Microsoft has inked a contract with Occidental Petroleum to purchase 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide removing (CDR) “credit” over six years to assist its general carbon technique. The transfer follows a dramatic rise in Microsoft’s CO2 emissions as a consequence of datacenter building.
This newest settlement is with 1PointFive, Occidental’s carbon seize and sequestration enterprise, and claimed by the Monetary Occasions to be “price a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of {dollars},” though the precise worth of the transaction has but to be disclosed.
Carbon credit are a manner of shopping for a verifiable emissions discount from a 3rd social gathering in different to “offset” one’s personal emissions, and the idea has are available for some controversy through the years. Nonetheless, Direct Air Seize (DAC), immediately extracting carbon dioxide from the environment, has its supporters, with the IPCC stating [PDF] that, whereas not sufficient, some type of carbon removing is a part of “all modelled eventualities that restrict world warming to 2°or decrease by 2100.”
1PointFive describes the settlement as the most important single buy of CDR credit making use of DAC, and says it highlights the rising adoption of this tech as an answer to assist organizations meet their net-zero emission targets.
Microsoft’s CDR credit will likely be sunk into STRATOS, an industrial-scale DAC facility underneath building in Texas. Right here, the captured CO2 the credit are paying for will likely be saved by means of subsurface saline sequestration, based on 1PointFive.
“A dedication of this magnitude demonstrates how one of many world’s largest companies is integrating scalable Direct Air Seize into its internet zero technique,” says 1PointFive President and Basic Supervisor Michael Avery.
“Power demand throughout the know-how trade is rising and we consider Direct Air Seize is uniquely suited to take away residual emissions and additional local weather targets.”
That six-year interval over which the CDR credit will lengthen matches neatly with the 2030 deadline Microsoft set itself a number of years again to turn out to be “carbon-negative”.
Nevertheless, the corporate’s CO2 emissions have since elevated by almost 30 %, based on Microsoft’s 2024 Environmental Sustainability Report. This was blamed largely on oblique (Scope 3) emissions from the development and outfitting of extra datacenters – a extremely carbon-intensive course of – to fulfill buyer demand for cloud providers.
It appears possible that this newest settlement could also be supposed to counteract this. We requested Microsoft for the explanations behind it and can replace if we get solutions.
In a press release accompanying the announcement, Brian Marrs, Microsoft’s Senior Director for Carbon Removing and Power, mentioned that DAC performs an necessary position in Microsoft’s carbon removing portfolio to assist its broader aim of turning into carbon-negative by 2030.
One of many main causes of Microsoft’s feverish datacenter build-out has been AI, with the corporate ramping up assist following the explosion of curiosity in OpenAI and ChatGPT over the previous couple of years.
Microsoft is not the one tech large discovering itself on this place. Google admitted earlier this month that its CO2 emissions are up by 48 % since 2019, regardless of having its personal 2030 “net-zero” local weather dedication – Google additionally pointed the finger of blame at AI.
Using credit to offset emissions, nonetheless, is inflicting concern. Based on a report by McKinsey, some critics of offsetting – together with the usage of CDR options – cite worries that it offers emitters with a “licence to pollute” and represents “a harmful distraction” from decarbonization efforts.
Environmental marketing campaign group Greenpeace additionally weighed in final yr on the usage of strategies akin to renewable power certificates (RECs) by tech firms to say they’re assembly their carbon targets.
RECs particularly don’t essentially encourage the manufacturing of latest wind or photo voltaic farms, and the power equipped by means of them should come from fossil fuels on days when there’s low wind or photo voltaic power era.
“Manufacturers like Apple and Microsoft shouldn’t promote their merchandise as ‘inexperienced,’ when their provide chains are nonetheless powered by coal and fuel,” a Greenpeace campaigner mentioned on the time. ®