Shocked, Shocked!! Microsoft Abandons Climate Goals For Virginia, Because AI, Cloud Computing, Duh Fyooture!!

[hatrack]

One of the world’s most profitable technology companies could be abandoning an ambitious clean-energy goal in Virginia as it races to build electricity-hungry data centers. Several of the company’s facilities are already operating in Virginia, the data center capital of the world, and more are planned, creating a tension with the state’s own climate commitments. Microsoft is considering ending its round-the-clock or 24/7 clean energy goal, which aims to meet 100 percent of its energy consumption 100 percent of the time with zero-carbon electricity by 2030.

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Leading up to and following Microsoft’s 2020 climate commitment, the company made deals for various amounts of solar and energy storage technologies in Virginia and PJM, the regional grid operator for Virginia, 12 other states and the District of Columbia. When announcing its commitment, Microsoft concurred with the scientific community’s conclusion that emissions needed to decrease to reverse the harm caused by climate change. But last fall, Microsoft supported new gas proposals from Dominion Energy, the state’s largest utility, despite VCEA deadlines to retire carbon-emitting sources by 2045.In 2023, 36 percent of Dominion’s electricity came from natural gas. At the time, no new natural gas power plants were planned. Then, following the surge in data center development, Dominion called for six gigawatts of new natural gas generation to be built over the next several years.

Microsoft said it remains committed to becoming carbon negative, which is a goal that allows emissions to continue. To be carbon negative, the company’s emissions are totaled, and Microsoft can receive credit for projects like planting trees, which absorb carbon. Those credits can be subtracted from emission totals to lower footprints to zero or into the negative. The company can also match or buy clean energy generation sources in an amount that corresponds to its energy consumption. In 2024, the company created 11.8 million metric tons of carbon emissions, about 40 percent of which came from powering their data centers and other operations.

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Tech companies were a “catalyst” for utilities to shift and provide clean energy to large customers like them, but the rush to build out AI is now causing companies like Microsoft to seek their own fossil fuel generation sources, like in a planned gas-powered project in West Virginia, that aren’t connected to a grid that needs years-long upgrades, Cook said. That West Virginia project aligns with Microsoft’s walk back, Cook said, which is “bad locally, it’s bad globally.”

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15062026/microsoft-backpedals-on-climate-promises/

[highplainsdem]

1. Almost endless harm done by AI.