Halifax-based Planetary Technologies has won an XFACTOR award worth $1 million in the XPRIZE Carbon Removal Competition. 

XPRIZES are global, multi-year innovation competitions with prizes in the eight or nine figures. The Carbon Removal prize is funded by Elon Musk’s foundation.

Planetary's XFACTOR award recognizes the company's work in seawater restoration; a process that enhances the ocean’s natural ability to absorb carbon dioxide and rebalance its chemistry for the benefit of marine life and the climate, the company said in a press release.

“This recognition reinforces what we know deeply: that climate action can be collaborative, science-led, and rooted in restoration,” said CEO Mike Kelland.

Founded in Ottawa in 2019, Planetary’s process reduces ocean acidification by releasing alkaline rock or sand into the water, accelerating a chemical reaction that already occurs naturally and enhancing the ocean’s ability to act as a carbon sink.

“The ocean is the world’s largest carbon sink,” Vice President Kelsey Cuddihy told Entrevestor in an earlier interview. “Over time, it’s been accepting more and more carbon dioxide. Since we’ve been producing so much, the oceans have been accepting too much carbon, to the point that it’s actually starting to become more acidic. … The earth has a beautiful, natural geological cycle that will occur, in which rain will wash down on rocks that will (erode) into the ocean, and they’ll act kind of like an antacid.

“Because it’s so acidic at this point, that process is way too slow. It takes many thousands of years, and we don’t have that much time. The process of ‘ocean alkalinity enhancement’ is to find an alkalinity source … that we can add into the ocean ourselves and help speed up the process.”

Ocean acidification has been worsening since the 1980s, according to researchers at the University of Hawaii and elsewhere. Adding alkaline substances, like some types of rock, shows promise for increasing the ocean’s pH level, thereby counteracting the effects of the carbon.

In 2022, Planetary won an earlier $1 million from the XPRIZE organizers, a contest which is inspired by the Orteig Prize that Charles Lindbergh won for completing the first transatlantic flight in 1927. The company has also received funding from Vancouver-based Evok Innovations, a climatetech-focused venture capital shop.

Last year, Kelland told the audience at Entrevestor Live that focusing on large-scale, deeptech innovations is challenging but can make good business sense.

“Doing something that’s ridiculously ambitious is sometimes easier than not,” said Kelland during the Entrevestor panel on XPRIZE finalists. “That sounds really counter-intuitive, but you don’t have a lot of competition. … Everybody thinks you’re a little bit crazy, but also, it's inspiring, and people will want to join your team.”

Several other Atlantic Canadian companies have demonstrated success at previous XPRIZE contests by taking a similar approach: CarbonCure, which uses carbon emissions to cure concrete, was the 2021 co-winner of a Carbon XPRIZE, bagging US$7.5 million.  SmallFood, which is developing algae-based food that mimics conventional protein sources like fish, along with its partner Terra Bio, was a finalist for the US$15 million XPRIZE: Feed the Next Billion.

This year’s biggest Carbon XPRIZES went to: Houston-based Mati Carbon,  the Grand Prize winner, receiving a $50 million award to further advance its enhanced rock weathering (ERW) operations. Runners-up NetZero, Vaulted Deep, and UNDO Carbon were selected to receive $15 million, $8 million, and $5 million, respectively.