CarbonCure Named a Finalist in the $20 million Global NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE Challenge

NEW YORK - Canadian innovator CarbonCure Technologies has been named one of ten finalists in the global $20 million NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE for its technology that profitably converts carbon dioxide (CO₂) into stronger and greener concrete. Today’s announcement builds upon the growing industry accolades for CarbonCure’s global impact, including its recognition as the top ranked CO₂ utilization solution by McKinsey Consulting and the Global CO₂ Initiative, and its third consecutive listing among the Top 100 Global Cleantech companies by the Cleantech Group.

The Carbon XPRIZE challenges competitors to convert CO₂ emissions into valuable products, with the purpose of identifying the most scalable technologies to unlock massive CO₂ reductions and economic opportunities. CarbonCure has been named as one of five finalists in the Alberta Track, where they will demonstrate technologies at a natural gas power plant in Calgary, Alberta. An additional five finalists will focus on demonstrating technologies in the Wyoming Track, which will focus on demonstrating technologies at a coal power plant in Gillette, Wyoming. 

Team CarbonCure demonstrated its technology to various industry leaders in Alabama in January 2018.

The ten finalists each receive $500,000 and will move on to the third and final round of the competition, where each will demonstrate its technology over a two-year period. Canada leads all nations with four teams in the final round. Three of the finalists hail from the United States, while the remaining teams represent India, China and the United Kingdom. One grand prize winner from each track will be announced in March 2020, and will receive $7.5 million USD in prize money.

“It’s an honour to be recognized as one of the finalists in the global Carbon XPRIZE,” says Robert Niven, CEO and Founder of CarbonCure. “The XPRIZE competition challenges the world to reimagine CO₂ as a valuable commodity and drives innovators to scale solutions faster to realize the potential $1 trillion market and 7 gigatonne CO₂ reduction opportunity by 2030.”

This year CarbonCure will celebrate its 100th concrete plant installation and millionth cubic yard of concrete that have contributed to meeting the sustainability goals of hundreds of construction projects across North America. Last month, CarbonCure achieved a historic milestone by successfully demonstrating the first integrated CO₂ capture and reuse model within the cement and concrete industry, by using captured cement CO₂ emissions for concrete production to supply a green building development in the Atlanta area.

The team is excited for this next opportunity to replicate the model at the Alberta Test Center using natural gas plant emissions. These projects are vitally important to demonstrate the viability to industry and regulators of a complete low-cost solution that profits each member of the supply chain—from the emitter to the concrete manufacturer and construction end user.

CarbonCure’s XPRIZE team, led by CarbonCure's Executive Vice President Jennifer Wagner, is the only female-led team remaining in the competition. Team CarbonCure consists of leaders across the industry value chain, including cement and concrete producer Cementos Argos S.A., concrete producers Thomas Concrete and BURNCO Rock Products, industrial gas company Praxair, Inc., carbon capture innovator Sustainable Energy Solutions, engineering specialists Kline Consulting LLC, as well as many members of the design and construction community such as LS3P Architects, Uzun + Case Structural Engineering, and Walter P. Moore Structural Engineers. 

About CarbonCure Technologies Inc.

CarbonCure is the world leader in CO₂ utilization technologies for the cement and concrete sector. Its retrofit technology chemically mineralizes waste carbon dioxide during the concrete manufacturing process to make greener and stronger concrete. CarbonCure’s technology is being used by nearly 100 concrete producers today to reduce concrete’s carbon footprint, create new production cost savings and gain a competitive sales advantage. Concrete plants are retrofitted in a single day and require no CAPEX or changes to their materials and production practices. For more information, contact info@carboncure.com or visit www.carboncure.com.

About XPRIZE

XPRIZE, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, is the global leader in designing and implementing innovative competition models to solve the world’s grandest challenges. XPRIZE utilizes a unique combination of gamification, crowd-sourcing, incentive prize theory, and exponential technologies as a formula to make 10x (vs. 10%) impact in the grand challenge domains facing our world. XPRIZE’s philosophy is that—under the right circumstances— igniting rapid experimentation from a variety of diverse lenses is the most efficient and effective method to driving exponential impact and solutions to grand challenges. Active competitions include the $20M NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE, the $15M Global Learning XPRIZE, the $10M ANA Avatar XPRIZE, the $7M Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE, the $7M Barbara Bush Foundation Adult Literacy XPRIZE, the $5M IBM Watson AI XPRIZE, the $1.75M Water Abundance XPRIZE and the $1M Anu and Naveen Jain Women’s Safety XPRIZE. For more information, visit www.xprize.org.

About NRG

NRG is the leading integrated power company in the U.S., built on the strength of our diverse competitive electric generation portfolio and leading retail electricity platform. A Fortune 500 company, NRG creates value through best in class operations, reliable and efficient electric generation, and a retail platform serving residential and commercial businesses. Working with electricity customers, large and small, we implement sustainable solutions for producing and managing energy, developing smarter energy choices and delivering exceptional service as our retail electricity providers serve almost three million residential and commercial customers throughout the country. More information is available at www.nrg.com. Connect with NRG Energy on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @nrgenergy.

About COSIA

Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA) is a unique alliance of oil sands producers focused on accelerating environmental performance in Canada’s oil sands. COSIA enables collaboration and innovation between big thinkers from industry, government, academia and the wider public to improve measurement, accountability and performance in the oil sands across our environmental priority areas of greenhouse gases, land, water and tailings. COSIA members search the world for solutions to our toughest problems. And we have some of the best minds on the planet working on technologies to enable responsible and sustainable development. To date, COSIA has shared 981 distinct environmental technologies and innovations that cost over $1.4 billion to develop. Visit us at www.cosia.ca.

For media inquiries and more information please contact: 
Christie Gamble, Director of Sales & Marketing at cgamble@carboncure.com.

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