New Scientist - USA (2021-11-06)

6 November 2021 | New Scientist | 27

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An ecologist explores

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W

HEN Elon Musk joined
the fledgling car firm
Tesla in 2004, he put in
$6.5 million to become majority
shareholder and chair of the
board. Seventeen years later, in
October this year, the firm reached
a market value of $1 trillion, only
the sixth US company to do so, and
the second-fastest, after Facebook.
While much talk in financial
circles concerns the company’s
balance sheet – it is the lowest-
revenue business to achieve a
$1 trillion valuation – I am more
interested in what comes next
and how it encourages rapid
change towards a greener future.
Musk has long been clear
that the ambition for Tesla isn’t
just about building electric cars,
but about disrupting the entire
economy.
Tesla is a major manufacturer
and installer of photovoltaics in
the US, with plans for expanded
production of solar panels and
roof tiles. You can imagine the
corporate vision is one where
every house has a Tesla solar roof
feeding a Tesla electric vehicle
parked outside. The company
is already one of the largest
manufacturers of batteries and
energy storage systems at scales
ranging from vehicles to homes
to entire grids.
So what’s next? It would be
great if Musk could make heat
pumps sexy, though even he
might struggle with that. Perhaps
a different approach would be to
wrap it all up as a net-zero housing
MIoffering. The TeslaHouse? I would
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live in it – if I could afford it.

I had an interaction with Musk

that gives me a clue as to where

else the company might go. Just

before my book How to Spend a

Trillion Dollars came out this year,

I sent Musk a copy in the hope

he might provide a blurb for the

cover. He said he would read it.

When I prodded him a bit later,

he responded, “Is that the book

with [Amazon founder Jeff] Bezos

in it?” and then I heard nothing

more. Well, he is a busy man.

But then a few months later,

something strange happened.

My book is about the global

and scientific problems you could

solve, or at least tackle, if you had

huge funds at your disposal. In

one chapter, I look at the problem

of getting carbon dioxide out

of the atmosphere and suggest

that a good way to stimulate the

development of technology to

do this at scale would be to launch

a lucrative competition. I propose

a prize of $100 million to the first

group able to remove and bury

100,000 tonnes of CO2 , or to

remove 1 tonne of CO2 for $200.

After being sent my book, Musk

announced he was launching the

XPrize Carbon Removal – with

a prize of $100 million. Even if

it isn’t strictly true, it is nice to

say that I spent $100 million

of Musk’s money.

So why is Musk so interested

in CO2 removal? Well, it currently

costs about $600 to capture

1 tonne of CO2. Once the price

comes down, you can imagine the

demand there will be from firms

and individuals to pay to offset

their carbon emissions. You can

imagine the size of the future

market. Scaling up production

of carbon-capture units will be

a multibillion-dollar industry.

We mustn’t forget Mars. A lot

of what Musk does is directed

towards the bigger goal of settling

on that planet. The atmosphere

of Mars is about 95 per cent CO2

and a device that can efficiently

remove it from the air will be

useful for making food and fuel.

You might not agree that

settling on Mars while our own

planet is in such terrible shape

is a worthy thing to do, and you

might be uncomfortable or even

repelled by claims about Musk’s

behaviour or the terms of

employment for his staff or the

amount of tax he has or hasn’t

paid. That isn’t the point here.

The point is that his strategy

has worked. I hope that Tesla’s

trillion-dollar valuation spurs the

company to roll out more green

solutions on Earth and inspires

new start-ups to do the same. ❚

Musk’s millions

Financially speaking, Tesla is a massive success. The question is what

will it do with all that money, says Rowan Hooper

Rowan Hooper is

podcast editor for

New Scientist. His latest

book is How to Spend

a Trillion Dollars