• Tools:
• Save |
• Print |
• E-mail |
• Most Popular

$25M prize to beat greenhouse gas

LONDON, England (AP) -- British tycoon Richard Branson on Friday announced a $25 million prize for the first scientist to come up with a way to extract greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

The Virgin Group chairman was joined by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and other leading environmentalists as he announced the challenge to find ways to significantly reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Branson compared his challenge to the competition launched in 1675 to devise a method of estimating longitude accurately. It was 60 years before English clock maker John Harrison discovered an accurate method and received his prize from King George III.

"The Earth cannot wait 60 years. We need everybody capable of discovering an answer to put their minds to it today," Branson said.

"We have only our own ingenuity and we have no hope of a meaningful solution unless we find a way to work together," Branson said. "Necessity is the mother of invention."

Gore said the planet had a "fever" that had to be taken seriously.

"Up until now, what has not been asked seriously on a systematic basis is, is there some way that some of that extra carbon dioxide may be scavenged effectively out of the atmosphere? And no one knows the answer to that," Gore said.

In September, Branson pledged to invest $3 billion to fight global warming, saying he would commit all profits from his travel firms -- including Virgin Atlantic airline and Virgin Trains -- over the next 10 years.

As part of that pledge, he launched a new Virgin Fuels business, which is to invest up to $400 million in green energy projects in the next three years.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.