Circular carbon economy is the prize

The ten finalists in an epic four-year multi-million dollar global competition to find innovations for the circular carbon economy have been announced.

The NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE seeks out circular carbon tech capable of transforming ‘carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from power plants into valuable products’. And the finalists – who will get ‘an equal share of a $5 million milestone prize’ – were named earlier this week at Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s Future of Energy Summit in New York City.

Five countries are represented in the final of the $20 million competition, all of which have successfully proved their technologies can convert CO₂ into new products, including concrete and plastics. The finalists will now be split into two tracks, testing their tech at scale – at either the Wyoming Integrated Test Center (ITC) in the US, or at the Alberta Carbon Conversion Technology Centre in Canada.

“These teams are showing us amazing examples of carbon conversion and literally reimagining carbon. The diversity of technologies on display is an inspiring vision of a new carbon economy. We are trying to reduce CO₂ emissions by converting them into useful materials, and do so in an economically sustainable way,” said Dr Marcius Extavour, XPRIZE senior director of Energy and Resources and prize lead.

There is a lot of important work going on in this area. Innovators Magazine reported yesterday that researchers at Swansea University have pioneered a technique to produce a molecule used to make plastics from converted carbon dioxide (CO₂).