Canadian carbon tech startup draws US interest post-Trump

A Canadian startup that has built the world's first hub for the testing of multiple direct-air carbon-sucking technologies says it has seen an influx of inquiries from U.S. companies in the wake of President Donald Trump's election.

Startup Deep Sky recently completed construction at its "Alpha" Direct Air Capture, or DAC, test ground in Alberta, where it will have room for 10 companies to deploy and fine-tune technologies on their way to developing commercial-scale plants. 

CEO Alex Petre said that with the Trump administration's reduced focus on climate as well as uncertainty about the future of U.S. funding support for DAC technology, Deep Sky is fielding more inquiries than expected from U.S.-based carbon tech developers.

"The changes south of the border have actually meant that there is currently a spotlight on Canada," she said.

Deep Sky, which received a $40 million grant last year from Bill Gates' Breakthrough Energy, has signed contracts with eight companies — from the U.S., Canada, the U.K., the Netherlands and Germany — to operate at the site. Carbon removal at the testing ground, which is expected to capture 3,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually, will begin this summer.

DAC is different from the more established carbon capture and storage technology. Where traditional carbon capture and storage is deployed at industrial smoke stacks, filtering out the CO2 and storing it before it reaches the atmosphere, DAC removes carbon directly from the air — meaning it can clean up emissions that have already occurred.

However, the technology has been expensive and slow to scale. The largest operating DAC plant in the world, in Iceland, has capacity to capture just 36,000 tons of CO2 annually. 

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said stabilizing the planet's climate could require DAC removal at the scale of millions or even billions of tonnes annually by 2050.

In the U.S., DAC proponents are facing a broader political backlash against public funding for climate technology.

Under former President Joe Biden, the U.S. Department of Energy pledged more than $1 billion in funding support for two proposed DAC hubs in Texas and Louisiana. But sources told Reuters in March the grant funding could be eliminated by the Trump administration.

Petre said that once Deep Sky's Alberta test hub is fully up and running, the company plans to develop a large-scale commercial DAC project in Canada. She said she is encouraged by new Prime Minister Mark Carney's commitment to identify and fast-track infrastructure projects of national interest  in an effort to help Canada become a conventional and clean energy superpower. 

"There's lots of really interesting developments (in Canada) that seem to be on the table that I think will really help us," Petre said.