Top Story Of The Month -- Hands Down -- Top Story -- January 31, 2020

Okay, I don't care what you are doing. Set it down, put it aside, turn it off, this is a must-read.

I completely missed it and I subscribe to The WSJ. This was sent to me by a very, very alert reader. Huge thanks.

The story is behind a paywall, of course, so we will do a screenshot to prove I did not make any of this up. LOL.

The headline: Microsft strives for a carbon-free future. A setback in Fargo (North Dakota) shows the hard reality. The software giant ran diesel generators to power its North Dakota campus due to forces it couldn't control on the day of it bold climate pledge.

The story begins:

Hours after Microsoft Corp. MSFT -1.54% pledged to eliminate its carbon emissions within a decade earlier this month, the company was forced to fire up fossil fuel generators to power its corporate campus in Fargo, N.D.

The software giant ran the diesel-burning machines for about five hours to keep the lights and heat on for 1,600 employees. It is one of about 100 big companies in the Fargo region ordered to do so by the local electric cooperative, which faced high demand for power.

Microsoft receives a significant discount on its electricity rates in exchange for using backup power a few times a year.

The discharges were tiny relative to Microsoft’s ambitious climate goals, which include switching to 100% renewable energy in five years and eliminating by 2050 all the greenhouse-gas emissions it has produced since its founding in 1975. But they demonstrate a larger point: Corporations face a monumental challenge in living up to their climate pledges if they are reliant on other companies for energy.

Lucas Joppa, Microsoft’s chief environmental officer, said he is confident the company can meet its goals but understands it will be difficult. He expects stumbles along the way.

And more:

“It isn’t a lack of willingness. It is just super-complex,” said Mathias Lelievre, Engie Impact’s chief executive. “You need to go very deep. It is not an easy journey,” he added.

Microsoft has met earlier climate commitments to reduce business travel and incorporate a carbon price for internal strategic plans. Its strategy for reaching its new goals is more comprehensive than at many other companies, requiring it to take more carbon out of the air than what it generates in its global operations and supply chain. It pledged to spend $1 billion over the next four years to develop carbon-removal technology that can be deployed on a large scale. 

And more:

Microsoft has had a presence in Fargo since it acquired Great Plains Software Inc. in 2001, and it has substantially expanded over the years. Its campus south of downtown is served by Cass County Electric Cooperative, which in turn gets its electricity from Minnkota Power Cooperative.

Based in Grand Forks, Minnkota generates two-thirds of its electricity from two large coal-burning plants. It is considering a $1 billion investment to capture carbon emissions at its largest coal plant and inject them underground, an idea made more financially feasible as a result of a new federal tax credit. Ben Fladhammer, a Minnkota spokesman, said it asks companies to deploy diesel generators on cold days, when power demand for heating rises sharply. The program is the “most economic, reliable and environmentally responsible way to manage peak load conditions,” he said.

Much more at the link, but you get the idea. LOL. 

On days like that one just has to call on St Greta to give Microsoft employees a motivational speech. To keep her journey carbon free, she can row over on an old Viking ship from Sweden and then Johnny-Appleseed-walk to Fargo, maybe picking up Paul Bunyan and Babe, the blue ox, on the way through Minnesota.