Microsoft is stepping up its controversial plan to capture carbon dioxide emissions from wood-fired power plants. The company announced a deal with energy company Stockholm Exergi to capture 3.33 million tonnes of carbon emissions from a biomass power plant in the Swedish capital. This may be the largest deal of its kind to date – equivalent to taking more than 790,000 gas-powered cars off the road for a year.
It’s designed to help Microsoft meet its goal of capturing more planet-warming CO2 than it produces as a company by 2030, and then removing as much CO2 from the atmosphere by 2050 as it has ever emitted since its founding .
It is still unclear whether wood-fired power plants actually help combat climate change or make the situation worse. Prominent environmental groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of the Earth International, have criticized the strategy as a “false solution.” And back in 2018, almost 800 scientists signed a letter to the European Parliament asking it to stop supporting the use of wood for bioenergy.
Prominent environmental groups criticized the strategy as a “wrong solution”
Exergi operates a power plant in Stockholm that runs on wood pellets and residues from forest waste, also known as forest biomass. Because this fuel comes from trees that can theoretically grow back to capture as much carbon dioxide as the power plant releases from burning wood, advocates see it as a carbon-neutral energy source. The European Commission actually considers biomass burning to be its largest source of renewable energy, even though it has been linked to deforestation across Europe and the US.
Microsoft and Stockholm Exergi are taking this idea a step further by adding machines to the power plant that are designed to capture much of the carbon dioxide emissions before they can enter the atmosphere. They believe they can achieve negative emissions by removing more CO2 from the atmosphere than this energy source produces. Negative emissions technologies like these have become popular among companies trying to offset the environmental impact of their carbon pollution.
Microsoft declined to respond The edgeRequest for comments. It also didn’t make clear how much it would spend on the deal with Stockholm Exergi. But Microsoft has heard these concerns before. Last year, the company signed another contract with Danish energy company Ørsted to capture 2.76 million tons of carbon dioxide from a wood-fired power plant in Denmark.
In Stockholm, construction of the CO2 capture equipment at the power plant is not scheduled to begin until next year – provided Stockholm Exergi secures enough additional funding from other contracts and government aid. It would then take ten years to remove all 3.33 million tons of carbon dioxide agreed in the contract.
Stockholm Exergi sees this deal as a major seal of approval for its carbon capture technology. “It is the greatest possible recognition of the importance, quality and sustainability of our project,” Anders Egelrud, CEO of Stockholm Exergi, said in a press release.