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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I truly don’t understand how anyone with half a brain thinks this is workable or possibly le. Carbon is one of the most abundant elements on earth. There’s no way doing this helps anything.
“a surprisingly lucrative climate solution”
Biggest scam in human history since islam.
It’s CVS: Corporate Virtue Signaling.........................
that’s freaking interesting.
Too bad its not economic to ship all of america’s poop to american deserts where it would make the land productive.
Old saying “You don’t sh*t where you eat” applies to water you eventually drink, too. Cultists fleecing the ignorant for profit at everyone’s expense.
Someone pointed out that a society has reached a peak when it’s people create new problems where none existed before. This is a perfect example.
Lunacy...
It never ceases to amaze what government can cause. Nobody would ever dream of doing this as a business without government offering tax incentives.
POOP-QUAKES!
Yeah, it’s been a win. It’s taken 15 years, but I have been paid a very minor fee (basically the same as a rental grazing fee) and turned about a section and a half (so ~820 acres) from marginal ranch land worth a couple grand an acre to $25-35k acre really good farmland that now is exceedingly profitable.
Basically the opportunity cost was not running a handful of cows on it.
And this is taking poop from a very small city.
My kids will repeat the process when I run out of land, starting with the oldest first.
Trying to figure out an economic way to take salt water from oil production to do the same thing. The salt can be removed easily but benzene (causes cancer and can get into certain crops) and distillates that can persist can’t be removed economically. Working with a guy at NMSU who swears certain bacteria can eat the stuff.
That must be why they needed all those employees from India...
Ahh, instead of addressing the problem (i.e., the lie that CO2 is bad and that it affects climate) let’s waste more tax$$ and get involved in vanity projects like this. Why nnot, it is not their/my $$?
What could go wrong.
Treated waste solids can be used as fertilizer.
And we need to be done saying that carbon is bad.
“carbon removal” Translation: a start-up taking a fool for all his money. Carbon is in every cell from unicellular organisms to humans, you cannot have plant or animal life without it.
I have heard Gates was cheap but this is ridiculous.
LOL . . . and corn is mostly carbon once the water is removed.
Somebody will be in Deep $h!t.
Microsoft uses human poop to scrub 4.9 million tons of carbon from AI footprint.
Mexico’s food growers hit hardest.
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