Google announced that it has partnered with Holocene to support its direct air capture technology, which captures and removes carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere. Under the $10 million agreement, Google will purchase carbon removal credits from Holocene at $100 per ton, a price targeted by the U.S. Department of Energy to make direct air capture technology practical as part of efforts to reduce the rate of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere.
As the name suggests, direct air capture collects carbon dioxide from the air, concentrates the gas, and stores it in underground reservoirs. While it sounds great in theory, the technology has proven expensive and difficult to scale. Google says its help will enable Holocene to capture and store 100,000 tonnes of atmospheric carbon dioxide by the early 2030s, as well as further improve DAC technology. Holocene explains its DAC approach in more detail on its website.
Sustainability has become a hot topic for many big tech companies. Google has invested heavily in purchasing carbon offsets that it says have eliminated all of its “carbon legacy” and aims to be carbon neutral by 2030. But the intensive demand on its data centers from AI use has caused greenhouse gas emissions to increase by almost 50% over the past five years.
