Microsoft tries to whittle down its carbon footprint by building data centers with engineered timber

From Seattle's own GeekWire (also serving Redmond), October 31:

Sustainability: News about the rapidly growing climate tech sector and other areas of innovation to protect our planet. SEE MORE

Rendering of a data center that Microsoft is building using cross-laminated timber for its floors and ceilings in order to reduce the amount of steel and concrete used, which have a bigger carbon impact. The wood will be encased in a thin layer of concrete for waterproofing and durability. 

(Thornton Tomasetti Image)

Tech heavyweights are in hot pursuit of clean energy sources to power their data center operations while reining in climate impacts. But they also need to put their data center infrastructure on low-carbon diets, moving away from traditional steel and concrete.

Microsoft today announced that it’s building two data centers with engineered timber products that are climate friendly, sustainable, strong and fire resistant....

....MUCH MORE

There has to be a more elegant way to get the desired result. We looked at a similar approach in 2021's "Global Warming: Credit Suisse On You Being Responsible For CO2 Emissions (plus carbon sequestration)":

They're big into trees which is fine. I mean you like trees, I like trees, everybody likes trees.

But as a long term answer to the CO2 issue, trees don't work. Trees die, and when they die they release the stored carbon which gloms on to atmospheric oxygen and turns into CO2. Or the trees get burned, again releasing the carbon which combines with oxygen to make CO2.

The British have been working on this problem for centuries and have come up with a very clever solution: cut the trees down and then store them so they don't decay. Here's an example:

That's Westminster Great Hall. Here's a close-up of the hammer-beam roof:

Samantha Tan, “Westminster Hall's (detail of hammer-beam roof),” Medieval London, accessed November 19, 2021, https://medievallondon.ace.fordham.edu/items/show/222.

According to Samantha Tan at Fordham University's Medieval London exhibit the timbers weigh 660 tons and have sequestered the carbon in this form for over 700 years.

The British use this type of storage throughout the land and people visit from around the world to marvel at the secrets of carbon sequestration 

We'll be back to the Credit Suisse report tomorrow or you can see it here, 29 page PDF

If interested here is some of what was going on, weatherwise that century:

Weather Events In Great Britain and Ireland In the Years 1300-1399 (the Martin Rowley, booty.org.uk files)

Probably ditto for Poitiers 1356, as well.