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Microsoft is helping to fund one of the US\u2019s first hubs for pulling planet-heating carbon dioxide out of the air. It struck a deal with California-based startup Heirloom<\/a>, which says it will capture up to 315,000 metric tons<\/a> of CO2 for Microsoft over the next decade or so. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n The partnership fits into Microsoft\u2019s climate goal<\/a> of becoming carbon negative by 2030, meaning it plans to remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than it emits as pollution. The company has made other deals with startups breaking ground on new industrial facilities that filter CO2 out of the air, called direct air capture (DAC) plants. Now, it\u2019s also involved in the Biden administration\u2019s push to build big hubs for DAC plants across the US. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n The partnership fits into Microsoft\u2019s climate goal of becoming carbon negative by 2030<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Heirloom says it will capture CO2 for Microsoft at two new commercial facilities in the US, including one it plans to build in Louisiana after being selected for up to $600 million in funding from the Department of Energy (DOE). The Louisiana project, called Cypress, was one of two locations the DOE picked<\/a> to fund the first hubs for DAC plants in the US. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n The emerging technology is still prohibitively expensive, and clustering the plants in hubs is supposed to cut down costs since they\u2019ll be able to share infrastructure like pipelines<\/a> to move captured greenhouse gases and underground wells to store them. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed in 2021 includes $3.5 billion<\/a>\u00a0to develop at least four DAC hubs across the US.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Microsoft didn\u2019t disclose how much it spent on those deals or how much carbon dioxide it would pay to capture. But the going rate for this new kind of service has been around $600 per ton, and The Wall Street Journal<\/em> estimates<\/a> that Microsoft\u2019s newest commitment probably comes out to around $200 million. This is the first deal to purchase carbon removal credits from one of the government-funded hubs, WSJ<\/em> reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Microsoft\u2019s buy-in is a big vote of confidence for an industry that doesn\u2019t yet exist at scale to meaningfully tackle climate change<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Heirloom says it\u2019s one of the biggest carbon removal deals yet and will help the company raise more money to build its DAC plants. The startup raised another $53 million<\/a> last year, including investments from Bill Gates\u2019 Breakthrough Energy Ventures and the Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Microsoft\u2019s buy-in is a big vote of confidence for an industry that doesn\u2019t yet exist at scale<\/a> to meaningfully tackle climate change. To put things in perspective, Microsoft is paying Heirloom to remove up to 315,000 metric tons of CO2 over roughly a decade \u2014 but the company produced close to 13 million metric tons of the greenhouse in its 2022 fiscal year<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n