Elon Musk props up carbon removal research with $100 million competition

The prize will be the largest cash incentive in history, according to XPrize, a long-running organization that hosts competitions focused on spurring innovation in a variety of business sectors. Carbon removal refers to technologies that can extract carbon dioxide — a pollutant that is among the leading causes of climate change — from the atmosphere or ocean to mitigate the warming effect that copious amounts of CO2 emitted due to human activity are having on our planet. The goal, according to XPrize, is to spur the invention of a "range of carbon removal solutions" in order to "address the biggest threat facing humanity — fighting climate change and rebalancing Earth's carbon cycle."