A Canadian company that has developed a process to reduce emissions from concrete production is one of the two grand-prize winners of the $20-million NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE.
Halifax-based company CarbonCure — whose breakthrough technology can be used to retrofit existing concrete plants so they consume carbon dioxide as part of their normal production process — will take home one of two $7.5-million grand prize purses. (In Round 2, a $2.5-million prize purse was shared equally between the five finalists in two separate competition tracks).
“It’s really a dream come true,” Rob Niven, CarbonCure’s founder and CEO, said in an interview. “We’ve been working at this for so long.”
Niven said CarbonCure believes its technology has the potential to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions from the concrete industry by 500 million tonnes per year by 2030. The company, which already has its technology installed in 300 concrete plants around the globe, plans to use its prize money to help it scale up as well as to invest heavily in further research and innovation.
“Concrete is by far the most abundant man-made material on the planet, and it also has an enormous carbon footprint due to its scope,” Niven said. “There’s so much more we can do based upon this science of turning CO2 into value for concrete producers.”
Learn more here.
