Startup accelerator Creative Destruction Lab’s oceans stream has joined Virginia-based industry group Ocean Visions to offer training to startups gunning for the Carbon Removal XPRIZE -- a cleantech startup competition with a US$100 million prize, funded by Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

Creative Destruction Lab and Ocean Visions will offer a specially tailored program to XPRIZE entrants, helping them find the technical expertise and physical resources, such as testing facilities and ocean vessels, they need to compete effectively.

The CDL and Ocean Visions joint project will be targeted specifically at companies working on using the ocean to sequester captured carbon dioxide.

CDL Oceans is based out of Dalhousie University, with its parent organization in Toronto, and runs from October to June. The Carbon Removal XPRIZE will be a five-year competition paid for by Musk’s charitable foundation.

A year into the competition, judges will award up to 15 US$1 million “milestone prizes.”

“CDL Oceans is thrilled to partner with Ocean Visions and to support teams developing ocean-based carbon removal solutions as part of the $100M XPRIZE Carbon Removal, which aligns directly with our mission to accelerate the commercialization of science for the betterment of humankind,” said CDL Atlantic head Jeff Larsen in a press release.

The CDL deal comes in the wake of CarbonCure Technologies, a Halifax company, winning a $7.5 million grand prize from the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE for its technology that uses reclaimed carbon to cure concrete.