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Feds invest $25M in Burnaby's Svante carbon capture technology

Project total comes in at $97.22 million
Jess Balzer
Jess Balzer
svante-inc-federal-gov-funding
Burnaby's Svante Inc. is benefiting from federal government investment. Svante Inc.

A Burnaby company has received a large investment from the federal government for its environmental project. 

Svante Inc. is currently undertaking a $97.22 million project to develop low-cost carbon capture technology that will prevent the significant release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from sites like cement and blue hydrogen plants. 

Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry François-Philippe Champagne announced July 7 the Canadian government will invest $25 million into the project. 

The funding will help Svante Inc. manufacture its proprietary solid filter and machine products at a commercial scale. The company is planning to manufacture systems with the ability to capture up to 2,000 tons of CO2 per day, depending on the application. 

“Vancouver is the Silicon Valley of carbon capture technology development, and we are very proud to anchor our world headquarters, R&D and engineering test centre, and first commercial filter manufacturing plant in Canada," Svante Inc. president and CEO Claude Letourneau said in a news release. 

“Lowering the capital cost of the capture of the CO2 emitted in industrial production is critical to the world’s net-zero carbon goals required to stabilize the climate. Leaders from industry, financial sectors and government agree on the enormity of the challenge and the critical need to deploy carbon capture and carbon removal solutions at Gigatons scale. The carbon pulled from earth as fossil fuel needs to go back into the earth in safe CO2 storage.”

The technology could be used to help reduce emissions in many industrial processes where abatement remains challenging and costly in the foreseeable term, which includes oil, gas and hydrogen. 

The government says similar technology is already being used through ongoing projects with another B.C. company Lafarge Holcim and Total S.A. in Richmond as well as Husky Energy in Lloydminster Saskatchewan. 

"This technology is one of the tools that will help achieve Canada’s goal of net zero by 2050, especially for heavy emitting industries that continue to produce goods Canadians use every day," the government announcement reads. 

Svante Inc. will also be able to create a new centre of excellence for carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) in Burnaby that will allow it to scale up its manufacturing operations to produce commercial-scale structured adsorbent filter and test its propietary rapid adsorption machine (RAM). 

The government says these can capture up to 2,000 tons of CO2 per day, which is what a 10 kilometre squared forest captures in one year - more than twice the size of Vancouver's Stanley Park. 

The investment from the feds will help create 53 jobs, maintain 72 jobs and provide 124 co-op positions and invest a minimum of $205 million in research and development. 

Svante Inc. is expected to be the first industrial point source-carbon capture technology manufacturer using solid sorbents to expand manufacturing supply chain at a commercial scale within the Northern American market.