$25 million prize for greenhouse gas removal: New Scientist Environment

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"A prize of $25 million for anyone who can come up with a system for removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere was launched on Friday. It is the biggest prize in history, claims its sponsor, Richard Branson.

The head of Virgin Group said at the launch in London, UK, that the prize was not for removing emissions from power plants before they reach the atmosphere and storing them deep underground – an existing technology known as carbon capture and sequestration.

Instead, the brief is to devise a system to remove a 'significant amount' of greenhouse gases – equivalent to 1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide or more – every year from the atmosphere for at least a decade. It was inspired by the �20,000 prize for developing a way of measuring longitude won by 18th century clockmaker John Harrison, and recounted in the book Longitude. The $10 million X-Prize for private human spaceflight, won in 2004, was also an inspiration."