Today Microsoft announced a deal with a carbon removal startup north of Washington’s Olympic Stadium to remove 350,000 tons of CO2 over the next decade.
Ebb Carbon uses technology used by wineries and sewage plants that can be used in the ocean, creating water that is more acidic than acidic. Alkaline or alkaline water can remove carbon from the ocean and store it efficiently – also helping to combat ocean acidification.
The contract starts with 1,333 tons of extraction, and Microsoft can buy additional extraction credits. The companies did not disclose the terms of the agreement.
“The ocean is a critical part of the carbon cycle,” said Brian Marrs, senior director of Energy and Carbon Removal at Microsoft, in a statement. “Ebb has developed technology to leverage the natural attributes of the ocean — its massive surface area and natural ocean processes that already pull CO2 from the atmosphere — to durably remove and store large volumes of atmospheric carbon. ”
Ebb Carbon is based in South San Francisco and partnering with the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Sequim, Wash. , for its pilot plant. The company launched four years ago and has raised $22 million from investors.
At least 18 startups are turning to the ocean as a partner in taking carbon out of circulation — including another venture in the Pacific Northwest. Researchers at the University of Washington launched Banyu Carbon, which uses a different approach to tweaking ocean chemistry for carbon removal.
The strategy used by Ebb Carbon is “Ocean Alkalinity”. By creating the starting conditions in seawater, CO2 can be converted to bicarbonate ions(Microsoft signs deal).
Microsoft has signed several carbon reduction agreements. The first long-term contract was signed in 2022 with Climeworks, which manufactures extraction machines in Iceland. In July, Microsoft bought 500,000 tons of emissions credits from a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum, the largest buyer of coal emissions.
The Redmond, Washington-based tech giant has big goals ahead of them — even the explosion of AI use and next-generation AI. Now the company and other data center giants are building large storage spaces to meet larger data needs. This will increase the effect of the weather.
The coal sector has recently faced challenges. The site was criticized for accounting and verification of the amount of carbon that should be allocated for extraction. Ebb Carbon is working with the carbon registry to secure the benefits. Isometric is the first organization to develop a protocol for extracting carbon from seawater alkalinity. “Companies looking to remove carbon dioxide from seawater face many challenges,” David Ho told GeekWire. This includes detailed monitoring, reporting and verification of the amount of carbon dioxide removed. As carbon is depleted from seawater, the ocean gains new energy to absorb from the atmosphere, but it is difficult to quantify. At the same time, Hu, who founded [C]Worthy to fix ocean CO2 emissions accounts, sees the general approach as “better at scale” than land strategies. “It’s great to see Microsoft and Ebb using Isometrics’ first Ocean Alkaline Enhancement (OAE) protocol to verify carbon removal,” said Stacey Kawk, Isometrics Chief Science Officer. The OAE is promising because of the large surface area of the sea. This fact needs careful investigation, reporting and verification.
