The XPRIZE Foundation and the Musk Foundation have announced the student team winners of a $5 million carbon removal competition.

As part of the $100 million XPRIZE for Carbon Removal launched in February, twenty-three teams, selected from among nearly two hundred proposals, will receive awards in two categories: carbon dioxide removal demonstrations; and measurement, reporting, and verification technologies. In the category of carbon dioxide removal demonstrations, eighteen teams will each receive $250,000 to compete for the XPRIZE Carbon Removal Milestone and Grand Prize awards across the carbon removal pathways of air, land, rocks, and oceans. Recipients include Answer of Biochar (AOB) from Northeastern University (China); Biosorra from IESE Business School at the University of Navarra and the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University (Spain and the United States); Bison Underground, which is affiliated with the University of Oklahoma (U.S.); Blue Symbiosis from the University of Tasmania IMAS AMC (Australia); and SASIITB from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (India).

In the category of measurement, reporting, and verification technologies, five teams were each awarded $100,000 for the development of technologies that may not directly remove carbon dioxide but will enable carbon removal. The recipients are ACIDD Project from the University of Miami; BJU Global Challenges from Bob Jones University, Environmental Sensing from the University of Wyoming, PlantVillage from Pennsylvania State University, and Working Trees from Stanford University.

"The climate crisis is an existential threat that demands both immediate action, and a long-term commitment to bringing Earth's carbon cycle back into balance for future generations," said XPRIZE vice president of climate and environment Marcius Extavour. "We've already begun to feel the impacts of the climate crisis in our day-to-day lives, and the data shows us that we need both immediate action on emissions reductions, and sustained innovation to develop additional tools like carbon removal. That's why this prize is so important. It's about mobilizing and facilitating the development of scalable solutions that can make a real difference in stabilizing the climate over the coming decades."

(Photo credit: XPRIZE Foundation)