California-based climate tech company CarbonCapture announced today an agreement with Microsoft for the purchase of carbon removal credits generated through its Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology.

DAC technology, listed by the IEA as a key carbon removal option in the transition to a net-zero energy system, extracts CO2 directly from the atmosphere for use as a raw material or permanently removed when combined with storage. According to last year’s IPCC climate change mitigation study, scenarios that limit warming to 1.5°C include carbon dioxide removal methods scaling to billions of tons of removal annually over the coming decades, with DAC positioned to potentially account for a significant portion of the total.

The new agreement with Microsoft follows the announced launch in September 2022 by CarbonCapture of “Project Bison,” a new DAC project in Wyoming, aimed at permanently removing and storing five million tons of CO2 from the atmosphere per year, in partnership with carbon storage developer Frontier Carbon Solutions. The project is expected to be operational by late 2023, and to be developed over multiple phases through 2030, reaching 5 million tons of annual capacity.

Adrian Corless, CEO and CTO at CarbonCapture, said:

“Validation of CarbonCapture’s scalable approach to DAC from a forward-thinking company like Microsoft is an important signal to the entire market, demonstrating the value of high-quality carbon removal credits.”

The agreement marks the latest in a series of carbon removal deals announced by Microsoft, forming part of the company’s initiative to become carbon negative by 2030, and to remove all of its historical emissions by 2050. Microsoft recently announced another DAC-based agreement with startup Climeworks to permanently remove 10,000 tons of CO2 emissions, and earlier this month the company entered its first agreement for ocean-based carbon dioxide removal, with ocean health company Running Tide.

Phillip Goodman, Director, Carbon Removal Portfolio at Microsoft, said:

“Purchasing DAC carbon removal credits is an important part of Microsoft’s pursuit of permanent, durable carbon removal. This agreement with CarbonCapture helps us move toward our carbon negative goal, while also helping to catalyze the growth of the direct air capture industry as a whole.”