BECCS is also substantially less expensive for buyers than, say, direct air capture, with weighted average prices of $210 a ton compared with $490 among the deals to date, according to CDR.fyi. That’s in part because capturing the carbon dioxide from, say, a pulp and paper mill, where it makes up around 15% of flue gas, takes far less energy than plucking CO2 molecules out of the open air, where they account for just 0.04%.
Microsoft’s big BECCS bet
In 2020, Microsoft announced plans to become carbon negative by the end of this decade and, by midcentury, to remove all the emissions the company generated directly and from electricity use throughout its corporate history.
It’s leaning particularly heavily on BECCS to meet those climate commitments, with the category accounting for 76% of its known carbon removal purchases to date.
In April, the company announced it would purchase 3.7 million tons of carbon dioxide that a paper and pulp mill, located at some unspecified site in the southern US, will eventually capture and store over a 12-year period. It reached the deal through CO280, a startup based in Vancouver, British Columbia, that is forming joint ventures with paper and pulp mill companies in the US and Canada, to finance, develop, and operate the projects.
It was the biggest carbon removal purchase on record—until four days later, when Microsoft revealed it had agreed to buy 6.75 million tons of carbon removal from AtmosClear, CDR.fyi noted. That company is building a biomass power plant at the Port of Greater Baton Rouge in Louisiana, which will run largely on sugarcane bagasse (a by-product of sugar production) and forest trimmings. AtmosClear says the facility will be able to capture 680,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year.
“What we’ve seen is a lot of these BECCS projects have been very helpful, if not transformational, for providing investment in rural economies,” Marrs says. “We look at our BECCS deals, in Louisiana with AtmosClear and some other Gulf State providers, like CO280, as a real means of helping support these economies, while at the same time promoting sustainable forestry practices.”
In earlier quarters, Microsoft also made substantial purchases from Orsted, which operates power plants that burn wood pellets; Gaia, which runs facilities that convert municipal waste into energy; and Arbor, whose plants are fueled by “overgrown brush, crop residues, and food waste.”
Don’t let waste go to waste
Notably, at least three of these projects rely on some form of waste, a category distinct from fresh-cut timber or crops grown for the purpose of fueling BECCS projects. Solid waste, agricultural residues, logging leftovers, and plant material removed from forests to prevent fires present some of the ripest opportunities for BECCS—as well as some difficult questions of carbon accounting.
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