Google announced the launch of a new partnership with waste management solutions startup Vaulted Deep, aimed at removing carbon from the atmosphere, and helping establish a methodology to measure methane emissions reductions.
Spun out of injection well-focused waste management company Advantek in 2023, Vaulted Deep partners with municipalities, industrial operators, and agricultural producers to manage their organic waste that can’t be reused or safely applied to land. The company sequesters sludgy organic wastes, including biosolids, manure, agricultural, food waste, and paper sludge – which would otherwise be incinerated, landfilled, or spread on land, resulting in the release of CO2 back into the atmosphere – and injects the carbon-rich biomass deep underground for permanent storage. Vaulted Deep turns the waste into a carbon-rich slurry, and utilizes a proprietary slurry injection technology to inject the carbon deep underground, offering 10,000+ year permanence.
Google signed an initial carbon removal agreement with Vaulted Deep in 2024, as part of a purchase orchestrated by buyer coalition Frontier. As part of the new partnership, Google has signed an additional agreement to purchase 50,000 tons of CO2 removal by 2030.
According to Vaulted Deep, while its approach to burying biomass results in carbon removal, it can also generate significant climate-related benefits through the removal of methane.
Rapid reduction in methane emissions is seen as one of the most effective near-term actions that can be taken to help achieve the global climate goal to limit warming to 1.5°C. Methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas (GHG), with as much as 80x the warming power of CO2. The waste sector accounts for approximately 40% of U.S. methane emissions, according to the EPA.
Relative to measuring carbon removal, however, quantifying methane emissions reductions can be much more difficult, with methane generation varying due to a variety of factors ranging from the type and composition of waste and how the waste is handled and stored, to temperature, moisture, pH levels, among other factors. Vaulted Deep added that “the absence of consistent, verifiable methods makes it difficult for industry, policymakers, and communities to account for methane’s true climate and health impacts (and to direct resources toward addressing the root causes).”
Bryan Epps, Head of Commercialization at Vaulted Deep, said:
“This is a complex scientific challenge, and we’re tackling it with partners who share our curiosity and commitment to scientific rigor. We know the impact is there. The next step is proving it.”
Under the new collaboration Google and Vaulted Deep, alongside carbon removal registry Isometric, will explore the quantification of the elimination of methane emissions from Vaulted Deep’s process. The collaboration will focus initially on aligning on criteria for rigorous methane measurement and accounting, and then on producing a detailed scientific report on quantifying methane emissions, and finally, sharing the results openly to help guide decisions across the sector.
Randy Spock, Carbon Credits and Removals Lead at Google, said:
“This partnership builds on our efforts to mitigate the impacts of superpollutants like methane, which warms the planet 80 times as powerfully as CO2 in the near term. This marks an important step in expanding the same scientific rigor and transparency for measuring the atmospheric impact of CO2 to superpollutants.”
