In an attempt to compensate for the growing emissions of its artificial intelligence empire, Microsoft has signed an agreement for Buy 4.9 million carbon metric tons by discharging human and agricultural waste at 1,524 meters underground.
The computer giant announced an agreement 12 years with the Vaulted Deep waste management company, to Convert wastewater into a surprisingly lucrative climatic solution.
Although little glamorous, the idea is to take all the organic waste that nobody wants, including biosolids, manure and food waste, mix them and inject them into deep rock formations, isolated from the outside world.
For each ton of carbon trapped underground, Microsoft obtains a carbon removal loan. This means Less emissions in its corporate accounts and a cleaner image for a future driven by AI that is nothing low in carbon.
Vaulted Deep’s method may seem taken from a dystopian science fiction script, but is already used in cities such as angels. And with the support of Microsoft, the company is expanding, which shows that, in The current climatic economy, even the waste has value when they are burned correctly.
“As the elimination of carbon goes beyond pilots and prototypes, the demand for solutions that can scale safely and address real -world problems -explains Julia Reichelstein, co -founder and executive director of Vaulted Deep -explains a double solution: satisfies the urgent needs for waste management and promotes measurable improvements in climate and public health. This agreement reflects a broader change in the way in which carbon removal is being implemented. It is no longer limited to emerging technologies, but is increasingly implemented through existing large -scale infrastructures with novel applications. ”
Microsoft, what eIt mitigated more than 75 million metric tons of carbon dioxide between 2020 and 2024, He has invested strongly in carbon elimination to achieve his goal of being carbon-negative by 2030.
By 2050, the company hopes to have eliminated all greenhouse gases issued since its foundation. To date, it has acquired more than 83 million tons of carbon elimination loans, which makes it one of the largest buyers in the market.
Unlike trees planting or direct air capture, both of slow scale, The profound injection of waste is based on the existing infrastructure in some parts of the US.
This technique has been used for decades to manage industrial waste. Vaulted simply He reused it for organic lodoso material that, otherwise, would accumulate in landfills, would filter the river roads or release methane to the atmosphere. For Microsoft, the appeal does not only reside in retaining carbon, but also in avoiding the public reaction related to visible waste management problems.
“Basically, they are using biosolids, and much of them are distributed today in the fields – adds Brian Marrs, senior director of Microsoft energy and carbon elimination -. isolate those biosolids where they cannot be a nuisance to the environment… That cobenefice effort is extremely interesting. ”
Even so, critics claim that burying the waste is not the miraculous solution. The environmental groups have been warning about the unknowns of the injection in deep wells, since The risks of contamination of groundwater to the challenges of long -term monitoring.
However, for now, this unlikely alliance between large technological and large organic waste companies could be precisely the climatic solution that Reduce the growing emissions of the AI.