Microsoft has just acquired a start-up specializing in the capture of CO2 in the atmosphere.
The company founded by Bill Gates is particularly at the forefront of environmental battles. It is thus multiplying projects in the sector, in particular by seeking to save water intended to cool its data centers, or to reduce its carbon footprint. And she just performed an operation that could advance her in this last field.
CarbonCapture, new Microsoft entity
Microsoft is committed to the environment, and makes it known. The Redmond firm has thus just announced the acquisition of the company CarbonCapture, the basis of a CO2 capture technology under development in the United States, at a site located in Wyoming. This solution takes the form of rectangular modules quite similar to containers, stacked on top of each other, and which capture around 75% of the CO2 from the air passing through them. The carbon dioxide thus trapped is then transported more than 3,600 meters below in the saline aquifers.
The first modules, which will be put into service next year, are expected to remove 10,000 tonnes of CO2 from the air per year. ” This agreement with CarbonCapture helps us achieve our negative carbon footprint goal, while helping to catalyze the growth of the direct air capture industry as a whole. “, proudly explains the director of the Microsoft division in charge of the elimination of carbon emissions Phillip Goodman.
The objective of the negative carbon footprint
Because the tech giant’s objectives are very ambitious, and are formalized in the concept of a negative carbon footprint. By 2030, Microsoft wants in this context to remove more CO2 from the environment than it emits. Bolder still, the company wants by 2050 to remove from the atmosphere all the carbon dioxide it has released since its foundation.
Enough to give work to CarboneCapture. To give an idea, for the year 2021 alone, Microsoft had released 14 million tonnes of CO2, the equivalent of the annual activity of 35 gas-fired power plants. But the Californian start-up wants to grow quickly. Its management wants to be able to capture 5 million tons of CO2 each year by 2030.
Source : The Verge
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