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  BBC 9 Feb 07
Branson launches $25m climate bid

Millions of pounds are on offer for the person who comes up with the best way of removing significant amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson launched the competition today in London alongside former US vice- president Al Gore. A panel of judges will oversee the prize, including James Lovelock and Nasa scientist James Hansen.

Sir Richard said humankind must realise the scale of the crisis it faced. "The Earth cannot wait 60 years," he said at the news conference. "I want a future for my children and my children's children. The clock is ticking."

He said if the planet was to survive, it was vital to find a way of getting rid of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. He said he believed offering the $25m (£12.5m) Earth Challenge Prize was the best way of finding a solution.

Moral challenge

Overseeing the innovations are James Hansen, the noted climate scientist and head of the Nasa Institute for Space Studies; the inventor of Gaia theory James Lovelock; UK environmentalist Sir Crispin Tickell; and Australian mammalogist and palaeontologist Tim Flannery.

They are looking for a method that will remove at least one billion tonnes of carbon per year from the atmosphere.

Al Gore, the former presidential candidate turned environmental campaigner, is also on the judging panel. He said: "It's a challenge to the moral imagination of humankind to actually accept the reality of the situation we are now facing.

"We're not used to thinking of a planetary emergency, and there's nothing in our prior history as a species that equips us to imagine that we, as human beings, could actually be in the process of destroying the habitability of the planet for ourselves." His recent film, An Inconvenient Truth, focused on global warming.

Stuart Haszeldine, professor of geology at the University of Edinburgh, commented: "Richard Branson is ahead of the pack in getting to grips with CO2 in the atmosphere. "His decisive action places shame on the dithering of the UK Treasury, who will not let British power companies build CO2 capture plants, in case they are too expensive.

"I hope all other businesses, large and small, follow his lead. Yes, it's true Branson's company may benefit eventually, but we will all benefit, by a cleaner, greener planet. We all share the same atmosphere."

Carbon capture and storage is already a key area of research. Scientists have been looking into removing the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere and storing it in oil and gas fields, injecting it deep into the ocean, or chemically transforming it into solids or liquids that are thermodynamically stable.

However, these methods have raised concerns, notably because of the possibility of leakage from the storage sites and fears that C02 dissolved in large quantities in the ocean might harm marine ecosystems.

Other scientists are also looking at schemes that might "scrub" the air of CO2, collecting the gas for safe storage; but many critics say the energy required to achieve this would make such an approach self-defeating.

Sir Richard Branson has already pledged to invest $3bn (£1.6bn) in profits from his travel firms, such as airline Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Trains, towards research into renewable energy technologies.

EXISTING OPTIONS FOR CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE
1. CO2 pumped into disused coal fields displaces methane which can be used as fuel
2. CO2 can be pumped into and stored safely in saline aquifers
3. CO2 pumped into oil fields helps maintain pressure, making extraction easier

Yahoo News 9 Feb 07
Branson, Gore launch prize to cut greenhouse gases
by Robin Millard

LONDON (AFP) - Virgin chief Sir Richard Branson has launched what he called the world's biggest prize to inspire innovators to develop a way to remove greenhouse gases from the earth's atmosphere.

Branson announced the 25-million-dollar Virgin Earth Challenge prize at a joint press conference here with Al Gore, the former US vice president turned global environment campaigner.

The prize will go to the individual or group able to show a commercially viable design resulting in the net removal of man-made atmospheric greenhouse gases each year for at least 10 years, without harmful side-effects.

Branson said: "Could it be possible to find someone on Earth who could devise a way of removing the lethal amount of CO2 from the Earth's atmosphere? "How could we get every young, creative, innovative thinker, every inventor and every scientist to put their minds to it?

"The challenge we are laying down to the world's brightest brains is: to devise a way of removing greenhouse gases at least the equivalent of one billion tonnes of carbon per year, and hopefully much more.

Both Branson and Gore hope that governments will match the prize fund. The pair will be joined in adjudicating the prize by British diplomat Sir Crispin Tickell, an authority on climate change; scientist, explorer and author Tim Flannery; James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and British scientist James Lovelock.

The judges will meet annually to decide if any project over the past year has met the criteria. The removal must have long-term effects and contribute materially to the stability of the Earth's climate.

Five million dollars will be paid at the time of the judge's decision, with the rest to follow 10 years later if they then decide the goals have been achieved.

Gore said: "Up until now what has not been asked seriously on a sustained basis is 'Is there not some way that some of that carbon dioxide could be scavenged out of the atmosphere?'

"We are now in circumstances where the more difficult questions have to be asked and the more difficult ventures have to be undertaken.

"There are some research teams that have begun to look at possible avenues for solving this problem but it is right at the beginning. This is right at the cutting edge. Branson added that the winners of the prize "will have the satisfaction of saving thousands of species and possibly even mankind itself.

"You will also be awarded the largest prize ever offered -- the Virgin Earth prize and the 25 million dollars that comes with it."

Doctor Steve Howard, chief executive of The Climate Group and an advisor to the judges, said there were an estimated seven billion tonnes of carbon dioxide currently being emitted every year into the atmosphere.

"This throws a bright spotlight on the issue. We need cultural, business and government imperatives to deal with the problem. We are not there yet and a prize is required to do that," Howard told AFP.

"There's no current real technology that's managing to pull carbon out of the atmosphere. We're nowhere yet.

"For 25 million dollars, people will do extraordinary things. It's to fire people up and say: 'let's do this.'"

It is not the first time Gore and Branson have teamed up to promote green issues: last September Gore backed Branson's pledge to spend three billion dollars (2.3 billion euros) on reversing global warming.

The former vice-president, who brought global warming to prominence in his documentary film "An Inconvenient Truth," told the Virgin boss at the time that he was in a unique position to make a difference.

Yahoo News 10 Feb 07
Scientists to vie for $25M climate prize
By Tariq Panja, Associated Press Writer

LONDON - British tycoon Richard Branson dangled a $25 million prize before the world's top scientists Friday seeking to spur research into devising ways to suck greenhouse gases out of the air.

Former Vice President Al Gore lent his support to the challenge, which came a week after a landmark report by the world's leading climate scientists and government officials warned that global warming will continue, creating a far different planet in 100 years.

"Man created the problem, therefore man should solve the problem," Branson said.

He compared the quest to a competition Britain's Parliament launched in 1714 to devise a method of estimating longitude accurately. Six decades passed before English clockmaker John Harrison received his prize from King George III for discovering an accurate method.

"The Earth cannot wait 60 years. We need everybody capable of discovering an answer to put their minds to it today," Branson said.

Branson hopes his offer will lead to a viable machine for vacuuming the Earth's atmosphere of carbon dioxide, one of the greenhouse gases blamed for rising temperatures. It's an idea many scientists and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change say may be possible someday.

David Keith, a University of Calgary engineering professor who has a provisional patent on carbon atmospheric capture technology, said the key is developing a process that is cost effective.

"People have been doing it for 50 years ... after all the plant in my office does it," he said.

If Branson was offering money for carbon-capturing regardless of price, Keith said he could do it right now — but not efficiently.

"This is really about price," he said, saying he believed his method could capture carbon dioxide for $300 a ton. Scientists in Scandinavia have started to safely divert carbon dioxide emissions underground before they reach the atmosphere, but no one has captured them after they are released.

"I see no evidence that a quantifiably acceptable solution or pathway has been identified — period," said Jerry Mahlman, former head of climate modeling at the U.S. government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"Everybody would love a fix but we don't have it. It's quite a way off. You can't dream up stuff, you have to get it right," he said.

Gore said the planet has a "fever" and the world has to listen to experts. He said last week's report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change offered conclusive evidence the planet is not well. The report said average temperatures on Earth could increase 2 to 11.5 degrees by 2100.

"Up until now, what has not been asked seriously on a systematic basis is: 'Is there some way that some of that extra carbon dioxide may be scavenged effectively out of the atmosphere?' And no one knows the answer to that," Gore said.

Branson, whose business interests include Virgin Atlantic airline, rejected charges that it was hypocritical for him to sponsor the prize. He reiterated a commitment made in September to invest $3 billion toward fighting global warming, saying he would devote all profits from his travel companies over the next 10 years. As part of that pledge, he launched a new Virgin Fuels business, which is to invest up to $400 million in green energy projects over the next three years.

Organizers of the "Virgin Challenge" said the winner would receive $5 million once judges ruled a carbon-dioxide removal process succeeded. The rest of the money would be paid out over a 10-year period if the judges decided the goal of removing significant amounts of greenhouse gases had been met over the long term.

Associated Press science writer Seth Borenstein in Washington contributed to this report.

Yahoo News 9 Feb 07
Virgin's Branson offers $25 mln global warming prize
By Jeremy Lovell

LONDON (Reuters) - Airline tycoon Richard Branson announced on Friday a $25 million prize for the first person to come up with a way of scrubbing greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere in the battle to beat global warming.

Flanked by climate campaigners former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and British ex-diplomat Crispin Tickell, Branson said he hoped the prize would spur innovative and creative thought to save mankind from self-destruction.

"Man created the problem and therefore man should solve the problem," he told a news conference to reveal the Virgin Earth Challenge. "Unless we can devise a way of removing CO2 (carbon dioxide) from the earth's atmosphere we will lose half of all species on earth, all the coral reefs, 100 million people will be displaced, farmlands will become deserts and rain forests wastelands."

Branson rejected suggestions that he, as an airline owner, was being hypocritical in announcing the prize. "I could ground my airline today, but British Airways would simply take its place," he said, noting that he was investing heavily in cleaner engines and fuels.

Top scientists predict that global average temperatures will rise by between 1.8 and 4.0 degrees Celsius this century due to human activities like burning fossil fuels, putting millions at risk from rising sea levels, floods, famines and storms.

Gore, whose campaign film "An Inconvenient Truth" has helped spread the message, said all science showed something was drastically wrong but that Armageddon was not inevitable.

"We are now facing a planetary emergency. The planet has a fever," he said. "This is an initiative to stimulate someone to do something that no one knows how to do. This is right at the cutting edge."

The prize will initially only be open for five years, with ideas assessed by a panel of judges including Branson, Gore and Tickell as well as U.S. climate scientist James Hansen, Briton James Lovelock and Australian environmentalist Tim Flannery.

The winner will have to come up with a way of removing one billion tonnes of carbon gases a year from the atmosphere for 10 years -- with $5 million of the prize being paid at the start and the remaining $20 million at the end. If no winner is identified after five years the judges can decide to extend the period.

"This is the world's first deliberate attempt at planetary engineering," Flannery said via videolink from Sydney. "We are at the last moment. Once we reach the tipping point it will have been taken out of our hands. He said 200 gigatonnes of carbon had accumulated in the atmosphere since the industrial revolution, raising concentrations by 100 parts per million. The challenge was to find ways of bringing that back down again.
links
Virgin Earth Challenge http://www.virginearth.com
Related articles on Global issues: climate change
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