Microsoft has signed a carbon capture agreement to remove CO2 by burying charcoal.
Carbon Streaming Corporation last week announced it will provide Microsoft with carbon removal credits from the Waverly Biochar project in Waverly, Virginia.
“We’re pleased to work with Carbon Streaming to support the development of biochar as a carbon removal approach through the Waverly Biochar project. Carbon Streaming’s capacity to provide project-level finance is an important part of scaling this industry and it ensures we can focus on procuring carbon removal from high-quality projects,” said Brian Marrs, senior director of energy and carbon, Microsoft.
Oliver Forster, VP of sales at Carbon Streaming, added: “We are delighted to be working with Microsoft to provide them with high quality and scalable carbon dioxide removals to support their carbon negative commitment. We’re particularly excited about the capacity for biochar to scale this decade with support from visionary organizations such as Microsoft.”
Carbon Streaming said the Waverly Biochar project is expected to deliver up to 10,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide removal credits per year towards Microsoft’s carbon negative target.
Biochar (Biological charcoal) is a carbon-rich form of charcoal made from biomass (such as wood, peanut shells, manure, and crop waste) that is heated in an oxygen-limited environment (known as pyrolysis).
Plants capture carbon while they grow, which is then retained in the charcoal. Carbon Streamings aims to produce and bury biochar as a way to sequester carbon for hundreds of years. The carbon credits produced are validated by Puro.earth.
The Waverly project will see a biochar production facility located at a wood pellet manufacturer in Waverly, in Virginia's Sussex County.
The project is hosted by Wood Fuel Developers, a company that produces the EasyPellet brand of wood pellets for home heating and animal bedding. The biochar facility is being built by Restoration Bioproducts and is expected to go live this year.
The Waverly Biochar project is expected to remove over 262,000 tCO2e of emissions over its 25-year project life.
Microsoft has previously invested in several carbon capture ventures, including CarbonCapture, ClimeWorks, Running Tide, and Heirloom.
The company has pledged to become carbon negative by 2030, and by 2050 says it will have removed all the carbon it has emitted since its founding in 1975.
