CTC #50 - Canadian carbon removers land major deal with Meta, Shopify

Hey there,

Happy Wednesday and welcome to our 50th issue!

This week in Canadian climate tech:

• GHGSat lands $59M for satellite emissions monitoring

• A new task force is working to fix housing and climate at the same time

• Harnessing the ocean to remove 2,000 tons of carbon

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🛰️ Counting carbon

Montréal’s GHGSat closed a $59.9M Series C1 round for its satellite-based emissions monitoring solution. GHGSat has developed sensors that can precisely detect emissions, attributing them to specific facilities like oil & gas pipelines, coal mines, waste management, agriculture and more.

GHGSat deploys these sensors both in satellites and aircraft, delivering sensor data from multiple altitudes. The company also offers emissions analytics solutions, giving customers the ability to identify emissions sources, predict future leaks, and execute emissions reduction plans.

What sets GHGSat apart from others in the space is the quality of its sensor data. The company claims that no other company or space agency is able to match their abilities. They can identify objects as small as 25m, detecting emissions sources up to 100x smaller than other satellites, which gives companies and governments insights that are highly actionable and targeted.

GHGSat has raised around CAD $169M in venture funding since 2018.

🏘️ Housing x Climate

It’s the crossover we’ve all been waiting for. A newly formed group of experts is working on solutions for the housing crisis and climate crisis at the same time. The Task Force for Housing and Climate is made up of 15 experts including former deputy leader of the Conservative Party Lisa Raitt, Smart Prosperity’s Mike Moffatt, and Toronto’s former Chief Planner Jennifer Keesmaat. 

The task force is focused on developing policy recommendations for all levels of government on how they can address housing affordability and availability while also making an impact on climate change. It makes a ton of sense - millions of new homes means a ton of embodied emissions that we’ll be living with for decades. But it’s easy for governments to kick the can down the road if it looks like it’ll be slower or more costly to build with climate in mind.

🌊 Harnessing the ocean for carbon removal

Two Nova Scotia-based carbon removal startups will remove 2,228 tons of CO2. The carbon is being purchased by Frontier, a carbon buyer backed by Meta, Shopify, Google’s parent company Alphabet, McKinsey and others. Frontier uses advance market commitments to create new carbon removal supply by guaranteeing demand.

Planetary, based in Dartmouth, is using ocean alkalinity enhancement for scalable carbon removal. They introduce alkaline materials into the ocean through existing inflows like wastewater. The akalinity speeds up the ocean’s natural process of sequestering CO2 as bicarbonates - stable forms of carbon that last for about 10,000 years. Planetary made headlines earlier this year when it dyed Halifax harbour pink to study how the alkalinity moves through the ocean.

Halifax’s CarbonRun also uses alkalinity to sequester carbon, but in rivers. The company releases instantly dissolving alkaline material into rivers that have been damaged by acid rain and pollution. This captures both land-based and atmospheric carbon, and naturally transports it to the ocean for long-term storage. The process not only sequesters carbon, but helps improve the health of damaged waterways (AKA a two-fer).

💰 Funding

🛰️ GHGSat (Montreal, QC) closed $59.9M in Series C1 funding, made up of equity and debt. GHGSat uses satellites to measure and monitor emissions, helping polluters identify and mitigate emissions. The company will use the funding to accelerate go-to-market efforts, develop new solutions and deploy more satellites. 

♻️ Waste Robotics (Trois-Rivières, QC) secured $10M in funding from Mirova and Fondaction for its intelligent waste sorting technology. The company uses visual waste-recognition, deep learning and robotics to enhance recycling operations and address labour shortages in the industry. The funding will be used to expand across Europe and North America.

⚡️ Hydrogen Optimized (Owen Sound, ON) received a $3.5M investment from the federal government for its high-power water electrolyzers. Hydrogen Optimized develops modular water electrolyzers for clean hydrogen production. The investment will be used to scale up production and sales.

🧪 EcoPoly (Orillia, ON) also received $5M from the feds to scale its circular biodegradable plastics. EcoPoly converts plastic at its end of life into new biodegradable or compostable plastics. The company will build out localized facilities that can recycle and produce plastics close to the point of use.

📈 Milestones & Growth

Novonix made a breakthrough for EV batteries with a new way of making cathode materials that cuts battery costs in half.

E3 Lithium opened it’s first pilot project to extract lithium from oilfield wastewater, a first for lithium in Alberta.

Exro Technologies started production of its new Coil Driver technology for EV motors, backed by purchases from BC’s Vicinity Motors and an Italian parts supplier.

Electric Circuit introduced new load-balancing EV fast chargers that automatically deliver the maximum charge based on the vehicle’s capacity.

Quebec-based VoltaXplore will provide its silicon-graphene enhanced lithium-ion batteries to an EV manufacturer, delivering 1 GWh/year for 10 years

Halifax’s Reazent, a developer of organic fertilizer alternatives, is one of four finalists in agtech giant Nutrien’s Radicle Inclusion Challenge.

☕️ Here & there

• The farmers tackling the complex task of measuring farming emissions

• Modular building startup Nexii is developing the parking lot of the future

• 2- and 3-wheelers are quietly transforming the EV world

🌎 In the news

NATIONAL

Federal plans to require EnerGuide labels on homes when they’re sold has hit a double roadblock: real estate is up to the provinces, and limited auditor capacity.

Canadian autoworkers may strike if their counterparts in the US can’t come to an agreement with Stellantis, General Motors and Ford. The key issue - will profits be used for the EV transition or to increase worker pay?

Analysis of carbon capture and storage (CCS) costs found that real-world costs tend to be higher than expected due to complexity and customization.

Meanwhile, the Canadian Climate Institute found that tackling methane could deliver up to a third of emissions reductions in the oil & gas sector.

PROVINCIAL

Bruce Power, an Ontario nuclear generator, reconnected its first refurbished unit to the grid. It’s completion on time and on budget is a major success in an industry known for overruns and delays.

The Ontario government wants to defer any decisions about national green building standards, citing a need to focus on building new housing.

Quebec will host a new R&D corridor for electric air taxi development in a partnership with Atikamek Community of Manawa.

Quebec will spend $514.5M to add more than 116,000 public EV chargers, 600,000 EV-ready parking spots in multi-unit buildings, and speed up chargers for heavy transport.

Metro Vancouver has adopted plans to achieve climate-neutral agriculture by 2050. The district is also exploring regulations for commercial building emissions.

📌 Jobs

Featured postings from some of Canada’s most innovative companies working on sustainable construction, low-carbon concrete, carbon capture and more!

➡️ Hiring? Add your posting here.

That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading and if you’re enjoying the newsletter, share it with a friend!

Justin