Microsoft’s carbon-removal plans aren’t dead after all

微软的碳清除计划并未终结

Microsoft is purchasing 650,000 metric tons of carbon-removal credits from startup BioCirc, the company said today. As carbon-removal deals go, it’s not a big buy. But this one is notable because last month, two reports said the tech giant was pausing its carbon-removal deals. 微软今日宣布，将从初创公司 BioCirc 购买 65 万公吨的碳清除额度。就碳清除交易而言，这并非一笔巨额采购。但值得注意的是，上个月曾有两份报告称这家科技巨头正在暂停其碳清除交易。

BioCirc confirmed for TechCrunch that the purchase agreement was signed in May, weeks after Microsoft reportedly paused new deals. For the carbon-removal industry — and the startups that depend on it — there’s a big difference between a pause and a recalibration. Microsoft is reportedly responsible for more than 90% of the carbon-removal credit market, meaning its purchasing decisions alone can determine whether young companies in the space survive. BioCirc 向 TechCrunch 证实，该采购协议签署于 5 月份，即微软被曝暂停新交易的几周后。对于碳清除行业以及依赖该行业的初创公司而言，“暂停”与“重新调整”之间有着巨大的区别。据报道，微软占据了碳清除额度市场 90% 以上的份额，这意味着其采购决策足以决定该领域初创企业的生死。

Microsoft repeatedly denied that it had paused its carbon-removal purchases. “Our carbon removal program has not ended,” Melanie Nakagawa, chief sustainability officer at Microsoft, told TechCrunch in a statement. “At times we may adjust the pace or volume of our carbon removal procurement as we continue to refine our approach toward sustainability goals.” 微软多次否认其已暂停碳清除采购。微软首席可持续发展官梅兰妮·中川（Melanie Nakagawa）在给 TechCrunch 的声明中表示：“我们的碳清除计划并未结束。随着我们不断优化实现可持续发展目标的方法，我们有时可能会调整碳清除采购的节奏或规模。”

The new deal generates carbon-removal credits from five BioCirc biogas projects. The biogas plants take biomass waste — frequently from agriculture — and use industrial bioreactors to turn it into methane and carbon dioxide. BioCirc captures the carbon dioxide and stores it in an underground reservoir offshore. The methane is then burned in a power plant. 这项新交易通过 BioCirc 的五个沼气项目产生碳清除额度。这些沼气厂利用生物质废料（通常来自农业），通过工业生物反应器将其转化为甲烷和二氧化碳。BioCirc 会捕获二氧化碳并将其储存在近海的地下储层中，而甲烷则在发电厂中燃烧利用。

Microsoft’s sustainability goals have been strained by the company’s push into AI. To power its data centers in Texas, Microsoft last month said it was working with Chevron and Engine No. 1 to build a natural gas power plant in the state that could eventually generate 5 gigawatts of electricity. Emissions from that project alone promise to dwarf the deal with BioCirc. 微软在人工智能领域的推进使其可持续发展目标承受了压力。为了给德克萨斯州的数据中心供电，微软上个月表示，正与雪佛龙（Chevron）和 Engine No. 1 合作在该州建设一座天然气发电厂，最终发电量可达 5 吉瓦。仅该项目的排放量就远超与 BioCirc 的这笔交易。

Internally, Microsoft employees have also been debating whether to abandon the company’s goal of matching zero-emissions electricity with its energy use on an hourly basis. Today, the company matches on an annual basis. That approach gives Microsoft more flexibility to, say, use more natural gas to power its data centers at night, but it also makes the company’s clean energy claims harder to verify. 在内部，微软员工也在争论是否应放弃“按小时匹配零排放电力与能源消耗”的目标。目前，该公司采用的是年度匹配方式。这种方法虽然让微软在夜间使用更多天然气为数据中心供电时拥有更大的灵活性，但也使其清洁能源声明更难被核实。

If Microsoft continues to pursue fossil fuel power plants, it’ll need to ramp up its carbon-removal purchases to meet its 2030 target of becoming a carbon-negative company (one that removes more greenhouse gases from the atmosphere than it generates). Last year, Microsoft signed several deals worth millions of tons of carbon-removal credits. The program’s reported pause set off alarm bells throughout the carbon-removal industry, which is still in its infancy. 如果微软继续推进化石燃料发电厂项目，就必须加大碳清除采购力度，以实现其 2030 年成为“碳负”公司（即从大气中清除的温室气体多于其产生的温室气体）的目标。去年，微软签署了多项价值数百万吨碳清除额度的协议。此前关于该计划暂停的报道，在尚处于起步阶段的碳清除行业中引发了警报。

The new deal suggests that Microsoft is, in fact, recalibrating its carbon-removal program — not abandoning it. Whether that remains true as AI drives its energy consumption higher is something the industry will be watching. 这笔新交易表明，微软实际上是在重新调整其碳清除计划，而非放弃。随着人工智能推动其能源消耗不断攀升，这一调整是否会持续下去，将是行业关注的焦点。