Frontier Launches Alkalinity Challenge for Large-Scale Carbon Removal

Frontier is launching a pioneering initiative aimed at advancing carbon dioxide removal (CDR) through alkalinity driven approaches. The Alkalinity Sourcing Challenge focuses on identifying accessible and cost effective mineral deposits that can support large scale CDR efforts, potentially helping to mitigate climate change on a teraton scale by the end of the century.

The challenge seeks to locate mineral deposits that are highly reactive with ambient air, specifically targeting minerals like brucite, portlandite, magnesia, and wollastonite. Such minerals with their very slow reactivity rates serve an important function of holding onto carbon dioxide dissolved within the atmosphere. Ideally, researchers are interested in how these sources of alkalinity may be tapped as levers for large scale removals of carbon from the atmosphere.

Crowdsourcing Hypotheses to Discover Latent Deposits

A key aspect of the challenge is the crowdsourcing approach, inviting individuals and organizations to contribute their insights into potential sites containing large quantities of highly reactive minerals. Geological processes have already formed significant deposits of brucite, a mineral that could play a key role in the CDR effort, though the exact locations of these valuable resources are still uncertain.

The challenge aims to harness collective intelligence to hypothesize potential sites that could support at least one teraton of alkalinity-driven CDR, a step that could significantly contribute to global efforts to combat climate change.

Frontier Commits $80 Million to Carbon Removal Technologies

Incentives and Evaluation Process

The challenge's criteria will determine which submissions will be eligible for the $5,000 award. Frontier will work with independent academic experts to review the submissions in order to identify the most viable and promising sites. In the event that more than ten submissions meet the necessary criteria, Frontier will prioritize those that suggest the largest deposits with the strongest supporting evidence, both theoretical and empirical.