The carbon capture company founded by UBC geologists has won $ 1 million in international funding

Corbine Metal Corporation. Founded by Greg Dipple, Bethany Ladd and Peter Sherman, they received $ 1 million last September from an American organization sponsored by the Elon Musk Foundation.

XPRIZE Millions of dollars are being spent to fund technological and creative advances that will help solve some of the world’s most important problems, including climate change.

Diebel, who has been a professor of geography at the University of British Columbia for 30 years since 2000, began studying the natural process by which rocks beneath the Earth’s surface react with carbon dioxide. They are from the atmosphere.

However, a process called weathering can take thousands of years. Dieble and his colleagues were looking for ways to speed up this process, especially on mine sites, where large boulders, mainly broken rocks, would turn into large carbon sinks.

“What we do with Carbin Minerals Inc. is that these reaction rates are relatively slow, and we have the technology to allow these rates to increase three to five times, so we get individual sites that produce hundreds of thousands of tons of CO2 per year.”

The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was measured at 50% more than it was at the beginning of the industrial era last summer, which is the driver of climate change.

By monitoring the mining sites, technicians can adjust the water level at the tailings sites or change the rock layer to increase the burning frequency, sometimes for several days.

After the merger, the company quickly applied to XPRIZE for its $ 100 million decorbonization competition.

Entrepreneurs need to prove that the technology really works and “achieves net negative emissions, permanently sequesters CO2 for at least 100 years, and proves to be a consistent path to eventually reach gigaton levels”. According to the winners’ naming statement.

Great for us as a company

Corbyn Minerals Inc. was named one of the 15 winners of the 1,133 inaugural competition determined by a panel of 70 experts and scientists from around the world. And valuable recognition for its future, Diebel said.

“This is a big deal for us as a company,” he said. “It really allows research and development and technology development and dissemination to accelerate. We are now working very hard to bring this technology to the field and remove it from the ground.”

XPRIZE Finance will help the company set up its first pilot project, hire new staff in addition to the existing team of five, purchase equipment and execute decorbonization contracts.

It is also set to win an additional $ 50 million from XPRIZE in the ongoing decarbonization competition.

The company recently signed its first contract with Ottawa-based Shopify to remove 200 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as part of its corporate social responsibility program.

More XPRIZE money for UBC

XPRIZE on Friday announced an additional $ 1 million for Takachar, another UBC subsidiary that won the student version of the competition last year, and will receive an additional $ 1 million this year.

The company was honored for its invention. ” Short tourIt is a small, inexpensive machine that uses a thermochemical process to convert biofuels such as crop by-products into biofuels such as fuel and fertilizer.