of the ''AVOID: Avoiding dangerous climate change'' research program, stating that "Overall, of the technologies studied in this report,
BECCS Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is the process of extracting bioenergy from biomass and Carbon capture and storage, capturing and storing the carbon, thereby Carbon dioxide removal, removing it from the atmosphere. The carbon in ...
has the greatest maturity and there are no major practical barriers to its introduction into today’s energy system. The presence of a primary product will support early deployment." Finalist competing with BECCS design: * Biorecro, Sweden


Direct air capture

Direct Air Capture Direct air capture (DAC) is a process of capturing carbon dioxide () directly from the ambient air (as opposed to capturing from point sources, such as a cement factory or biomass power plant) and generating a concentrated stream of for seque ...
is the process of capturing carbon dioxide directly from ambient air using solvents, filters or other methods. Subsequent to being captured, the carbon dioxide would be stored with
carbon capture and storage Carbon capture and storage (CCS) or carbon capture and sequestration is the process of capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) before it enters the atmosphere, transporting it, and storing it (carbon sequestration) for centuries or millennia. Usually th ...
technologies to keep it permanently out of the atmosphere. Finalists competing with direct air capture designs: * Carbon Engineering, Canada * Climeworks, Switzerland * Coaway, US * Global Thermostat, US * Kilimanjaro Energy, US


Enhanced weathering

Enhanced weathering Enhanced weathering is a process that aims to accelerate the natural weathering by spreading finely ground silicate rock, such as basalt, onto surfaces which speeds up chemical reactions between rocks, water, and air. It also removes carbon dioxi ...
refers to a chemical approach to in-situ carbonation of silicates, where carbon dioxide is combined through natural weathering processes with mined minerals, such as
olivine The mineral olivine () is a magnesium iron silicate with the chemical formula . It is a type of nesosilicate or orthosilicate. The primary component of the Earth's upper mantle, it is a common mineral in Earth's subsurface, but weathers quickl ...
. The idea was based on the work of Dutch geoscientist Olaf Schuiling, who's ideas continue to be explored in the Netherlands, with promising results. R. D. Schuiling and P. Krijgsman: (2006)
2""> "Enhanced Weathering: An Effective and Cheap Tool to Sequester Co2"
Climatic Change ''Climatic Change'' is a biweekly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Springer Science+Business Media covering cross-disciplinary work on all aspects of climate change and variability. It was established in 1978 and the editors-in-chie ...
, Volume 74, Numbers 1-3, 349-354.
Finalist competing with enhanced weathering design: * Smartstones – Olivine Foundation, The Netherlands


Grassland restoration

Changed management methods for grasslands can significantly increase the uptake of carbon dioxide into the soil, creating a
carbon sink A carbon sink is anything, natural or otherwise, that accumulates and stores some carbon-containing chemical compound for an indefinite period and thereby removes carbon dioxide () from the atmosphere. Globally, the two most important carbon si ...
. This and other land use change methods is not generally considered among negative emission technologies because of uncertain long-term sequestration permanence. Finalist competing with grassland restoration design: * The Savory Institute, US after receiving criticism from many respected scientists has been removed from the finalist list and no longer appears on the Virgin Earth Challenge website.


Discontinuance

The finalists who were announced in 2011 were kept in suspension for nine years, with many additional requests for information and data, as contestant Global Thermostat reported. Another contestant,
Carbon Engineering Carbon Engineering Ltd. is a Canadian-based clean energy company focusing on the commercialization of Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology that captures carbon dioxide (CO2) directly from the atmosphere. This captured can either be stored underg ...
received notification in 2019 that they fulfilled all technical criteria and were selected for the final judgment. Subsequently they were informed that the prize was "indefinitely put on hold". At the end of 2019, the prize was discontinued and the website taken offline. Carbon Engineering was informed by the Virgin Earth Challenge that "the market conditions necessary to support commercial and sustainable investment in the relevant carbon removal techniques were not foreseeable". Nevertheless, Carbon Engineering had raised 95 million dollar in investments by other parties, including Bill Gates. Contestant Graciela Chichilnisky of Global Thermostat, another
direct air capture Direct air capture (DAC) is a process of capturing carbon dioxide () directly from the ambient air (as opposed to capturing from point sources, such as a cement factory or biomass power plant) and generating a concentrated stream of for seque ...
contestant, who had raised 60 million dollars in investments from other parties, expressed strong criticism in Dutch daily Volkskrant: "If you want to encourage scientific progress with a prize, it's not enough to open your mouth and say "25 million dollars." None of the 11 finalists received any funding or concrete help from Virgin during the 13 years of assessment.


Similar competitions

Since the Virgin Earth Challenge, two new multimillion climate technology contests have been announced. In 2015, NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE was launched. It awards $20 million to "breakthrough technologies to convert emissions into usable products". The prize focuses on commercial exploitation of the carbon capture process. The prize will be awarded in the winter of 2021. In 2021,
Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a business magnate and investor. He is the founder, CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; owner and CEO of Twitter, Inc.; founder of The ...
of
Tesla Inc Tesla, Inc. ( or ) is an American multinational automotive and clean energy company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Tesla designs and manufactures electric vehicles (electric cars and trucks), battery energy storage from home to grid- ...
announced a $100 million prize for development of the best technology to capture carbon dioxide emissions.


See also

*
Bio-energy with carbon capture and storage Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is the process of extracting bioenergy from biomass and capturing and storing the carbon, thereby removing it from the atmosphere. The carbon in the biomass comes from the greenhouse gas carbon ...
(BECCS) *
Biochar Biochar is the lightweight black residue, made of carbon and ashes, remaining after the pyrolysis of biomass. Biochar is defined by the International Biochar Initiative as "the solid material obtained from the thermochemical conversion of ...
*
Carbon dioxide removal Carbon dioxide removal (CDR), also known as negative emissions, is a process in which carbon dioxide gas () is removed from the atmosphere and sequestered for long periods of time. Similarly, greenhouse gas removal (GGR) or negative greenho ...
* Carbon negative *
Carbon sequestration Carbon sequestration is the process of storing carbon in a carbon pool. Carbon dioxide () is naturally captured from the atmosphere through biological, chemical, and physical processes. These changes can be accelerated through changes in lan ...
* Carbon War Room (also established by Richard Branson) *
Climate engineering Climate engineering (also called geoengineering) is a term used for both carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and solar radiation management (SRM), also called solar geoengineering, when applied at a planetary scale.IPCC (2022Chapter 1: Introduction and ...
(also called geoengineering and climate intervention) *
Enhanced weathering Enhanced weathering is a process that aims to accelerate the natural weathering by spreading finely ground silicate rock, such as basalt, onto surfaces which speeds up chemical reactions between rocks, water, and air. It also removes carbon dioxi ...
*
Negative carbon dioxide emission Carbon dioxide removal (CDR), also known as negative emissions, is a process in which carbon dioxide gas () is removed from the atmosphere and sequestered for long periods of time. Similarly, greenhouse gas removal (GGR) or negative greenho ...
*
List of environmental awards This list of environmental awards is an index to articles about notable environmental awards for activities that lead to the protection of the natural environment. The list is organized by the region and country of the organization that sponsors ...


References


External links


Official website

The International Biochar Initiative
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