Big Tech’s big bet on a controversial carbon removal tactic

Over the last century, much of the US pulp and paper industry crowded into the southeastern corner of the nation, setting up mills amid sprawling timber forests to strip the fibers from juvenile [loblolly, long leaf, and slash pine](https://www.fpl.fs.usda.gov/documnts/usda/amwood/256spine.pdf) trees.

Today, after the factories chip the softwood and digest it into pulp, the leftover lignin, spent chemicals, and remaining organic matter form a dark, syrupy by-product known as black liquor. It’s then concentrated into a biofuel and burned, which heats the towering boilers that power the facility—and releases carbon dioxide into the air.

[Microsoft](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/co280-signs-landmark-3-69-million-tonne-agreement-with-microsoft-to-scale-up-carbon-dioxide-removal-in-the-us-pulp-and-paper-industry-302426170.html), [JP MorganChase](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/co280-and-jpmorganchase-sign-carbon-removal-offtake-agreement-unlocking-investment-in-the-us-pulp-and-paper-industry-302459618.html), and [a tech company consortium](https://frontierclimate.com/writing/co280-crew) that includes Alphabet, Meta, Shopify, and Stripe have all recently struck multimillion-dollar deals to pay paper mill owners to capture at least hundreds of thousands of tons of this greenhouse gas by installing carbon scrubbing equipment in their facilities.

The captured carbon dioxide will then be piped down into saline aquifers more than a mile underground, where it should be sequestered permanently.

Big Tech is suddenly betting big on this form of carbon removal, known as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, or BECCS. The sector also includes biomass-fueled power plants, waste incinerators, and biofuel refineries that add carbon capturing equipment to their facilities.