On Thursday, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk teased his new humanitarian effort: a competition aimed at supporting more innovative technologies for carbon capture.
Musk, who briefly passed Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos as the world’s richest man before a slide in Tesla’s stock price dropped him back a spot, said that the details will be given next week.
Musk signed the Giving Pledge in 2012, an initiative initiated by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett that requires signatories to donate at least half of their wealth over their lifetimes, and has mainly contributed to science and engineering education, research into renewable energy, pediatric research, and research into human space exploration.
But in September, an analysis by Forbes found that Musk has only contributed $100 million to date, less than 1 percent of his net worth.
Nevertheless, Musk’s proposed carbon capture competition will go towards a cause that, particularly under the Biden administration, is likely to play a major role in fighting climate change going forward.
In November, a study released by Science Reports concluded that businesses and policymakers urgently need to “start developing the technologies for large-scale removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere,” a method known as carbon capture and storage (CCS).
The technology is becoming the most commonly accepted method of geoengineering as a safe and potentially successful form, and Biden expressed support for it in his campaign platform, saying that his team would “accelerate the development and deployment of carbon capture sequestration technology.”
In particular, Biden aims to make carbon capture available more widely, cheaper and plans to fund projects that focus on this technology.
Am donating $100M towards a prize for best carbon capture technology
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 21, 2021
Source: Forbes
