THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON FISHERIES AND OCEANS
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Thursday, October 9, 2025
The Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans met with videoconference this day at 8:30 a.m. [ET] to examine and report on ocean carbon sequestration and its use in Canada.
Senator Fabian Manning (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Good morning. My name is Fabian Manning. I’m a senator from Newfoundland and Labrador. I have the pleasure of chairing this committee.
Before we begin, I would like to take a few moments for the members of the committee to introduce themselves.
Senator Dhillon: Baltej Dhillon, British Columbia.
Senator C. Deacon: Colin Deacon, Nova Scotia.
[Translation]
Senator Poirier: Rose-May Poirier from New Brunswick.
[English]
Senator Greenwood: Margo Greenwood, British Columbia, filling in for Senator Bev Busson.
Senator Ravalia: Mohamed Ravalia, Newfoundland and Labrador.
Senator Prosper: Paul Prosper, Nova Scotia, Mi’kma’ki.
Senator Surette: Allister Surette, Nova Scotia.
[Translation]
Senator Boudreau: Victor Boudreau from New Brunswick. Welcome.
[English]
The Chair: On October 8, 2025, the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans was authorized to exam and report on ocean carbon sequestration and its use in Canada. Today, under this mandate, the committee will be hearing from the following individuals: Mike Kelland, Chief Executive Officer, Planetary Technologies; Dr. Kimberly Gilbert Co‑Founder and Chief Executive Officer, pHathom Technologies; and Edmund Halfyard, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, CarbonRun.
On behalf of the members of the committee, I thank each of you for joining us today. I understand that you all have opening remarks. Following those remarks, the members of the committee will have questions for you. Mr. Kelland, you’re here in person, so I will give you the floor first.
Mike Kelland, Chief Executive Officer, Planetary Technologies: Thank you very much. I’m honoured to have been asked to appear before this committee here on the unceded territories of the Algonquin Anishinaabe People.
Planetary’s vision is to restore the ocean and the climate for generations to come. We’re working to safely and responsibly develop a method of carbon removal called ocean alkalinity enhancement, or OAE.
Planetary has made significant progress in our mission since we presented to this committee in November 2024.
In January we hit a critical threshold, removing our thousandth tonne of carbon from the atmosphere. In April we were honoured to win the oceans stream of the CDRXPRIZE. That international competition began four years ago with 1,300 teams competing for a $100-million prize purse. In the end, we were one of six teams that were recognized for demonstrating the highest‑potential carbon removal solutions at kilotonne scale.
In June we issued the first ocean alkalinity enhancement credits to ever be placed on an ICROA-certified registry. That was the work of many years of collaboration with the Canadian and international scientific community to create a robust framework for the measurement of permanent ocean-based carbon removal. To accomplish those first credits, our work was validated and verified by independent experts.
In July, based on extensive monitoring and learning in the field, we upgraded our system, increasing our scale to 25,000 tonnes of carbon removal per year. In August we announced a $31-million offtake orchestrated by the Frontier Group. That purchase represents the first major purchase of ocean alkalinity enhancement carbon removals and was the result of nine months of extensive diligence.
By the end of this year, we’ll have delivered 3,800 tonnes of permanent carbon removal to buyers. That isn’t a lot in the grand scheme of things, but when we look across carbon removal writ large, only 2.6% of carbon removals that have been purchased by clients have actually been delivered. So we are part of a very small group of companies that are actually delivering on the promise of removing carbon from the atmosphere.
This leadership is Canadian leadership. We would not have accomplished any of those things without the support of the Mi’kmaq People in our region, who host us on their lands and waters; our academic collaborators, primarily at Dalhousie University; our industrial partner, Nova Scotia Power; the Canadian and Nova Scotia governments that have supported us through granting programs and regulatory engagement; the local Halifax community; and many others.
We come together to do this work because we know that ocean-based carbon removal can be three things. First, it can be a new, export-oriented manufacturing business in Atlantic Canada. The majority of our carbon removals are actually delivered to U.S. customers. The vast majority of that $31 million came from U.S.-based companies.
Second, it can be a key decarbonization lever, potentially saving Canada billions of dollars in decarbonizing the toughest parts of our economy until a market emerges for legacy carbon removal, which means, taking carbon that is already in the air back out again.
Third, it can leverage Canada’s strong lead into IP and technology export that is already being leveraged around the world. We have five projects in international locations, looking for this technology to be deployed. That is all based on what’s been developed here in Canada.
Our goal is to maintain and grow Canada’s leadership in this exciting and growing field. To do that, we need the government’s support in two main areas. First, we need the Canadian government to publicly affirm that processes like ours that work onshore can continue to be regulated domestically rather than under international law. This would mirror a similar declaration from the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, in the U.S. Second, we need the Canadian government to ensure that this technology can be scaled up in Canada and used to support Canadian decarbonization by including it under Canada’s compliance programs for carbon and under our set targets for nationally determined contributions, or NDCs.
Both of those items would cost the government nothing and could be done in days. The first is an affirmation of the current law, without any changes to legislation, and would provide strong certainty to investors and customers of this technology. We often say that regulatory silence is the worst kind of regulatory engagement. The second requires only that we borrow from the extensive work done by the international ocean science community to develop voluntary protocols, and authorize their use within Canada’s compliance programs. We don’t have to redo that work; it’s out there, and it’s very high-quality work.
Thank you again for inviting me to provide this update to the committee. I’m excited to work with you to extend Canada’s lead in ocean-based carbon removal.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Kelland.
Dr. Gilbert, you now have the floor.
Kimberly Gilbert, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, pHathom Technologies: Good morning, senators, and thank you for the opportunity to appear before you again.
We are a Canadian company developing onshore carbon‑removal systems that safely capture CO2 and convert it into bicarbonate in sea water, mirroring the natural weathering process that helps regulate carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere. Naturally, that process is very slow and can’t keep pace with today’s emissions. We speed it up. Our reactors operate entirely on land, and within inland waters, which means that these activities are appropriately regulated domestically under Canadian environmental law. We would welcome — as Planetary Technologies has also suggested — a clear federal affirmation of that interpretation to give investors and innovators the certainty they need.
At pHathom, we take CO2 from industrial flue gas at biomass energy plants and dissolve it into sea water. We then neutralize that acidity with crushed limestone, producing clean, balanced water that is enriched with bicarbonate. That water can then be safely released into the ocean, where the carbon remains stored for tens of thousands of years. Since this process occurs entirely within a closed-loop reactor, we can precisely measure, verify and monitor each step, ensuring safety, transparency and permanence.
This has been a remarkable year for pHathom. Frontier, the international carbon-removal buyers’ consortium, selected pHathom as part of its portfolio of promising ocean-based CDR developers. That is a very strong signal of global confidence in Canadian innovation. We have also begun collaborative research with the Huntsman Marine Science Centre in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, studying ecosystem interactions and ensuring our process aligns with marine health and restoration goals.
Finally, we have worked with Isometric, one of the world’s leading carbon registries, which has approved a methodology module describing our reactor design and MRV system, which will guide monitoring and verification as we move toward commercial deployment.
Those are early but essential steps toward building a transparent, science-based pathway for ocean carbon removal in Canada. Canada has an opportunity to lead the world in doing this safely. Nova Scotia’s Large Industrial File Team, or LIFT, shows what that can look like. Senator Deacon recently wrote:
Regulatory agility is essential if we’re to protect citizens and the environment while enabling domestic innovation that drives economic growth.
We couldn’t agree more. Under Minister Halman, the LIFT team has brought precision, consistency and speed to complex environmental oversight, including land-based carbon-removal technologies like ours.
Their approach demonstrates that effective regulation isn’t about saying no; it’s about saying yes with strong guardrails.
Today, we are asking the federal government to build on LIFT’s success, not by duplicating it, but by extending it. We’re calling for the realization of the Prime Minister’s “one project, one approval” commitment, empowering LIFT to continue leading while formally incorporating DFO, ECCC and NRCan into their single, collaborative review process for carbon-removal projects.
Such an approach would remove duplication and delays between jurisdictions; ensure that decisions are coordinated, science-based and transparent; and allow projects like ours to advance responsibly, learning through deployment while maintaining rigorous monitoring.
Let’s align what we already do well in Nova Scotia with federal decision making, to make Canada the world’s most trusted environment for innovation in carbon removal.
The world is watching Canada for leadership in this space.
We have the science, the coastlines and the culture of stewardship to co-create this field responsibly. By extending the LIFT model of regulatory agility under a “one project, one approval” framework, Canada can demonstrate how to grow a clean-energy economy that protects both our oceans and the climate.
Thank you. I’m pleased to answer any of your questions this morning.
The Chair: Thank you, Dr. Gilbert.
Dr. Halfyard, you now have the floor.
Edmund Halfyard, Co-Founder, Chief Technology Officer, CarbonRun: Chair, honourable senators, members of the committee, thank you for inviting me here today.
CarbonRun is a Canadian company pioneering carbon dioxide removal through river alkalinity enhancement. As a quick refresher, at CarbonRun, we restore rivers while tackling climate change.
By replenishing what’s been lost through decades of acid rain, we enhance river chemistry using a safe, proven method: river liming. This not only supports fish and ecosystems but also removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, unlocking a new way to finance river restoration via the carbon market.
I come to you not only as an entrepreneur but as a professional ecologist and a lifelong outdoorsman. I’ve seen firsthand how many of our rivers have changed from vibrant, living systems to ones increasingly stressed by acidification, warming and the cascading effects of climate change.
Today, we stand at a moment when science, innovation and responsibility intersect, a moment where Canada can, indeed, lead.
At CarbonRun, we’re already proving what’s possible. At TRL 9, we’re operating fully commercial deployments. Our projects are delivering verified carbon-removal credits, backed by independent registries and rigorous measurement systems.
We’ve secured commitments of over 60,000 tonnes of carbon removal for the next five years, mostly from international buyers. We’re using Canadian-made sensing platforms, supporting domestic industry and advancing the best available science.
This is real climate action happening in Canadian rivers using Canadian hands.
A major milestone since we last met is the approval of our new protocol by the ICROA-certified registry Isometric that we’ve already heard about this morning — the world’s first for‑river alkalinity enhancement in our case. It sets a global standard for the carbon-removal industry, a science-based framework for measuring, verifying and ensuring environmental safety. It’s how we build trust with communities, investors, First Nations and Indigenous partners, whose deep connection to the land and water guides us in doing this work the right way. That trust matters because it’s what enables us to scale the work that we do in a responsible way.
Before I go further, I want to acknowledge something important. In the following remarks, I’m talking about climate economies, carbon markets and the financial opportunities that come with scaling carbon removal. But when we talk about climate action, we’re talking about protecting our communities, ecosystems and future. So it feels a little bit uncomfortable to talk about that in the context of money. For too long, people have seen economic opportunity and environmental responsibility as opposites, as if progress in one means that the other must sacrifice. However, that’s changing.
In the carbon dioxide removal industry, including marine and freshwater-based CDR, we now have a chance to do well while doing good. To make climate action not only the right thing to do, but a great thing for the Canadian economy.
Across the globe, countries are positioning themselves in what will be a trillion-dollar carbon-removal economy. Here in Canada, momentum is indeed building, but policy and investment need to catch up.
For example, Direct Air Capture projects currently receive 60% refundable tax credits under the CCUS Investment Tax Credit, but nearly all other carbon-removal technologies — from ocean alkalinity enhancement to biochar — are excluded. If we look globally, these diverse, technology-neutral approaches are driving growth.
If Canada wants to lead, we must open the door to innovation, not limit our possibilities. We shouldn’t pick the winners. Instead, we should define what high-quality carbon removal looks like — measurable, durable, responsible — and invite innovators to meet that bar. That approach reflects what defines us as Canadians — fairness, openness, scientific excellence and our “can do” attitude.
At CarbonRun, we currently operate in the voluntary carbon market, but our vision extends further. We share the government’s commitment and belief that a strong, compliance‑grade removal market is essential. There is a lot that we can learn from the voluntary markets, as it has been a good testing ground for innovation where new technologies are proven and technologies that don’t work are exposed.
It has also demonstrated the value of rigour and transparency. Today’s most sophisticated buyers demand high-integrity credits backed by data, independent verification and accountability. If we can embed these same principles in the emerging compliance market, we’ll be successful.
I’d like to end my remarks with a call to action. Canada’s rivers, lakes and coastal waters — indeed, our entire landscape — hold immense potential to capture and store carbon. But with that potential comes an equal responsibility to protect and — where needed — heal the ecosystems that sustain us.
With the right framework, Canada can lead the world in carbon removal, building a new economic sector grounded in sustainability, transparency and shared benefit for all.
As we do this, we have to ensure that justice, fairness and equity for all Canadians are there from day one. That means ensuring that benefits — jobs, investment and healthy environments — are shared fairly, and that no community is left behind. Importantly, it means listening to Indigenous Peoples, rural communities and the future generations to ensure that their voices guide us on the path forward.
The decisions we make now will determine whether this opportunity happens here at home or elsewhere. We have a chance right now to ensure that the next generation of Canadians inherit a country that has acted boldly, led responsibly and built prosperity and fairness hand in hand. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Dr. Halfyard.
Senator C. Deacon: It’s lovely to see each of you again. Thank you for taking the time to speak to us this morning as we restart this study and hopefully get it done this fall. We’re anxious to do so.
I want to point out that there are many new members on our Fisheries and Oceans Committee. I want to ask each of you to define the terms so that new folks to this space can understand. Mr. Halfyard just said TRL, MRV. When you have a protocol, what does it entail? Tell us a little bit about biochar and its value in agriculture and other things. What is the difference between voluntary and compliance markets? Maybe you divide those up, starting with Mr. Kelland. Could each of you address a few of these terms, nobody taking on all of them, unless you disagree? Thank you very much.
Mr. Kelland: I’m happy to start, Senator Deacon. I’ll start at the bottom and talk about voluntary and compliance markets, because that is the one that is one of the most important things we talk about in this context.
Voluntary markets are quite large around the world. They represent about $2 billion a year in purchases. So far, on the voluntary market in carbon removal, about $10 billion of carbon removal has been purchased by companies around the world. It’s not something that seems insignificant because the word “voluntary” feels voluntary. Why would you do it?
“Voluntary” simply means that the companies purchasing the carbon removals are purchasing them for their own reasons. There’s no regulatory reason they have to purchase a carbon removal. They might be trying to meet their own internally set net-zero targets. They might be trying to enter an industry. As I mentioned, about 2.6% of carbon removals have been delivered so far. There are a number of companies looking at that as a supply challenge as we head toward compliance markets. It’s called “pre-compliance purchasing” in that space. Many airlines will buy carbon removal because they know that eventually they will need to have carbon removals, and they think they will be more expensive in the future.
A voluntary market means exactly that: It is completely based on people’s own corporate reasons for purchasing carbon removals. Compliance markets, on the other hand, are far larger. They represent over $400 billion in value around the world. Some of the largest ones that you might be aware of are the EU Emissions Trading System, the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard, or LCFS, and various other low-carbon fuel standards.
Carbon-trading markets, or carbon-valuing markets, regulatory pressures to reduce carbon and Canada’s own industrial carbon price are examples of compliance markets. I usually define a “compliance market” as any regulatory instrument that enforces an emissions reduction, because that forces companies to purchase decarbonization technologies, high-quality carbon removals or other ways to decarbonize, and it values it fundamentally inside that market. It doesn’t have to be a trading market, necessarily; a regulation can actually create a compliance market behind the scenes.
In the world, most compliance markets are what are called emissions-trading or offset markets. They are markets that intend to look at a sectoral-based reduction in CO2, allow a certain amount of emissions to happen and reward companies in that sector that are exceeding those targets to be able to trade their access emissions. That’s really the difference at the end of the day.
Senator C. Deacon: Moving to Dr. Gilbert, just to be clear: The 32 million you mentioned is a voluntary market — and is that pre-purchasing the production of carbon removal credits, or is it like a purchase order?
Mr. Kelland: It’s a purchase order. We are paid on delivery for that, so it’s not a pre-purchase at this point. The uptake we receive is that, once we deliver those credits, we are paid for those deliveries, but it is a voluntary market, yes.
Ms. Gilbert: I’m happy to take on the question of MRV. MRV is measurement, reporting and verification. Some people say it’s measurement, reporting and validation. Regardless, the idea is that, in the market, when credits are being purchased, who’s to say whether the CO2 is being captured and permanently stored. We want the presence of credibility and transparency along the way.
“Measurement, reporting and verification” is this: Can you measure and quantify the amount of CO2 that has been captured and permanently stored? Are you reporting it openly so that outsiders can see anyone purchasing the credit? Also, can that be validated?
To create that transparency, there are independent organizations. Both Dr. Halfyard and I have mentioned Isometric. Isometric is an independent agency or body that creates methodologies that are like recipes for identifying what needs to be measured, what equations and protocols need to be used and then how to report in a way that everybody can agree upon. It’s very important to establish these clear measurement, reporting and verification protocols.
There’s one additional step, which is important for us, and that is monitoring more broadly to figure out what happens after we release the bicarbonate into the ocean to make sure it remains stable and that we don’t perceive any problems, ecological or otherwise.
There are other companies. Isometric is the leading company that we’ve seen in MRV.
Senator C. Deacon: The other word you mentioned that would be valued in a description of this, unrelated to the other two companies here, is “biochar.”
Ms. Gilbert: Eddie, you mentioned biochar. Do you mind taking that one?
Mr. Halfyard: Sure, I can. I will admit, I am not a biochar expert. I’m a fish guy.
With biochar, my understanding is that it’s basically the burning of organics in the absence of oxygen. It’s one of many methods for durable carbon dioxide removal. That biochar is then spread onto soils where it sequesters carbon. It is not an ocean- or aquatic-based CDR.
Senator C. Deacon: Is there anything else you want to mention, Dr. Halfyard, in terms of the details, just so our new group feels that they’re getting benefit that we already received last fall from a lot of you?
Mr. Halfyard: I’m fortunate that Dr. Gilbert and Mike have done a super job of the broad context here.
Senator C. Deacon: Thank you.
Senator Ravalia: Thank you to our witnesses. It’s great to see you again.
When we met with Natural Resources Canada officials, they implied that the technological readiness of mCDR was basically rated by them at a 4 or 5 out of 10. As such, they explained that Canada was still in the research phase, with small-scale projects being undertaken. Are you able to give us an update on that particular measurement they used? Have there been any significant advances in the last nine months since we met? Mr. Kelland, we’ll start with you.
Mr. Kelland: I’m happy to.
Eddie mentioned TRL, which is technology readiness level, one of the acronyms that was mentioned. Quickly on that, it is a scale, as you say, from 1 to 10. Typically, it’s actually 1 to 9, with 1 being “I have a great idea” and 10 being deployed commercially at scale and it has been proven again and again.
TRL is difficult, because it’s a 1 to 9 scale, looking across a wide range of technologies. I always find it challenging to place ourselves within one of those TRL levels.
But I do think that a 4 or 5 is probably an estimate that’s not based on looking at the current state of the science. To be fair, the science is moving incredibly quickly. The number of papers that mention ocean alkalinity enhancement in peer-reviewed journals has doubled every year since 2020, and it’s on track to do it again. That’s tremendous growth in knowledge, which is largely led here in Canada. It is quite fascinating.
TRL 9 is usually defined as commercially operating in the way that you intend to eventually operate. It’s not a prototype or in a weird environment, et cetera. It’s not in the lab; it’s in real life, and it’s operating commercially in the way that you intend for it to operate commercially.
From that perspective, I would say that at least Planetary’s technology — and Eddie mentioned the same thing — would be a TRL 9 technology.
There are two areas that can be improved upon in order to realize the full potential of this technology. Right now, essentially, we have our MRV process. Our way of measuring those carbons are purposely conservative; we leave a lot on the table, I would say. We’re sure that we’re undercrediting in that we’re making sure we are always in a conservative place such that we know that the number we give is always lower than the actual number. That’s a good way to go.
Future work on MRV will improve that and give us a better business opportunity, essentially. We’ll get more value out of every activity that we do.
The second item that could be looked at as an improvement is continual scale-up. As we scale up these technologies further and further, you get into different kinds of interesting conversations. If you have, for example, a Planetary plant right next to a CarbonRun plant, do they interact? Are they at scale? Those are things we have to look at that we aren’t looking at today.
Those elements are future advancements, but from the context of individually operating systems, I would actually say they are more like TRL 9. So I would agree with Eddie on that.
Ms. Gilbert: That was a great answer, but at pHathom, we’re doing things a little bit differently. Within the next two months, we’re closing our seed round. With that money, it’s our intention to go from TRL 6 to TRL 8 over the next two years, and we have a step in between. As Mike said, we’re moving very quickly. We have the funding to do it. We’re working with outside independent organizations like the Huntsman Marine Science Centre in New Brunswick. Technology and development are moving much faster than the news of that technology.
Senator Ravalia: To follow up, there is a further point I wish to raise. We have primarily been talking about geochemical methods here. There are jurisdictions that are using biological methods such as microalgae cultivation, ocean fertilization and blue carbon restoration. Would you care to comment on how those processes might partner with what you are doing? We could start with Mr. Halfyard.
Mr. Halfyard: Sure.
I will start by making a broad statement that it is an exciting time, in which companies — irrespective of their technology details — are willing to work together because we share this common goal of climate action. Within the CDR community, there is no question that Canada is emerging as a leader.
There is a huge amount of collaboration between companies such that we can share our learning and boost each other. The reality is that we need a lot of carbon dioxide removal quickly, and we all have a role to play. Looking for opportunities for biological, geochemical or, frankly, any other CDR approach where they can collaborate is important. For example, although it is not the technology itself, there is the infrastructure around how we have logistical supply chains to get us products we need to do the work we need. There may be opportunities to collaborate and have economies of scale through something like that.
There are opportunities. Much of that is still emerging.
Mr. Kelland: I fully agree with Dr. Halfyard. There are a lot of opportunities for us to expand our capabilities in carbon removal, generally, into a variety of different approaches.
What is very challenging is that, in the ocean space, there is a propensity to lump these technologies together. It is a difficult thing, because the spirit of what Dr. Halfyard is talking about is absolutely the spirit of the CDR industry. There is a lot of collaboration, and there are opportunities for overlap. Typically, however, you will have categorization in this field where we have direct air capture, or DAC, enhanced rock weathering and improved forestry management, and then we have marine carbon dioxide removal. Under marine carbon dioxide removal, there are sets of technologies that are as different as DAC is to improved forestry. In that same context, we don’t ask the question of how DAC interacts with improving forests. We just do not ask that question, and yet we do in the marine world.
It is challenging, not from the perspective that we should not find ways to collaborate or share knowledge — as Dr. Halfyard said, that does happen — but these technologies are vastly different in terms of how they impact the ecosystem, their potential for runaway effects and for carbon removal, even, in terms of their technology readiness levels, as well as the risks to the environment.
The danger of bringing these things together is that we drive ourselves toward the lowest common denominator. We’ll take something like ocean alkalinity enhancement, which has the potential for up to 100 gigatonnes of carbon removal per year if deployed across the entire ocean, and we will compare it to something like ocean iron fertilization, which is like 1 gigatonne, and then say that marine CDR is risky; this one creates runaway algae blooms, and this one has fundamentally zero impact on the ecosystem. Yet, we bump them together and end up with the lowest common denominator.
There is a huge need to look at these technologies independently. We have to look at the pathways, potentials and risks. However, when we lump them together, it becomes a challenge.
Senator Ravalia: Good point. Thank you.
Senator Dhillon: Thank you to all of you for being here today.
Although the grey in my beard may not demonstrate my newness, I am very new here. I have read the material. Most of it makes sense, but some of it is foreign.
Allow me to get to the question or the work that you are asking us to do with the regulation and the affirmation of that so that you are able to work in international spheres: How will that help you? What happens if it is not there? What is happening now in its absence? Maybe you can go first, Mr. Kelland.
Mr. Kelland: Yes, I am happy to.
To a certain extent, this comes back to this idea of mCDR being one big thing.
Marine carbon dioxide removal, or what we are all working on, in the regulatory sphere, tends be talked about in only one context: I take a ship, go off into the ocean and I do that in the ocean. That tends to be where the regulatory conversation is. There is very little regulatory conversation about what we’re actually doing, which is doing things inland in a national jurisdiction, working there and then having an effect on the local coastal waters from that inland space.
The challenge is that international treaties on things like marine dumping are definitionally broad and restrictive. They have to be, because there are no police or regulatory forces that can police the whole ocean. Therefore, these things have to be — and I support the fact that they are — fairly restrictive in how they are working.
On the other hand, when we talk about something like a waste water facility, which is most akin to what we are doing here, that has to be a national jurisdiction. Canada is not going to hand over to the international community how we regulate our waste water treatment onshore. It makes no sense to do that. That is really the analog for the work we are doing here.
Canadian law, the Fisheries Act, provincial permitting regulations and the permits under which we are operating today — this is already happening; there is nothing new here — cover exactly what we are doing. However, the conversation at the regulatory and international levels, when somebody asks whether we should include ocean alkalinity enhancement within this compliance market or something else, always defers back to international marine dumping. That is the only place the conversation is happening.
What we are requesting is to say that we feel that we are dropped in the middle of this. We are not a terrestrial process, which is clearly and very simply “yes, put it into a compliance market and all of these kinds of things.” We are not an ocean process, which is clearly under marine dumping and international treaties.
In the U.S., the EPA has issued a statement. All we want is a website. It is really not complicated. It is a website that states that if you are working under our existing regulatory environment that safely legislates our wastewater and everything like that, send us a note, let us know what you are doing and you are good to go.
The very simple act of having that clarity — and this is what we’re already doing in Canada. We’re working under those permits already. Environment and Climate Change Canada shows up randomly at our site, pulls a bucket of water that we’re working with and tests it to make sure it’s not killing fish, et cetera. We are under those structures already. What we want is a statement that clarifies that this is what it is under. Then, we can get on with a conversation without all of the vague preamble. That’s it. It is incredibly straightforward.
A very clear example of this is that the Treasury Board is currently working on an RFP to purchase carbon removals within the Canadian federal government. Those carbon removals purchased under that RFP would go into the Clean Fuels Fund and significantly reduce the cost of the decarbonization goals of the greening government strategy with the Clean Fuels Fund. It is a small test purchase.
This issue of not having this clear statement is causing these pathways to be potentially excluded from that procurement. Yet, these pathways are the ones that have delivered some of the highest amounts of carbon credits; in fact, these pathways have delivered more credits on the registry than two of the approved pathways in Canada have ever delivered. These are actually more mature pathways operating today that the government is going to potentially arbitrarily exclude because this certainty has not been made by the regulatory agencies.
Senator Dhillon: Fantastic, thank you. Do the other witnesses have anything to add?
Ms. Gilbert: No, that was a great answer.
Mr. Halfyard: Mr. Kelland did a superb job once again.
A big part of that clarity is that the regulations in place today, whether to protect water quality or fish habitat, were largely created before the concept of carbon dioxide removal was even in place and before we had this opportunity in front of us.
A simple thing I encourage is to recontextualize or reconsider all of our permitting and regulatory landscape. As it relates to us, we deal with municipal, provincial and federal regulators, and multiple departments within each of those.
It is about understanding why it is that adding alkalinity to the ocean is not necessarily what was envisioned when we talked about marine dumping. The two things are very different. In both cases, we need very stringent regulation, but we need to understand that they are fundamentally different processes with different upsides as well. That is important to consider.
Also, it would be wonderful to streamline the number of departments and regulations, as well as having a single point source for companies, particularly new companies getting into this space, to understand how it is that they navigate the regulatory landscape.
For those of us who have been operating for several years now, a big learning curve is understanding whom to talk to and, quite frankly, finding the people who had the scope and jurisdiction over what we do. Understanding that CDR is something new and having a single point source for regulation in Canada would be beneficial.
Ms. Gilbert: That was a great addition.
I have a few points to make. One is that, when we are talking to investors about fundraising, a number one point they raise is whether we will encounter regulatory hurdles, and we cannot give definitive answers early on. That is partly the challenge that Dr. Halfyard mentioned: There are multiple agencies that could say “no,” and it is unclear who has the final ability to say “yes.” We need to know where the “yes” is going to come from — the information that needs to be provided by that agency. In terms of moving forward, those would be helpful for us in fundraising and for clarity.
I also want to say that we are much earlier in our company’s lifetime than either CarbonRun or Planetary. We have a different perspective because we are on that steep learning curve. For us, that is a critical path issue.
Senator Dhillon: Thank you for that, and thank you for the work you are doing. It is impressive.
Mr. Kelland, you said that this might become more expensive, and folks are buying credits now. How would it get more expensive, other than the natural course of things getting more expensive? Are there other factors that would cause it to get more expensive?
I put it to you this way: If there are more companies coming on board to do this work, and there is greater technology that will be serving in this space, would that not bring the price down?
Mr. Kelland: It is a complicated question. We are raising a funding round right now, so I get asked this question a lot. I will try to give you the most succinct answer I can.
Senator Dhillon: I thought that I would be asking the simple questions today.
Mr. Kelland: No, that is a good one.
In terms of the scale of carbon removal that is required, carbon removal, in general, can do two things. The first is that it can handle the emissions that we otherwise cannot abate. Permanent carbon removal is very important because it matches the lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere compared to something like planting trees, which has a short storage time. All three of these processes store the carbon on geological time frames. It is like putting it back underground. They are the processes that are equivalent to an emission at the end of the day.
Where we have an emission that is unabatable, they can net it out. They are the “net” in “net zero” at the end of the day.
To backtrack, there is actually no such thing as an unabatable emission. We could abate every emission; it is just that the compromises we have to make in order to abate those emissions would be extreme. In some cases, those have been costed and are clear. For example, sustainable aviation fuel costs us, on average, about $850 per tonne of CO2 abated, so it is expensive.
A different way of thinking about that unabatable emission is that carbon dioxide removal can set what is called a ceiling price of decarbonization. You can say that carbon removal will be $500 a tonne. What does that do? It saves the world economy $1 trillion a year in a net-zero scenario. That is pretty good. If we say that carbon removal will be $300 a tonne, we get $3 trillion back a year on hitting net zero.
It is that line that it can draw for which governments, companies and the world at large set a ceiling price on decarbonizing our economy and decarbonizing the world.
The second thing that carbon removal can do uniquely — nothing else can do it — is to remove legacy emissions from the atmosphere. There is a requirement within our climate models to remove 1 trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere between now and 2100. That is in addition to getting to net zero. I call it the line in the spreadsheet that balances all of the equations. Oh, we are not going to hit our goals? Throw in some carbon removal and see if it gets us there, and then we put it in there.
We ignore that sort of thing, but 1 trillion tonnes is the same mass as every living thing on Earth. It is not a small number.
If we are going to hit even two degrees Celsius, the opportunity for carbon removal over the next 75 years is virtually unlimited. The demand side of the equation as markets come onboard and companies understand that is virtually unlimited in terms of what is going on. That means that forward‑looking companies can look at this and say that even though it is expensive today, because the technology is immature and new, buying in today may be the cheapest way, because the demand is going to outstrip the supply. There is no way that the supply will keep up with the demand over the medium to long term.
What we’re trying to do with compliance markets and access to these regulatory markets is to ensure that we can start to establish that ceiling price on decarbonization and say to the federal government that if we want to decarbonize the Royal Canadian Air Force, for example, let’s add this to the arsenal and allow them to not only purchase sustainable aviation fuel — of which there will never be enough to decarbonize in aviation — but also purchase carbon removal, scale up this industry so we can continue to provide additional supply but also save the Government of Canada billions of dollars in terms of their decarbonization strategies within things like the RCAF.
These are the things that will drive the market from a macro perspective over the next 10, 15, 25 years, on to 2100.
Senator Dhillon: Thank you. That was very helpful.
Senator Surette: I am a new member here, as well. I need to catch up on all of this. It is multifaceted.
My first question is simple — at least, I think it is. You mentioned a relationship or partnership — I’m not sure which word you actually used — with academia, mostly Dalhousie University. I think you did some work with Memorial and others, but maybe not.
Regarding Dalhousie, can you explain that relationship and the type of research they are doing with you? Is it to do with technology or other parts of your challenges?
Mr. Kelland: I am happy to speak to that, and other speakers like Dr. Halfyard probably have good answers to this, as well. I have the benefit of being here in person, so I think I’m getting most of the questions, but I want to ensure they have time.
Briefly, a few years ago, the Canadian government funded an initiative called the Canada First Research Excellence Fund and gave a grant that, when matched up, amounted to about $400 million to Dalhousie University to work on what is called the Ocean-Climate Nexus. That has been bolstered by research money we have brought in — or that has been motivated by our work — through organizations like the Carbon to Sea Initiative, the ClimateWorks Foundation and others.
There is roughly $450 million worth of research funding pouring into this field in Canada right now. It is a consortium of universities, but a lot of it is happening in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It interacts with all of our work.
The way we work with researchers is that we look at three core areas of research. They all revolve around the ocean side of the process, rather than the back end, if you will, the ability to actually do the work and restore the ocean’s chemistry. We do that piece. The researchers are doing a lot of the work in the ocean.
One thing they work on is the biological impacts up and down the food web. Some of the first work we did showed zero impact on the reproduction and growth, the mortality and the ability to synthesize nutrients in algae, in phytoplankton, based on the addition of alkalinity to that water.
Today, we are doing things like studies with oysters where we take oysters and put sensors on them and little googly eyes although those are not scientifically necessary. You can tell when they are open and closed. When they are open and feeding, it means that they are happy and the water is in good shape. When they’re closed, typically, it means that you have issues with the water quality. We do that kind of biological research across a variety of different organisms and benthic levels.
They do a lot of research on physical oceanography. As the ocean moves around, it has big impacts on how we count the carbon. We have sensors across Halifax Harbour, and we look at the carbonate chemistry parameters of the water as it discharges from our site and spreads around.
That is going to the improvement in the ability to generate even more credits from every activity in terms of measurement, reporting and verification, or MRV. Then, they do modelling based on that. There are world-class modellers at Dalhousie, like Katja Fennel’s group doing world-class ocean modelling around this, allowing us to generate more and more credits. Finally, we look at chemical oceanography in that same context.
Those are the ways we are interacting with Dalhousie and collaborating with them. They are completely independent. We do not fund them. That provides a strong benefit because they are a trusted voice in the field and in the work. If I can give them a plug, I believe that their pioneering work allows Canada to move ahead and lead in a way that is far less risky than the rest of the world would think.
When we talk about NRCan, for example, and the Technology Readiness Level, I would encourage NRCan to work with Dalhousie as an independent auditor and get caught up on that. If we can make those linkages, that is how Canada can safely take the lead in these kinds of technologies, put compliance programs in place and be out in front in a way that is safe because we are so far ahead in terms of our academic leadership in this space.
Senator Surette: I am not sure if our other two witnesses wish to comment before I go to my next question.
Ms. Gilbert: I wish to add that it is not just Katja Fennel’s group. We are working with the civil engineering department and Adam Yang. We’re working with two postdoctoral researchers to model the basins, and we will be doing chemical oceanography, and they will be helping to design our dispersal system. It extends out beyond the ocean groups as well.
We are also working with Concordia University on the development of carbonic anhydrase. We have researchers there. We are using their lab. There is a great opportunity not just in Halifax but also in other places.
We’re also finding funding from B.C., through NorthEx Environment, which is promoting the research and development of these technologies. We are finding interest from across Canada, not just at Dalhousie, but that academic support is essential for us.
Mr. Halfyard: As it relates to Halifax and Dalhousie, I am biased, because our co-founder was, and is, a professor there, and I did my PhD studies there. I could not agree more about the capacity at Dalhousie and the opportunities in front of Dalhousie in the region, given some of the large programs that are existing there, and Mr. Kelland did a super job of exploring that.
I also agree with Dr. Gilbert about the fact that there are also many other academic institutes throughout the nation that have huge expertise on various components, whether it be about materials and technology or on the ocean side.
For me, the single biggest factor as we scale our technologies is the social license to operate, and that comes with trust from the public. There is no better way to build that trust than with independent, third-party, peer-reviewed science.
Clearly, we are all passionate about climate. I can speak for the three of us. I know for a fact that we and our teams are all in this for the right reason. However, at the end of the day, we are a for-profit business, and the perception of bias is always going to be there. It is fundamental — paramount — that we have independent researchers involved. A fortunate thing that emerges is that often those researchers can explore areas where there is not a direct line of sight from a business-case perspective.
For us, exploring these other fringe or tangential items are very important but may be hard for us to justify spending R&D money on. It is often from there that important, critical things emerge.
Finally, I wish to mention some of our other academic institutes, like technical colleges here in Nova Scotia. We have the Nova Scotia Community College with an important ocean tech sector. They’ve supported the roll-out of other ocean tech companies in the region and developed a formidable ocean tech economy here in Canada. They have a huge amount of expertise.
While science and ecosystem safety is important, we must also, on the back end — as Mike says — make the work happen, leveraging some of those opportunities and the capacity they bring, not to mention the workforce they generate. That is all important.
Senator Surette: I have a follow-up to what was mentioned there about trust and moving projects forward. We are talking with real people here in coastal communities in many cases, and I am from a small fishing village.
You mentioned partnerships and relationships with the Indigenous communities and rural communities and so on. I did not hear the word “fishers.” When I look through this, trying to move projects such as this forward in the oceans, especially — rivers as well — I note that fishers are going to be an important component to this.
What type of work are you doing in terms of communicating this information to fishers, and what type of consultation are you having with them?
Mr. Kelland: I will defer to Dr. Halfyard to start, and then I am happy to jump in.
Mr. Halfyard: That works for me. Thank you.
For context, I say that I am a fisherman first and a scientist second. For me, angling is the reason I became a scientist and entered into all of this. It is important to know that in Canada, alkalinity has been added to freshwater for a long time to improve water quality and restore fisheries.
For CarbonRun, our approach to working in rivers stems from the idea that we need to improve water quality if we want to have sustainable fisheries in the future.
A lot of our engagement has been with angling organizations, in some cases, commercial groups. The interesting component — and the overlap for many of us — is that, in the absence of doing anything, if none of this existed, if we were not companies in the business of carbon dioxide removal, what we know is that currently we are emitting a huge amount of CO2 into the atmosphere, it is pollution and it’s acidifying the ocean. In the absence of any intervention, we see a declining baseline and deteriorating conditions, which is jeopardizing fisheries in the real future and with a fairly high degree of certainty. What we are talking about here is an attempt to start slowing down the degradation of our natural systems and at least make it so that it is not getting as bad as quickly. If we get to a point where we get into the realm of restoring the ocean, we are going to be a huge industry capturing a huge amount of carbon.
This seems to resonate very well with all fishermen we talk to, all recreational anglers, as well as food, social and ceremonial fishers, and, certainly, the commercial fishers. It is an ongoing conversation. It will never be complete. Since we are a nascent industry, a huge amount of work is yet to be done.
Coastal fishers are probably the most relevant groups to talk to because they see it firsthand, and that’s where our technologies will have the biggest impact. There is plenty of evidence that ocean acidification is impacting the ocean and their fisheries, and it makes for a natural, relatively easy conversation in many cases.
Senator Surette: Thank you.
Senator Prosper: Thank you to the witnesses for your excellent testimony.
Let’s go, Nova Scotia.
I want to delve into this a bit because this is very educational for me. I am a newer senator on this committee, and Colin, who is a fellow member of my group, is an incredible advocate. It makes complete sense. I’m hearing that you want certainty, and investors want certainty. You’re facing municipal, provincial and federal laws and regulations, and you want “one project, one approval.” It makes a lot of sense.
My background is that I’m from an Indigenous community. I used to be a Chief in one of those communities in Nova Scotia, Paqtnkek Mi’kmaq Nation, later, at a national level, a Regional Chief. I’m quite familiar with the politics in Nova Scotia from a First Nations perspective. As you know, there are matters that get discussed and issues that arise among Indigenous groups, not only in Nova Scotia but nationally.
There are approaches, for example, within Nova Scotia when we’re talking about legislation and its potential impact on Indigenous rights. I’m always advocating for people to utilize those processes to create a dialogue because I see a lot of complementary — I’m thinking of Mi’kmaq concepts like Netukulimk, which talk about stewardship. I just see a really good synergy there in terms of Indigenous Peoples and this type of technology.
I want your dreams, your hopes, to be as smooth as possible. Part of that is reaching out and having discussions with Indigenous groups and organizations.
I’m curious about your partnerships with Indigenous groups, how you approach that. Please start there. This is for any one of you to comment. Thank you.
Mr. Kelland: I’m happy to talk about that. I fully agree. The way we see these partnerships is that, by working together, it’s an accelerant to our work. You put it very well: If we want to be successful, we have to do this well. There’s no alternative at the end of the day.
We work through a process — it’s our own way of gauging our own success at engagement — that ranges from informing people of what we’re doing to empowering people to be part of what we’re doing — that spectrum. There are various stages of trust building that come into that, which are very critical.
Right now with our Halifax project we are at what we call “the involved stage.” We’re involving everybody in it. It’s going incredibly well, I would say. We’ve had very strong relationships with the Confederacy of Mainland Mi’kmaq, who have visited our site. We’ve had shared conversations. There is a conversation, which, as I understand it, is a very high honour, having us present to the board, which is, I believe, the Chiefs in the Mi’kmaq region. We have been employing Indigenous Peoples to help us with that engagement to make sure we can bridge between ourselves and those communities in an appropriate way. That is also going incredibly well.
We held an event two or three weeks ago to celebrate this offtake. At the event, we had representatives from Nova Scotia Power, academics from Dalhousie and members of the Mi’kmaq communities, on whose land we worked. It was incredible to bring together this diverse group to talk about these projects and how they engage, in the context of a nice social lunch as well. It’s absolutely critical, and we agree.
One of the things we would like to move toward is that empowerment, which to me means that we are able to have Indigenous investment in our projects and shared ownership. That’s a place that we hope to go to over the next year or so in what we’re doing.
Senator Prosper: Thank you for that.
Mr. Halfyard: Yes, I agree. That is a wonderful question, Senator Prosper.
At CarbonRun, we often talk about early and often engagement. For us, it’s an extension of relationships that we’ve had for a long time and the building of new relationships. That takes time. It’s a slow process. It has to be genuine. I’ve heard the expression “a conversation over 100 teas.” It shouldn’t be rushed by business or project timelines. We take that part seriously. We don’t want to rush it.
Indigenous knowledge and Indigenous voices are very critical for this, especially for us working on rivers at CarbonRun, rivers are so interwoven in the complete history of First Nations broadly, certainly Mi’kmaq. The knowledge that is understood about rivers and how they work can make for a better project when we work together.
It’s also important that those voices are represented so that the projects do as well as they can for everybody. Our first project, which came live last fall, was in Pictou County, Nova Scotia. We worked very closely with Chief Young and her council at Pictou Landing First Nation and continue to engage in order to understand how we can have a better project, do better for that community and set ourselves up for long-term action, which is climate change action.
Finally, I’ll echo what Mike Kelland mentioned about opportunities for Indigenous equity projects, where co-ownership and co-development is something that we strive for. It’s definitely a vision we’ve had from day one. What that looks like in this highly uncertain, still-emerging market is yet to be determined, to be honest. But I think it’s something that we should all want for many reasons.
There is a huge opportunity. I look forward to seeing the positive progress that has happened so far broadly across the CDR industry — I would say — and certainly the Canadian CDR industry with respect to how there can be continued opportunity for Indigenous communities.
The Chair: Thank you, Dr. Halfyard.
Senator Greenwood: Good morning. I’m the newest and most temporary senator here. Listening to all of your presentations, I was curious about what was happening on the coast of British Columbia, the Arctic and Hudson Bay. These are large bodies of water. With regard to this kind of work — because the three of you were primarily speaking about the East Coast — can you tell me if these initiatives are happening in these areas?
Mr. Kelland: I can speak about our specific process. It’s difficult for me to talk for anybody else, obviously, so I’ll only speak for us.
At Planetary, we have a circular economy system. We start with co-products or by-products that are produced by a variety of industries. The co-products and by-products that we use, we clean those up and extract this pure antacid essentially for the ocean. That is how our process works. We had a project that was investigating a project in Vancouver. We were partnered with Metro Vancouver, which was funded by CICE, which is a clean technology funding organization in B.C. We worked hard on that project and achieved a lot of success in terms of the successes along the way. However, in the end, we didn’t find an industrial source of alkalinity in the region that worked for our process.
It was unfortunate, because we formed some very good collaborations. We were engaging well with the local Indigenous communities in the region. We were doing some excellent science on the ocean side of things. The University of British Columbia, or U.B.C., and Ocean Networks Canada were involved with incredible scientists and the work they were doing there. Yet, in the end, for us, the elements required to create a viable project in that region weren’t there because of the industries that were available to us.
We hope to go back, but at this point, we don’t have a project that would work there.
Senator Greenwood: Thank you.
The Chair: Dr. Gilbert, do you want to respond?
Ms. Gilbert: Yes, that would be great.
At pHathom, we are starting with pilot projects in Nova Scotia, because it’s very close to where our development is happening. The idea is that, after we deploy our first pilot, which will happen in late 2027, we want to begin working subsequent pilots.
Mike mentioned the CICE funding, which has been rebranded as NorthX. We’re working with NorthX funding, which is out of B.C. One of the requirements or strong suggestions is to work in B.C. We are actively seeking biomass partners, because we take in biomass flue gas from biomass power plants or biomass boilers. That’s what we capture and convert. We’re actively seeking biomass partners in B.C. and would love to work there subsequently.
The Chair: Dr. Halfyard, would you care to respond?
Mr. Halfyard: It is a wonderful question. I’ll echo many of the previous comments.
Within the context of CarbonRun, we say that we listen to the river as to whether it’s a fit for our sites. “Listening to the river,” to us, means that we conduct a scientific assessment to see if it has the proper water chemistry to actually capture the carbon for us. Not all rivers are well suited for what we do. Similarly, in the ocean, not all parts of the ocean are the same, and they are not all conducive for the work. We have to consider the ecosystem and biology there. Are they a good fit?
There is also a social context. Do the people around the river want this sort of thing to happen? All these things determine our site selection. We have worked with McGill University and conducted analyses with 400,000 rivers across the globe, identifying seven hot spots. However, the West Coast is, indeed, a suitable region for us — not all rivers but many. There would be ecological and biological benefits to working there.
To Mike’s earlier point, once we know that a site could potentially work, or that a river or ocean is well suited for it and people want it, we actually have to do the work. The supply chain logistics are not insignificant. We need to get the material we need because we all use various forms of feedstock. In the case of CarbonRun, it’s natural agricultural-type limestone that we refine down further and turn into smaller particles so that they dissolve quickly. For us, doing that means that working in a place like the High Arctic where the road infrastructure isn’t good — and we wouldn’t want a big road infrastructure built — is not technically feasible at this time.
An important final point I’d like to make is that, within the carbon removal business, we have to consider our life cycle assessment, or LCA. How much carbon is emitted for us to do the work? That’s whether it’s to create the steel buildings or containers we use for our crews to go and sample the water chemistry or for the feedstock to be mined from the earth or taken as part of a waste product and then refined and brought to us at our door. All of that accounting of the carbon that goes into the project is taken off the top of what we actually produce. It’s the net benefit to the climate that really matters.
Working in areas with clean energy is fundamental as we move forward. We continue to advocate for clean energy and the greening of our grids when we think about the electricity that’s going to go into our processes.
Senator Greenwood: This is a short question, and I think you’ve already partially answered it.
I was curious about how Indigenous Peoples — you all spoke about Indigenous Peoples — are actually informing the work. It’s one thing to partner in a project, in terms of business, but how is Indigenous Knowledge informing what it is that you do? Maybe that’s through the university; I’m not sure. Please comment on that.
Mr. Kelland: We are actively working to integrate a “two‑eyed seeing” approach within the work we do. As we continue to build trust in that relationship, it becomes a larger part of the work we do.
Today, when I speak to people about the work we do, I actually use the teachings I received from Ken Paul and Dorene Bernard. Ken is from New Brunswick, and Dorene is a waterkeeper and Elder in Shubenacadie, the community in which we work, so it’s directly where we are. For me, Indigenous Knowledge currently informs how I understand and impart understanding of the process that we do and things like that.
We’re working more and more to enhance that relationship and bring in that knowledge to the way we do science and deploy projects. That’s a process. It’s going to take a while for us to continue to do that.
Senator Greenwood: Would the other panellists like to comment?
Ms. Gilbert: We are in the very early stages of working with groups like these, but with fisheries, communities and First Nations, we’re currently in a listening campaign. We’re asking them questions: What are their concerns? How would they like to be involved? We’re in the early stages of that, but we’re several years away from our first actual deployment of a pilot project. We’re learning as we go.
Mr. Halfyard: I commend Kim on that comment. The early and often approach is often the best. The reality is that we often don’t fully know how this works and how Traditional Knowledge or Indigenous Knowledge can be woven into what we do. That discovery process and having a relationship is important.
For us, the way it has panned out is found in a simple thing like selecting the site, identifying where we actually want to work, determining what the footprint is and what it means, not only from a historical use or a current modern use of the landscape around it and how that could impact people, but also from an understanding of the historical context of what happened at that site. Has it changed through time? American eels, for example, are an iconic species here on the East Coast. Historically, eels might have been prevalent in one area but no longer are. Why is that? That can help us understand what the recent trends in water chemistry have been. We can then modify and tailor our experimental designs and monitoring with that baseline knowledge and accelerate a lot of our understanding of the sites.
Senator Poirier: I’m a newbie in this committee. I was on the committee for many years, but I’ve been absent for a while. This is like a history lesson for us today, for those of us who have just rejoined the committee, thank you.
I’m going to go back to some of the opening comments that I heard when you made your speech, Mr. Kelland. I’m hoping that I did not misunderstand. If I did, I apologize.
From my understanding, there seem to be helpful international regulations. You are doing great work, but there seems to be a lack of something that could happen that could help you do your work even better on the ground locally by having certain regulations that could be put in place. I’m assuming those discussions have happened with government. I’m assuming those regulations that you’re looking for are not there right now.
If they’re not there, is there an openness within government to put the regulations into place or to work with you to have the regulations put in place that would make this work easier for you all to do? I’ll leave it at that and see if I have understood. Thank you.
Mr. Kelland: Maybe I can clarify that just a little bit. We actually don’t need any new regulations. Actually, the point I’m trying to make is this: All of the regulatory frameworks to do this responsibly, safely and at scale exist today. Those are the Fisheries Act and are under environmental regulations writ large across the country. They are largely provincial but also federal.
The challenge is not that those regulations don’t exist. Dr. Halfyard mentioned this earlier: It’s the fact that the field we’re working in is relatively novel. We’re pioneers and leaders around the world in the work that we do here. What there’s uncertainty about is that, even though those regulations cover, and are perfectly sufficient for, every activity we do, the purpose for doing those activities is not incorporated into those regulations specifically, so there’s always uncertainty. We are constantly asking, “Can you really use that for what you’re doing? Is that really okay?”
So there’s no gap, I would say, from a regulatory perspective. Essentially, we need to have everybody get on the same page with what we are already doing. Our plant has been operating since 2023 in Halifax under these regulations. It has permits. Regulatory officers show up and audit our regulatory compliance. We have a very strong relationship with the Large Industrial File Team, or LIFT, in Nova Scotia, which Dr. Gilbert mentioned. So we’re good from a regulatory perspective.
The challenge is that when we talk about being in a compliance or purchasing program, there is a lot of uncertainty, especially in government and international conversations. All we really want is a simple statement that we’re what we’re doing today under the existing regulations is okay. That is the way it should be done.
Senator Poirier: Is there an openness for that?
Mr. Kelland: I think there’s some openness, yes. It’s something that we want to continue to push for.
As I said, the U.S. has done this, and they did it with no fanfare whatsoever. They said that mCDR fits under the existing framework. It is very simple. That’s all we want. It’s something that can be done very easily.
Senator Poirier: Thank you.
Senator C. Deacon: I will start with Dr. Gilbert. You talked about biomass energy generation and that you work with a plant like that — or that’s your intention or that’s where you’re heading. The importance of partnerships is really key, it seems, in each of the applications of your technology. If I go to the West River — the Sheet Harbour example that Dr. Halfyard gave — and your work with the Nova Scotia salmon fishers — there’s a long history there. Just give an overview of that and Tufts Cove power generation. If you run out of time, maybe write in to the clerk. I will start with you, Dr. Gilbert.
Ms. Gilbert: Great. I’ll do my best to be brief.
We have customers such as Google, Shopify and Stripe, which are buying the credits. When we’re working with the biomass power plant, we’re partnering with them to take their CO2, which is a waste product for them; generating profit from it; and giving some of that money back to the biomass power plant. The benefit to the power plant is that it increases their profitability and helps with allocating money so they can spend more money to verify that the wood or the biomass they’re getting is sustainably sourced. The last thing we want is to contribute to deforestation or new forests being cut down. So we’re providing revenue that can contribute both to the longevity of the biomass power generation and sustainable wood sourcing.
Currently, we’re working with a small company that does sustainable biomass, which is ACFOR Energy. However, we’re talking to bigger power generation companies in eastern and Atlantic Canada so we can help them improve their profitability, as well.
Mr. Halfyard: Thank you for the question, Senator Deacon.
You’re absolutely right: A lot of my own personal history and understanding around lime have come from the not-for-profit sector where one of the oldest environmental groups in Nova Scotia, the Nova Scotia Salmon Association, representing trout and salmon anglers, identified acid rain as a real problem in this province. We’re seeing conditions deteriorate, and we’re losing many of our populations. There’s not a lot of action happening. We were going to put our hand up and make this happen. They committed to a demonstration project that started in 2005 when they hired a young green graduate student to do some of the baselining work there.
All along, the technology really has come from Scandinavia, where liming rivers is well established. There are huge federal programs in place to support that. The return on investment, from a fisheries perspective, is well demonstrated, and there are 40-plus years of peer-reviewed science on the safety and efficacy of doing this.
However, the experience here in Nova Scotia was that, after 10 years and a million dollars in fundraising, charity golf tournaments, bake sales and auctions, it was expensive to run this liming project. They tripled the production of wild Atlantic salmon and had great success. They had mapped out, scientifically, all of the areas where it was highly needed and should have been happening already, but finances were limited for the widespread adoption of river liming to save Atlantic salmon and approve brook trout fisheries. Here, we can leverage the carbon markets to fund all that critical restoration work.
For volunteers like the Nova Scotia Salmon Association, supporting them and their original mandate to do this will also have a meaningful climate action. It is really exciting for us.
Senator C. Deacon: Maybe you could send in articles like the one in the New York Times that talked about this relationship. That would be great if you could send those to our clerk.
Mr. Halfyard: We would love to share those.
The Chair: You have two minutes, Mr. Kelland.
Mr. Kelland: I will try to be brief. The way we like to work — the best way that works for us — is to make use of as much existing infrastructure as possible. That cuts down not only cost but also the carbon footprint of our process, and it allows us to move quickly. Nova Scotia Power has been an incredible host for the project. We are able to use the cooling water they pump through the plant as a way of doing a fundamental part of our project. They’re doing that anyway, all day, every day.
From Nova Scotia Power’s perspective, there is no way at present to completely decarbonize Nova Scotia without turning off the lights. Unlike somewhere like Alberta, we can’t bury the carbon underground; we don’t have the geology in Nova Scotia to do that. That means that if we want to keep the lights on in Nova Scotia, we need alternative ways to reduce the carbon footprint of the power generation of the province. This, as well as all of these technologies, are really well suited to doing that.
I’ll put my plug in for compliance market access again, because that would allow Nova Scotia Power to utilize the credits that we’re generating in order to reach their decarbonization goals.
The Chair: Thank you. We’re in under the wire. I want to thank our witnesses this morning for a very informative discussion and our senators for being engaged. We will continue on Tuesday after the break week and see where we go from there.
(The committee adjourned.)