Microsoft is building data centers as fast as possible, and it's killing the carbon balance sheet. Since 2020, its carbon emissions have grown by almost a quarter, undermining the pledges made that year to remove more carbon from the atmosphere than would be produced by 2030.
That's why Microsoft is buying a large amount of carbon removal credits to try to improve that situation, including 4.9 million tonnes of newly announced purchases from Vaulted Deep. Neither party discloses the financial terms of the transaction. It will last for 12 years until 2028.
Vaulted Deep operates like a reverse oil company. It collects otherwise treated sewage, excess fertilizer, or solid waste from landfills or incinerators, such as paper sludge, which dissolves into the slurry and injects into deep porous rocks underground. The wells are drilled and pores are opened using techniques developed for oil and gas fracking.
So far, Vaulted Deep has removed more than 18,000 tons of carbon dioxide. The company was runner-up in the Xprize Carbon Competition, raising a $32 million Series A in November, led by Prelude Ventures.
Recently, Microsoft has been stuck between rocks and the difficult places to do good things to its at-risk carbon pledge. While tech companies have invested heavily in renewable electricity, avoiding emissions is considered a good first step, there are a few things that need to be used, like semiconductors.
Last year, Microsoft generated 14.9 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. That's more than twice what they hope to produce in 2030, when negative carbon emissions are expected to reach.
To achieve its goal, the company has recently stepped up its investment in carbon removal. Among them is a 7 million tonne metric tonne deal with chestnut carbon to replant 60,000 acres in the southeastern United States, another metric tonne with 3.7 million tonnes of CO280 to acquire carbon from paper mill operations along the Gulf Coast.
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