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A Big Step Towards Decarbonization - The Carbon XPRIZE

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Extracting CO2 from the air is one of the best ways to reverse climate change without resorting to expensive technologies, convoluted tax schemes or preventing billions of people from getting the energy they need to have a good life.

But the trick is what to do with it afterwards.

Most scenarios consider injecting it deep underground just to get rid of it. But if you could use it to make useful stuff, then it would do double duty and make the products zero-carbon since they wouldn’t be putting extra carbon into the atmosphere.

As a way to come full circle, focus has been on making zero-carbon gasoline, diesel, or jet fuel from the extracted carbon using non-fossil fuels to generate the energy needed.

But there’s a lot more that can be made: sunglasses, hand sanitizer, rings, crayons, purses, even vodka.

Enter the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The XPRIZE is meant to inspire development of new and emerging CO₂ conversion technologies to help address global warming.

Today, XPRIZE revealed the two grand prize winners in this year’s $20-million-dollar prize, the culmination of a five-year competition developed to create breakthrough circular carbon technologies that transform the way the world addresses carbon by converting emissions into products with a high net value. The winners were CarbonCure of Alberta, Canada and CarbonBuilt of Los Angeles, California.

Interestingly, both of the winning teams demonstrated technologies focused on decarbonizing the concrete industry, a huge source for CO2 emissions and one that is predicted to grow by about 20% in the next 5 years. 

The competition included two tracks, or applications. The Wyoming track focused on the converting emissions from a nearby coal-fired power plant, the Wyoming Integrated Test Center in Gillette, Wyoming. The Alberta track used emissions from an adjacent natural gas-fired plant, the Alberta Carbon Conversion Technology Centre in Calgary, Alberta.

CarbonBuilt developed a technology that reduces the carbon footprint of concrete by more than 50% while reducing raw material costs. The CarbonBuilt concrete formulation significantly decreases the need for ordinary Portland cement while enabling the increased use of low-cost waste materials.

During the curing process, CO2 is directly injected from flue gas streams, like from coal or gas power plants, into the concrete mixture where it is chemically transformed and permanently stored. Development began at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering in 2014 with support from the NRG COSIA CARBON XPRIZE, philanthropic foundations, private and corporate sponsors, as well as government agencies including the U.S. Department of Energy.

CarbonCure’s technology enables the production of concrete with a reduced water and carbon footprint without sacrificing the material’s reliability. A precise dosage of CO2 is injected into a concrete plant’s reclaimer system, which contains the water used to wash out concrete trucks and mixers. The CO2 is converted to a permanently embedded mineral with strength-enhancing properties which can then be incorporated into new concrete mixes.

By reducing the amount of new freshwater, solid waste disposal and cement required, the technology is able to reduce the material costs and increase profitability for concrete producers. This technology is backed by Bill Gates’ fund Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Amazon Climate Pledge Fund, BDC Capital and others

The winning teams, one from each track, converted the most CO2 into products with the highest value, while minimizing their overall CO2 footprint, land use, water use, and energy use.

Concrete is a major contributor to global warming because producing it releases huge quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

The carbon dioxide emissions from the production of concrete are so high that if concrete were a country, it would be the third-largest emitter of CO2 behind China and the United States.

Concrete is the most widely used artificial material in existence, second only to water. Concrete currently accounts for about 8% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions, comparable to the entire agriculture industry, which is responsible for just 9% of carbon emissions.

Since renewable energy sources use much more concrete per unit energy produced, this is very important. Wind uses ten times the concrete needed for nuclear, almost a hundred times that of natural gas. So if non-fossil fuels like nuclear and renewables are to increase enough to make a difference in time to help the planet, getting control of concrete emissions is essential.

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