Last year, the federal government invested over $70 million into more than 150 clean technology projects through the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency in a bid to boost the Atlantic region’s clean technology innovation ecosystem.
This April, Atlantic Canada’s growing cleantech scene was celebrated with gusto.
At a sold-out ceremony for the inaugural Atlantic Canada Cleantech Awards, Halifax-based pHathom Technologies was named Startup Venture of the Year for its novel use of limestone and seawater to capture CO₂ and counteract ocean acidification.
Professing concern for rising ocean acidity levels, pHathom has developed a proprietary approach to capturing and storing carbon near seawater.
The Canadian cleantech captures CO₂ from sustainably sourced biomass at energy plants, dissolves it into seawater, and neutralizes it with ground limestone. This creates stable carbonates that store carbon for thousands of years in a way that mimics the ocean’s natural processes but at an accelerated rate.
“We use seawater to store the bicarbonate, which is already naturally-occurring and abundant in the ocean,” the upstart’s founders explained to Foresight’s Stacey Armstrong recently. “This means that we can save energy by not having to extract carbon from the water. We also don’t have to compress it, build pipelines to transport it, or drill wells to store it.”
The Nova Scotian innovator is hoping this approach can counteract potential negative effects of excessive industrial carbon emissions. And it’s aiming to do so with minimal impact on natural ecosystems.
“Solving climate change can’t come at the expense of ecosystems,” Armstrong was told. “We built pHathom to heal the carbon cycle and the natural systems we all depend on.”
Following the completion of Foresight’s carbonNEXT program, pHathom is hoping to sell verified carbon credits within the next two years, and is eying full commercialization by 2030.
To learn more about how pHathom is building a climate solution designed to capture CO₂ at scale while protecting ecosystems, check out Armstrong’s full conversation with the pHathom team on Foresight’s blog.