Microsoft, an early backer of emerging technologies that capture carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere, has agreed to buy carbon removal credits from Los Angeles-based startup CarbonCapture.
CarbonCapture has a massive facility called a direct air capture (DAC) factory in the works in Wyoming. The facility, dubbed Project Bison, is expected to begin operating sometime in the second half of 2024. The startup has developed modular technology that extracts CO2 from the ambient air so it can be stored underground, preventing the greenhouse gas from contributing to climate change.
The startup has developed a modular technology that extracts CO2 from the ambient air and can store it underground
Microsoft aims to become “carbon negative” by 2030, meaning it would remove more CO2 pollution from the atmosphere than it generates from using fossil fuels. By 2050, Microsoft also plans to remove the equivalent of all of its historic emissions since the company was founded. That’s a tall order, to say the least, since carbon removal technology doesn’t yet exist on the scale Microsoft needs to meet its climate goals.
“This agreement with CarbonCapture will help us achieve our carbon negative target while also helping to catalyze the growth of the direct air capture industry as a whole,” said Phillip Goodman, director of Microsoft’s carbon removal portfolio, in the statement. announcement.
Microsoft say its priority is to reduce the amount of pollution it creates in the first place, minimizing the amount of CO2 it is supposed to take from the atmosphere. But after falling for a few years, the company’s greenhouse gas emissions started rising again in fiscal 2021, according to the latest sustainability report. Microsoft was responsible for about 14 million tons of CO2 emissions that year, about the same as 35 gas-fired power plants could produce in a year.
The tech giant’s new agreement with CarbonCapture will only be able to address a fraction of those emissions. CarbonCapture expects to be able to capture and store approximately 10,000 tons of CO2 annually after deploying the first modules in Wyoming next year.
The modules look like ventilated shipping containers stacked on top of each other. The equipment can filter about 75 percent of the CO2 from the air that passes through it. This generates concentrated streams of CO2 that must then be routed some 12,000 feet underground to saline aquifers. Another Dallas startup, Frontier Carbon Solutions, is partnering with CarbonCapture to permanently store the CO2 on site.
“This is a big deal for us,” said Adrian Corless, CEO and CTO of CarbonCapture The edge. The purchase agreement with Microsoft is greater than the sum of the startup’s deals with other, smaller customers, according to Corless. “This is just an important, you know, validating step for our company,” he says.
CarbonCapture plans to remove 5 million tons of carbon dioxide per year at its Wyoming facility in Sweetwater County by 2030. That alone is a big undertaking; the global carbon removal capacity is still equitable today 0.01 million tons of CO2 per year. Cost has been a major limiting factor for the industry so far. The price per ton of captured CO2 can be as high as $600 per ton.
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