Elon Musk became the richest person in the world by dramatically improving electric vehicles, pushing forward a technology that reduces carbon-dioxide emissions and slows global warming. Now he’s putting $100 million of that fortune into prizes for technologies to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere itself.
The carbon-removal contest will be administered by the Xprize Foundation, a nonprofit group that’s held competitions to spur technology development to improve space travel, food and health. The new prize, the largest of its kind, will be backed by a donation from the Musk Foundation, a nonprofit founded by the chief executive officer of Tesla Inc. and Space Exploration Technologies Corp.
