Posted on 07/21/2025 7:58:44 AM PDT by Red Badger
Microsoft’s climate fix isn’t AI or trees, it’s flushing human sludge 5,000 feet underground.
The technique has been used for decades to handle industrial waste. Vaulted Deep
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Of all things, it’s human poop helping scrub AI’s carbon footprint clean.
In a bid to offset the soaring emissions from its artificial intelligence empire, Microsoft has signed a deal to bury 4.9 million metric tons of carbon by flushing a slurry of human and farm waste 5,000 feet underground.
The company announced the 12-year agreement with waste management firm Vaulted Deep on Thursday, turning sewage into a surprisingly lucrative climate solution.
Though hardly glamorous, the idea revolves around taking all the sludgy organic leftovers no one wants, including biosolids, manure, food waste, mixing them up, and injecting them into deep rock formations sealed off from the surface world.
Flushing away carbon guilt
For every ton of carbon locked away below, Microsoft earns a carbon removal credit. That means fewer emissions on its corporate books, and a cleaner image for an AI-fueled future that’s anything but carbon-light.
Vaulted Deep’s method may sound like something from a dystopian sci-fi script, but it’s already being used in cities like Los Angeles and Derby, Kansas.
And with Microsoft’s backing, the company is scaling up, which is proof enough that in today’s climate economy, even waste has value when it’s buried just right.
“As carbon removal moves beyond pilots and prototypes, there is growing demand for solutions that can scale safely and address real-world problems,” said Julia Reichelstein, co-founder and CEO of Vaulted Deep.
“Vaulted offers a dual solution: it meets urgent waste management needs and drives measurable climate and public health improvements. This agreement reflects a broader shift in how carbon removal is being deployed. It is no longer limited to emerging technologies but is increasingly delivered through large-scale existing infrastructure with novel applications.”
Big tech gets dirty
Microsoft, which emitted more than 75 million metric tons of carbon dioxide between 2020 and 2024, has been investing heavily in carbon removal to meet its goal of becoming carbon negative by 2030.
By 2050, the company hopes to have erased all greenhouse gases it’s released since its founding. To date, it has acquired more than 83 million tons of carbon removal credits, making it one of the biggest buyers in the market.
But Vaulted Deep’s approach stands out in a crowded field of carbon removal startups pitching forests, fans, and futuristic filters.
Unlike tree-planting or direct air capture, both slow to scale, deep waste injection relies on infrastructure that already exists in parts of the U.S.
The technique has been used for decades to handle industrial waste. Vaulted simply repurposed it for sludgy organic material that would otherwise sit in landfills, leach into waterways, or release methane into the atmosphere.
For Microsoft, the appeal isn’t just in locking up carbon, it’s also in sidestepping public backlash tied to visible waste management problems.
“They’re essentially taking biosolids, and much of that today is spread over fields,” said Brian Marrs, Microsoft’s senior director of energy and carbon removal.
“It can create nutrient runoff and other pollutants for watersheds, and sealing out that biosolid where it can’t be a nuisance to the environment… that co-benefits approach is very, very interesting to us.”
Still, critics say burying waste isn’t a silver bullet. Environmental groups have long warned about the unknowns of deep-well injection, from groundwater contamination risks to long-term monitoring challenges.
For now, though, this unlikely partnership between Big Tech and big sludge may be exactly the kind of climate solution that feels inevitable.
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Poop Ping!.................
I think Windows 11 would be more effective.
cheaper to ship to poor countries to stimulate their economy.
Until it all comes back in one big flush ,LOL
For Microsoft, the appeal isn’t just in locking up carbon, it’s also in sidestepping public backlash tied to visible waste management problems.
Can one thing of a lot of unintended consequences of this brilliant idea?
Therein lies the rub. Once the warmageddon cult left got to the point of quantifying each step of their religious practices, they justify in their minds and their regulations how much is "needed" for each "gain". "Net zero" makes no sense to those of us with sense. But it clicks in their brains because they've build a "math" around how to get there.
Sewage sludge underground will ‘ferment’ and produce METHANE.
Pressure will build up.
And up.
And up.
And up.
Then...........BOOM!.....................
Almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, attributed, Religion in Science Fiction: The Evolution of an Idea and the Extinction of a Genre
A precisely WHAT prevents all that tonnage from contaminating the aquifers from which we get our drinking water?
And we'd save that CO2, year after year.
AI Data Centers Accused of Creating Major Problems for Local Water Systems
“For tech companies, “water is an afterthought.”
According to a report from last year cited by the newspaper, Newton County is on track to be in a water deficit by 2030, forcing residents to ration water if the water authority’s facilities aren’t upgraded.
Blair Northen, the mayor of Mansfield, a town in Newton County, described the situation as “absolutely terrible.” As it stands, water rates will surge by 33 percent, far above the typical two percent annual climb, Northen told the NYT.
Generative AI’s ghastly environmental toll is hardly a secret, despite tech companies trying to keep specific data about its energy bills, water consumption, and carbon emissions under wraps. But now we’re starting to see more residents witnessing the effects of tech’s voracious demands firsthand as the AI race marches on.
And it’s on track to get even worse. Older data centers like Meta’s in Newton typically use 500,000 gallons of water per day, according to the NYT. But permit applications examined by the paper suggest that new facilities will guzzle millions of gallons per day.
https://futurism.com/ai-data-center-water
Cool. In a million years there will be new supplies of oil.
My humble suggestion is that Billy G. eat every single atom of it.
Sounds like another really bad Microsoft idea.
Tracking destroyed the watertable in my hometown region. The oil company assured everyone that it was safe.
Why can’t these data centers recycle their own water for cooling and leave the residents’ water alone?..................
What an idiocy.
This is very valuably fertilizer!
Another huge waste of resource just to satisfy the global warming hoax!
Seems like it would be more useful dumping it in the ground in the desert and planting pine trees on it.
I lease sections of land to a city for use as a leech field. Turns nasty and disgusting after a couple of years. I grow native buffalo grass on it. After about five years, they move to the next field. I overseed with hay two years later.
Fantastic fields, no watering, no fertilizer. Increases organic content in soil from basically zero to 40%
After a decade, the bad human bacteria is long gone and it’s safe for high dollar produce crops.
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