This is hopeful.

Millions of pounds are on offer for the person who comes up with the best way of removing significant amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson launched the competition today in London . . .

A panel of judges will oversee the prize, including James Lovelock and Nasa scientist James Hansen. . .

He said if the planet was to survive, it was vital to find a way of getting rid of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

He said he believed offering the $25m (£12.5m) Earth Challenge Prize was the best way of finding a solution. . .

Carbon capture and storage is already a key area of research.

Scientists have been looking into removing the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere and storing it in oil and gas fields, injecting it deep into the ocean, or chemically transforming it into solids or liquids that are thermodynamically stable.

However, these methods have raised concerns, notably because of the possibility of leakage from the storage sites and fears that C02 dissolved in large quantities in the ocean might harm marine ecosystems.

Other scientists are also looking at schemes that might "scrub" the air of CO2, collecting the gas for safe storage; but many critics say the energy required to achieve this would make such an approach self-defeating.

This answers recent posts here about prizes as spurs to innovation in general, and the need for carbon removal methods.

Benny Peiser left a comment on this Prometheus post noting that:

. . . it provides the prize judges (can you name *any* prophet of doom more gloomy than the Branson team?) a constructive venture . . .

My first reaction was that Branson had thrown life preservers to drowning men. It seems to me that they had all fallen overboard and would soon sink from view. Not soon enough some might say, but their eventual demise seemed assured by their previous blunders.

It may not matter but involving such people seems a bit creepy to me, and gives me a bad feeling about the prize competition, as if their involvement somehow dooms the effort to failure. That's just a chill, a premonition, and I sincerely hope it's just a silly fright about some creepy guys and that it won't affect the competition at all.