CTC #46 - Carbon Engineering exits for $1.1B

Hey there,

Welcome to another issue of Climate Tech Canada! This week I’m sharing a quick recap on Foresight’s pitch showcase with a few standout companies. We also have a monster exit for Squamish, BC’s Carbon Engineering, a made-in-Montreal carbon removal partnership between Deep Sky and Exterra, and Quebec looks at bringing nuclear back into the mix. Let’s get into it!

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Pitch Recap

I got to hear from some great companies this week at Foresight’s Summer Pitch Showcase, working on everything from EV charging to oil well monitoring. I thought I’d share a few of the companies pitching that caught my eye:

🛜 BreezeTrafficBreezeTraffic is developing emissions monitoring for cities, allowing them to measure and reduce carbon emissions from transportation without installing any new sensors. Their solution unlocks data that cities are collecting through existing traffic sensors, using computer vision and AI to determine real-time emissions data.

📊 CarbonGraphCarbonGraph’s software helps companies generate high quality lifecycle assessment (LCA) data and report on it to consumers and stakeholders. CarbonGraph uses a library of real data to easily generate product-level carbon footprints for a huge range of products. This product-level transparency is key for compliance as well as enabling better consumer choices.

🔋 VolterraVolterra provides EV fleet managers with real-time battery health metrics, helping them maintain and optimize their fleets. Their software can get data directly from the battery and aims to shorten diagnosis time, help technicians optimize battery health, and make changes for optimal battery performance.

💧 PermalutionPermalution has developed a new source of fresh water by harvesting fog. Their solution is an alternative to expensive desalination plants, and has applications across agriculture and wildfire mitigation. 

These companies are all actively raising or will be soon - you can see the full list of companies here.

💰 Funding

☁️ Carbon Engineering (Squamish, BC) will be acquired for $1.1B USD by oil producer Occidental Petroleum to scale direct-air carbon capture. Carbon Engineering has partnered with Occidental for the past four years on direct air capture projects and producing synthetic fuels. This is one of the largest exits for a Canadian climate tech company. 

🏢 Oxygen8 Solutions (Vancouver, BC) received $1.5M from the federal government to scale up operations and sales. Oxygen8 develops energy efficient HVAC systems, reducing carbon emissions from energy use and improving indoor air quality.

📈 Milestones & Growth

• Carbon capture venture Deep Sky is partnering with fellow Montreal-based Exterra Carbon Solutions to sequester captured carbon using mine tailings.

• Calgary’s Summit Nanotech is partnering with Power Minerals to produce lithium from brine in Argentina using Summit’s denaLi extraction technology.

• Lion Electric reported record revenues in Q2, bringing in $58M during the quarter and delivering almost 200 vehicles.

• Li-Cycle’s first European battery recycling facility is now operational, able to recover up to 10,000 tonnes of waste battery material per year.

• Ag-tech startup Farmers Edge is scaling back its operations to improve operational efficiency.

• Ballard’s hydrogen fuel cell engines will power almost 100 buses for European bus manufacturer Solaris.

☕️ Here & there

A couple of my favourite climate-related reads from the week

• What Canada might look like in 2060 with a changing climate

• This small tweak dramatically cut the climate impact of air travel

• Will Vancouver lose its edge in the global hydrogen race?

• A rallying cry for more seed stage investment in climate tech

• How the EV transition is changing the face of Canada’s auto industry

🌎 In the news

The draft version of new Clean Electricity regulations dropped last week, designed to get Canada’s electricity grid to net-zero by 2035. The regulations would cut over 340 megatonnes of emissions by 2050. A few takeaways:

• The standard set by the new rules is less than 30 tonnes of CO2 per GWh, equivalent to 95% less CO2 than the most efficient gas-fired power plant

• The rules are technology agnostic, leaving utilities free to choose their generation method

• Rural communities that aren’t connected to the grid are exempt, as are power plants with less than 25 MW capacity.

Elsewhere, emissions from oil sands production flattened out in 2022 even while output grew. The industry still produced 81 million tons of CO2, not to mention the emissions from burning produced fossil fuels. But hey, a win’s a win, right?

Hydro-Québec may revive the province’s only nuclear reactor, Gentilly-2, to meet growing demands for clean energy. 

BC Hydro wants to increase EV charging rates by 15% to offset the costs of providing chargers, a move that may undercut the benefits of ditching ICE vehicles.

📣 What’s going on

📅 National Building Decarbonization Forum: This event from the Building Decarbonization Alliance will bring together industry leaders, construction professionals, government and Indigenous leaders to explore pathways to net-zero buildings through electrification. Oct 16-17th in Ottawa, ON.

💡 Invest Nova Scotia Accelerate: The accelerator helps NS tech companies get investment-ready and is seeking applicants working on climate tech. Submissions close Sep 1st.  

💡 Call for Applications - Forest Sector Innovation: Natural Resources Canada is seeking applicants for three programs focused on forest innovation. Focus areas include decarbonizing industrial processes, producing bioproducts, wood-based building technologies and more. Applications close Sep 15 and Jun 30, 2024.

📌 Jobs

Visit our job board to see open roles at some of Canada’s most innovative companies, working on next-generation batteries, on-demand transit, plant-based materials, and more! Find your next role today:

➡️ Hiring? Add your posting here.

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Justin