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Technology

Microsoft’s Major Carbon Removal Deal

On curbing AI emissions, flood resilience, and offshore wind

Microsoft’s Major Carbon Removal Deal
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: Extreme heat in Southern California is causing cars to break down on the highway • Flooding in northeastern India killed nine rare one-horned rhinos • Residents in Mount Vernon, Indiana, are waking up to debris and devastation from a violent tornado spawned by the remnants of Hurricane Beryl.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Microsoft and Oxy agree to largest-ever DAC credits deal

Tech giant Microsoft has agreed to the “single largest purchase” of direct air capture carbon credits, buying 500,000 metric tons of credits from Occidental Petroleum’s (aka Oxy) 1PointFive DAC subsidiary. The deal is worth hundreds of millions of dollars and will help Microsoft confront its growing emissions problem as demand for energy-intensive artificial intelligence grows. Microsoft’s emissions grew by 30% in 2023 compared to 2020. Google’s emissions are also rising, up 13% last year compared to the year before. Both companies pin the blame on the growth of AI. As Bloomberg noted, DAC “is expensive, energy-intensive and not yet proven at industrial scale.” Occidental clinched a similar (but smaller) deal with Amazon last year.

2. New FEMA rule will improve infrastructure flood resilience

The Biden administration yesterday finalized a rule aimed at protecting federal infrastructure from flooding exacerbated by climate change. The federal flood risk management standard, first proposed in 2015, will require public structures funded by FEMA be built above the projected flood level for their location, or be moved to a different location entirely. The hope is to “put a stop to the cycle of response and recovery, and rinse and repeat,” said Deanne Criswell, the FEMA administrator. FEMA will cover the cost of implementing the changes. The rule will come into effect on September 9.

3. Texas power outages persist as temperatures rise

Frustration is growing in Texas, where nearly 2 million people are still without power after Hurricane Beryl tore through the state Monday as a category 1 storm. The power outages mean many residents are without access to air conditioning as a heat wave pushes temperatures into the 90s. At least 16 hospitals were relying on generators to keep the lights on yesterday, according toThe Associated Press. Making matters worse, flooding from the storm caused a “domestic wastewater” spill in downtown Houston, where residents were told to boil water before consuming it. A report published in April found that power outages from extreme weather events are rising in the U.S., with Texas being the worst-affected state.

Climate Central

4. Report: Offshore wind capacity won’t meet Biden’s goal

New analysis from the American Clean Power Association found that U.S. offshore wind capacity will fall short of President Biden’s goal of 30 gigawatts by 2030. There are currently 56 GW of capacity under development across 37 leases, the report finds, but just 14 GW will be deployed by 2030. However, things will speed up quickly, and it’ll take just three years for capacity to hit 30 GW in 2033, and another two to hit 40 GW in 2035.

5. Climate change-denying senator James Inhofe dies

Former Republican senator James Inhofe, “the capital’s most vociferous denier of climate change,” died Tuesday at age 89. Inhofe served five terms in the Senate starting in the 1990s before retiring in January last year. He began vocally downplaying scientific evidence of climate change in 2003. His campaigns received generous donations from fossil fuel interests. In 2012, Inhofe authored a book called The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future. In a 2015 stunt, he brought a snowball into the Senate in an attempt to prove that man-made global warming was not real. He opposed efforts to cap greenhouse gas emissions and once called the Environmental Protection Agency a “Gestapo bureaucracy.” He later went on to play a key role in transforming the EPA under former President Trump.

The late Sen. Inhofe during his 2015 snowball stunt.YouTube/C-SPAN

THE KICKER

Global temperatures seem to be falling slightly now, after more than a year of unrelenting new record monthly highs.

Yellow

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Sparks

Trump’s Offshore Wind Ban Is Coming, Congressman Says

Though it might not be as comprehensive or as permanent as renewables advocates have feared, it’s also “just the beginning,” the congressman said.

A very large elephant and a wind turbine.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

President-elect Donald Trump’s team is drafting an executive order to “halt offshore wind turbine activities” along the East Coast, working with the office of Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, the congressman said in a press release from his office Monday afternoon.

“This executive order is just the beginning,” Van Drew said in a statement. “We will fight tooth and nail to prevent this offshore wind catastrophe from wreaking havoc on the hardworking people who call our coastal towns home.”

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An Unexpected Obstacle to Putting Out the L.A. Fires

That sick drone shot is not worth it.

A drone operator and flames.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Imagine for a moment that you’re an aerial firefighter pilot. You have one of the most dangerous jobs in the country, and now you’ve been called in to fight the devastating fires burning in Los Angeles County’s famously tricky, hilly terrain. You’re working long hours — not as long as your colleagues on the ground due to flight time limitations, but the maximum scheduling allows — not to mention the added external pressures you’re also facing. Even the incoming president recently wondered aloud why the fires aren’t under control yet and insinuated that it’s your and your colleagues’ fault.

You’re on a sortie, getting ready for a particularly white-knuckle drop at a low altitude in poor visibility conditions when an object catches your eye outside the cockpit window: an authorized drone dangerously close to your wing.

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What Started the Fires in Los Angeles?

Plus 3 more outstanding questions about this ongoing emergency.

Los Angeles.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

As Los Angeles continued to battle multiple big blazes ripping through some of the most beloved (and expensive) areas of the city on Friday, a question lingered in the background: What caused the fires in the first place?

Though fires are less common in California during this time of the year, they aren’t unheard of. In early December 2017, power lines sparked the Thomas Fire near Ventura, California, which burned through to mid-January. At the time it was the largest fire in the state since at least the 1930s. Now it’s the ninth-largest. Although that fire was in a more rural area, it ignited for some of the same reasons we’re seeing fires this week.

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