Lithos Carbon Signs New Three-Year Agreement with Microsoft for Research and Permanent and Verified Carbon Removal

Today, Lithos Carbon announced Microsoft as a return carbon removal customer, having signed a new, three-year agreement to permanently remove CO₂ using Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW).

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Millions of tons of safe and nutrient-rich volcanic basalt rock-dust, produced as a byproduct of the rock quarrying and aggregate industry. This material can safely and permanently remove and trap carbon dioxide for 10,000-100,000 years, while enriching soils and increasing crop yields on farms. (Photo: Business Wire)

As of December 2023, Lithos Carbon delivered 500 tons of carbon removal for Microsoft, by deploying ultra-fine, organic-grade volcanic basalt rock dust on US farmland. This summer, Lithos Carbon deployed a novel carbon removal research field for Microsoft in collaboration with leading researchers. This project in a subtropical environment uses exceptionally high-resolution measurement validation to generate transparent large-scale datasets. The project enables more rapid deployment with enhanced standards for accounting.

Lithos Carbon’s agreement is to deliver ex-post* and empirically quantified carbon removal, meaning that carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere has been achieved and has been rigorously quantified. Alongside this removal, Lithos Carbon will continue to enhance and publish its robust measurement techniques that will validate not only the precise quantity of carbon removed, but the speed with which carbon is captured. With a unique field-by-field approach, Lithos Carbon is also spearheading cascading agronomic and ecosystem benefits for agricultural growers, helping scale adoption in the broader carbon removal market.

Already, the natural process of rock weathering is estimated to draw down around 1.1 billion tons of CO₂ every year. By enhancing this process, Lithos Carbon is scaling carbon removal that’s permanent, measurable, and available today. By deploying carefully selected basalt – the most plentiful volcanic rock in the world – on croplands, Lithos Carbon is accelerating the removal of CO₂ from the atmosphere in a matter of human seasons rather than geologic millennia. Carbon in the air is then locked away for tens of thousands of years, when the rainwater reacts with the silicate rock and traps the CO₂ as bicarbonate, the material that seashells are made from. Lithos Carbon uses upcycled volcanic dust sources and repurposes them into valuable agricultural products: no new emissions are created in this process.

Because of its permanence, potential for wide-scale agricultural adoption, and potential cost-efficiency for carbon removal at-scale, ERW represents one of the most compelling pathways to meet urgent climate goals within the next decade. Lithos Carbon’s data-focused research site unites an unconflicted and impartial team of world-leading ERW, biogeochemistry, and agricultural academic parties. Researchers from the Yale Center of Natural Carbon Capture are carrying out cross-validation on the large-scale trial across 3,000 commercial farmland acres. The multi-method project directly compares all of the leading approaches for in-field CO₂ removal measurement. Data from this work will be made public and open to the academic community. By conducting this collaborative project, Lithos Carbon and researchers will drive for more rigor and transparency in the field.

“Microsoft has been a worldwide leader in sustainability and we’re thrilled to work with them as a backer of our catalytic, data-driven project,” said Lithos Carbon’s CEO, Mary Yap. “Our mission is to work alongside farmers to transform cropland into carbon capture centers and remove a billion tons of CO₂ over a decade. This agreement represents a significant step in that direction with a commitment to increasing quantification and diligent measurement across large-scale commercial deployments. Our deal develops the system and technologies needed to scale outcomes-based carbon removal while responsibly stewarding our natural resources to enrich communities and agricultural land.”

For Microsoft, this carbon removal purchase supports its commitment of being carbon negative by 2030, while aiding the company's work to help scale the carbon removal market.

“Supporting innovative solutions is central to Microsoft’s carbon removal strategy,” said Brian Marrs at Microsoft. “Lithos Carbon’s dedication towards continued improvements in rigorously quantified Enhanced Rock Weathering systems and uncertainty reduction aligns with Microsoft’s pursuit of high-quality CDR projects, and we look forward to further advancements in Enhanced Rock Weathering.”

Lithos Carbon’s newest agreement with Microsoft is to empirically quantify over 11,400 metric tons of permanent carbon removal. As of August 2024, Lithos Carbon has spread hundreds of thousands of tons of fine basalt rock dust in North America and is working with 100+ farmers over nine states. Lithos Carbon has also collected more than 10,000 soil cores that are being used to validate accurate carbon removal in new regions.

This news follows Lithos Carbon being named both a finalist in the XPRIZE Carbon Removal Challenge and a semifinalist in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Carbon Dioxide Removal Purchase Pilot Prize just this May.

Footnotes:

*Ex-post refers to the verification of carbon removal that has already taken place, providing a retrospective measurement of the effectiveness of a carbon removal project.

About Lithos Carbon

Lithos Carbon is a carbon removal company scaling Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW) as a solution to the climate crisis. Lithos Carbon’s mission is to transform farmland into carbon capture centers — removing a billion tons of atmospheric CO₂ this decade while improving crop yields. Founded in March 2022 by repeat entrepreneurs and the world’s leading experts in atmospheric geochemistry, Lithos Carbon’s technology offers an optimization platform that permanently removes CO₂ from the atmosphere in a matter of human seasons rather than geologic millennia. Cost effective, immediately scalable, and empirically measured, Lithos Carbon’s deployments are custom designed on a field-by-field basis to improve yield, protect crops, and enhance soil conditions. To learn more, visit www.lithoscarbon.com.

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