IBM's Carbon Capture Research Will Help Meet Its 2030 Net-Zero Goal
16 Fevereiro 2021 - 2:29PM
Dow Jones News
By Dieter Holger
International Business Machines Corp. is betting that its own
research can speed along emerging technologies like carbon capture
to meet the last stretch of its new net-zero climate-change
goal.
"We're not going to be in the business of capturing carbon, but
we are in the business of working with companies to invent those
technologies," IBM President James Whitehurst said in an
interview.
The Armonk, N.Y.-based information-technology company and patent
giant said Tuesday that it aims to reach net-zero greenhouse-gas
emissions by 2030, with a target of 65% lower emissions by 2025
from 2010 levels. It said it would use 75% renewable electricity by
2025 and 90% by 2030. Most of IBM's carbon footprint comes from its
data centers. By 2030, data centers are expected to take up more
than 10% of the world's electricity use, according to a 2015 study
published in the journal Challenges.
"Without a doubt, we are relying on some technologies that don't
exist yet," Mr. Whitehurst said. "The reason we feel confident in
doing that is we are at the center of helping develop those
technologies."
Mr. Whitehurst, former chief executive of open-source software
company RedHat Inc., now heads IBM's cloud-computing and cognitive
software businesses after the company bought RedHat for some $33
billion in 2018.
In January, IBM joined a dozen other companies--including Apple
Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and Boeing Co.--as the inaugural
members of the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium to develop
technologies to combat climate change.
That builds on IBM's "future of climate" research project
launched in the past year, which aims to use cloud computing and
machine learning to design materials that help capture carbon
dioxide at polluting sites like refineries or even suck it out of
the air. The technology also got a boost earlier this month when
Exxon Mobil Corp. said it would spend $3 billion on carbon capture
and other technologies through 2025.
IBM also ruled out carbon credits, a climate-change currency
that funds emission-offsetting projects such as paying timberland
owners to leave trees standing and capturing methane fumes at hog
farms. Each carbon credit equals 1 ton of CO2.
"We need to reach carbon neutrality without, frankly, writing a
check to offset emissions," Mr. Whitehurst said. He said he was
previously involved in buying carbon credits when he was chief
operating officer at Delta Air Lines Inc.
Investors and companies have flocked to carbon credits as a
growing number of companies pledge net-zero emissions, increasing
demand for the offsets. Exchange operator CME Group Inc. said it
would launch carbon-credit futures contracts on March 1.
Mr. Whitehurst said he expects carbon capture and other
technologies will develop fast enough in the coming years so IBM
can avoid buying credits to cut the last of its emissions.
"I don't have any announcements on exactly how to get there, but
I know we are very far along in working around material science to
try to make those breakthroughs," he said.
Write to Dieter Holger at dieter.holger@wsj.com;
@dieterholger
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 16, 2021 12:14 ET (17:14 GMT)
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