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A small company founded by geologists from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver received a big boost on Earth Day for its discoveries, which accelerate the ability of rocks to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Carbin Minerals Inc., founded by Greg Dipple, Bethany Lad and Peter Schoyermann, won $ 1 million last September from an American organization backed by the Elon Musk Foundation.
XPRIZE is allocating millions of dollars to fund breakthroughs in technology and ingenuity that are helping to address some of the world’s most pressing issues, most notably climate change.
Since 2000, Dipple, who has been a professor of geology at UBC for 30 years, has been studying a natural process in which rocks beneath the earth’s crust react with carbon dioxide when they are discovered, mineralizing it and extracting it from the atmosphere.
One of the carbon removal research sites of Carbin Minerals Inc. in an inherited mine in the Western United States. The company won $ 1 million from XPRIZE, which funds breakthroughs in technology and ingenuity that help solve some of the world’s most pressing problems, most notably climate change. (Bethany Lad)
However, the process called weathering can take thousands of years. Dipple and his colleagues are trying to find ways to speed up the process, especially in mining sites, so that massive fields of mining waste, essentially powdered rocks, can become huge carbon sinks.
“What we’re doing with Carbin Minerals Inc. is to understand that these response speeds are relatively slow, we have techniques that allow us to increase those speeds by a factor of three or five so that we get single sites that do hundreds thousands of tons of CO2 a year, “he said.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, measured 50 percent higher last summer than when the industrial age began, is the engine of climate change.
By observing mining sites, technicians can adjust the amount of water in tailings ponds or simply move a layer of rock to increase the rate of carbonation, in some cases up to days.
After joining, the company tried to bid for XPRIZE for its $ 100 million carbon removal race.
Image of rocks and materials in one of the research sites of Carbin Minerals Inc. to remove carbon in an inherited mine located in the western United States. The company was named one of 15 winners out of 1,133 participants, judged by a team of 70 experts and scientists from around the world. (Bethany Lad)
Participants must prove that the technology actually works and “achieves net negative emissions, captures carbon dioxide permanently for at least 100 years and shows a sustainable path to ultimate gigaton scale,” according to a statement from the winners.
“Great for us as a company”
Dipple said being named one of the 15 winners out of the original 1,133 entrants, all judged by a team of 70 experts and scientists from around the world, is a valuable endorsement for Carbin Minerals Inc. and his future.
“It’s huge for us as a company,” he said. “This allows us to really accelerate our research and development and technology development, as well as their implementation. We are currently working hard to put this technology in the field and start working. “
The XPRIZE money will help the company set up its first pilot project, hire new employees outside its current five-member team, purchase equipment and begin implementing carbon removal contracts.
He may also win another $ 50 million from XPRIZE as part of an ongoing carbon scrap race.
The company recently signed its first contract with Ottawa-based Shopify to remove 200 tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as part of the company’s corporate social responsibility plan.
I’m excited to announcehttps://t.co/jgVnxfcPBw
– @stacykauk
More money from XPRIZE for UBC
In addition, XPRIZE announced another $ 1 million on Friday for another UBC spinoff company, Takachar, which won the student version of the race last year and will receive an additional $ 1 million this year.
The company is recognized for its invention called “MiniTorr”, which is a cheap and portable machine that uses a thermochemical process to convert biomass, as a by-product of crops, into bio-products such as fuel and fertilizer instead of being burned.
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