As students at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur in eastern India, Aniruddha Sharma and Prateek Bumb had one obsession: finding a cheaper, more efficient way to capture carbon emissions to combat climate change. They began working on the problem in 2009, while still at university. The eureka moment came after numerous trials and errors that required re-starting the process 16 times.
With no help from the Indian government, Sharma and Bumb tapped private investors. They also won prize money of 3.6 million pounds ($4.5 million) in a UK competition, giving them access to scientists and academics in the field.
“Carbon capture technology may have the single biggest impact on emissions reduction,” said Sharma, co-founder of Carbon Clean Solutions (CCS), now based in London.
“But for it to be widely used, it’s very important that the technology be cost-effective,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
India is the world’s fourth largest emitter of greenhouse gases. As a signatory to the Paris Agreement on climate change, it has committed to ensuring at least 40 percent of its electricity is generated from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030.
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