Person with the World's Largest Negative Carbon Footprint Wins the €1 Million Millennium Technology Prize: Technology Academy Finland (TAF)

HELSINKI, Sept. 4, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The 2024 Millennium Technology Prize has been awarded to Professor Bantval Jayant Baliga of North Carolina State University, United States, for his innovation that has enabled dramatic reduction in worldwide electrical energy and petrol consumption.

The €1 million global award for technology recognizes Baliga's leadership in the invention, development, and commercialization of the Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT). Since its development in the 1980s, the IGBT has been the most important semiconductor device for making electrical energy use and petrol consumption more efficient and less polluting during the last 40 years. The efficiency improvements and reductions of fossil fuels consumption and cost, achieved by the IGBT, revolutionized the power industry. The technology has reduced global carbon dioxide emissions by over 82 gigatons (180 trillion pounds) in the past 30 years. This is equivalent to setting off carbon dioxide emissions by all human activity for three years, based on the average of the past 30 years' time frame.