Phil De Luna joins UBC researcher and co-founder of Aurora Hydrogen to develop new CO₂ removal technology.
Phil De Luna, train deep sky chief scientific and commercial officer, teamed up with University of British Columbia (UBC) researcher Sabrina Scott and Aurora Hydrogen co-founder and former CTO Erin Bobicki will help decarbonize cement with Care.
“We believe that we can reduce the cost of producing conventional cement, whereas most… other technologies require a green premium.”
Erin Bobicki, Kura
Built on UBC research that Scott (Cura's chief operating officer) helped with earlier this year, Cura is developing electrochemical technology aimed at removing CO₂ from limestone using electricity rather than fossil fuels. “We like to think of ourselves as pre-firing carbon capture,” Bobicki told BetaKit.
The Vancouver and Calgary-based cleantech startup, which recently emerged from secrecy, aims to reduce CO₂ emissions while also helping industry players cut costs.
Concrete is responsible for eight percent global carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. Cement is the adhesive that typically holds concrete together. It is made from limestone (calcium carbonate) that is heated at high temperatures to extract calcium oxide in a process that releases large amounts of CO₂.
Bobicki, Cura's CEO, notes that some companies are working to replace the amount of cement in concrete (without regard to the CO₂ emissions of the actual cement production), while others are producing cement from alternative raw materials using calcium silicate, an approach she says “will take a very long time to scale.”
“The only thing that's really ready to go is on-site carbon capture and storage, but the problem is that it tends to be very expensive,” Bobicki said.
Cura uses an electrolyser to separate limestone into lime, which is used to make cement, and pure CO₂, which can be stored or used for other purposes. The company has scaled its technology in the laboratory to the first prototype and claims its solution can cost-effectively reduce CO₂ emissions from cement production by up to 85 percent.
“We believe we can reduce the cost of producing conventional cement, whereas most other technologies require a green premium,” Bobicki added.
Cura is still in the development stage, but is raising funds to build a 100-tonne-per-year pilot plant that it hopes to deploy within the next 12 to 16 months in British Columbia or Alberta. The startup also aims to launch a 10,000 tonne per annum demonstration over the next three years and deploy its technology at a large cement plant over the next five years.
Cura has partnered with an international infrastructure developer to test and potentially use its cement in large-scale projects, and is also in talks with cement manufacturers to trial its technology as it works towards its vision of installing its technology directly with cement manufacturers to support their production.
CONNECTED: Deep Sky Chief Science Officer Phil De Luna is leaving the company to “build something new”
De Luna, Cura's CTO, told BetaKit that he decided left Montreal carbon capture startup Deep Sky this summer because he wanted to build his own company. He said his departure had nothing to do with his belief in Deep Sky or direct air capture (DAC) technology more broadly, reiterating his belief that Canada place to scale up carbon removal.
“I was the third one hired, and [Deep Sky] taught me a lot about what it means to build a high-growth company and thrive in the real world,” De Luna said. “I always saw it as a stepping stone. I knew I wanted to be a founder. I was waiting for the right problem, the right technology and the right team, and I found them all here in Kure.”
De Luna also noted that the DAC market is facing some challenges. wrote about last month. For now, the only revenue-generating model for DAC is carbon credits, which De Luna admitted is a “hard sell” in today's environment. While many companies are still buying them, he said they are talking less about it publicly, adding that going green in the Trump era is “definitely a real thing.”
De Luna noted that the market has also become crowded. “The reality is that there are over 150 DAC startups out there right now, and the market can’t support them all,” he said. Despite these obstacles, De Luna expressed confidence that Deep Sky “can weather this storm.”
De Luna argues that the DAC is needed to help Canada reach its net zero goal by 2050, and that Kura's approach could be a “much-needed lever” in the fight against climate change.
CONNECTED: Deep Sky aims to build one of the world's largest carbon capture facilities in Manitoba.
“I have always said that we need to both reduce emissions and eliminate them,” De Luna said. “I’m excited about Cura because the idea of decarbonizing a material that is literally the backbone of infrastructure, especially in this political moment of nation-building projects, is incredibly compelling.”
De Luna added that Canada's appetite for major energy and transportation infrastructure is particularly strong at the moment. He cited Prime Minister Mark Carney's plans to speed up approval of such initiatives as a means of boosting the country's economy through its new Major Projects Office. De Luna emphasized that all of these projects will require cement.
“Canada really has an opportunity to lead by example and fill the gap that the U.S. unfortunately left,” De Luna said. “The fact that the US wants to ignore the climate does not lead to a change in physics [and] that doesn't mean the world isn't getting hotter. We need these solutions, and that's why we create them.”
Image courtesy of Cura.
