Today's guest is Marcius Extavour, Chief Scientist, Executive Vice President Energy and Climate at XPRIZE.
XPRIZE is a global future positive movement of over a million people and rising. They are a trusted, proven platform for impact that leverages the power of competition to catalyze innovation and accelerate a more hopeful future by incentivizing radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity. The organization began supporting climate projects with a $20 million prize for breakthrough technologies to convert CO2 emissions into usable products. Now, they’re hosting their largest prize initiative in history funded by Elon Musk and the Musk Foundation, and awarding $100 million for Carbon Removal solutions.
This episode covers XPRIZE’s mission, how they decide on and evaluate competitions, key takeaways from their climate prize experiences, and how they measure success. We also dig into some of the nuances of the carbon removal conversation, how Marcius deals with naysayers, and why he focuses on solving the climate crisis instead of punishing polluters.
Enjoy the show!
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Episode recorded July 1, 2022.
In today’s episode, we cover:
- An overview of XPRIZE and the organization came to be
- XPRIZE's model expansion over time
- Where XPRIZE's money comes from
- How the org's external partnerships help XPRIZE support an innovative ecosystem
- Marcius' climate journey and background in academia, utility, policy, and fundraising
- An overview of the AAAS Science & Technology Fellowship Program
- Characteristics XPRIZE uses to determine where prizes can be helpful, including impact, an identifiable problem, public awareness, and a specific and measurable goal
- Differences between short and long-term impact
- The NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE and key takeaways from the competition
- How XPRIZE started to explore climate topics
- The moral hazard argument
- XPRIZE Carbon Removal, the org's largest incentive prize in history with Elon Musk and the Musk Foundation
- How Marcius responds to critics
- XPRIZE's plans to improve CDR measurements
- Differences between measurement processes and tooling across solutions MRV
- 3 evaluation factors, including operational performance, cost, and scalability
- Marcius' predictions for how CDR can develop
- His thoughts on the role of voluntary and compliance markets
- Marcius' stance on whether we should punish polluters or focus on solving the climate problem
- How people can get involved with XPRIZE and the org's new Carbon Removal cohort
- The community's role in moving things forward, growing globally, and maintaining inclusivity
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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant
