AI’s Fossil Fuel Problem: How Big Tech Is Powering the Next Oil Boom | Enabled Emissions

Sep 4, 2025

36:29

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Artificial intelligence was supposed to accelerate the transition to clean energy. Instead, it’s being used to keep fossil fuels alive.

Inside Microsoft, two engineers began asking questions no one wanted to answer. Holly and Will Alpine had joined the company believing AI could help solve the climate crisis. What they found instead was code trained to keep oil flowing.

Through internal documents and contracts, they traced how Microsoft’s cloud tools — Azure, Cognitive Services, machine learning models — were being deployed across the oil and gas sector. Predicting drill sites. Extending refinery life cycles. Cutting extraction costs.

The same AI designed for sustainability was fueling expansion.

This isn’t a story about a single company. It’s about the moral architecture of the tech industry — how systems built for optimization erase responsibility. Holly and Will’s decision to speak out exposes a simple, devastating truth: the future isn’t being delayed by ignorance, but by intelligence used in service of the past.

Please enjoy the show.

LINKS & RESOURCES

- Enabled Emissions

- Microsoft's Commitment to Sustainability

- Exxon & Microsoft partnership press release

- Microsoft Net Zero

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