Just over a month after opening its first facility, Deep Sky has set its sights on Manitoba.
“Southwestern Manitoba perfectly embodies what the carbon removal industry needs to succeed.”
The Montréal-based cleantech startup has selected the province as the next location for Deep Sky Manitoba, its largest direct-air capture (DAC) facility to date. The company said southwestern Manitoba offers an ideal location for the $500-million facility, sporting ideal geology for safe and effective underground carbon dioxide (CO2) storage.
In fact, Deep Sky expects the facility to become one of the world’s largest CO2 removal facilities, sucking 500,000 tonnes of carbon out of the air per year once it’s at full scale. Swiss startup Climeworks’ plant in Iceland, which opened in 2024, was dubbed “the world’s largest carbon-capture plant” at the time and absorbs 36,000 metric tonnes of carbon. Occidental Petroleum (Oxy) is planning to open its own DAC facility in Texas this year with an expected annual throughput of 500,000 tonnes of CO2.
Deep Sky will take advantage of Manitoba’s hydroelectric grid, which the company said provides abundant renewable energy to power DAC technology without creating additional emissions. The provincial government also passed legislation allowing for the storage of CO2 last year, with specific regulations anticipated to pass this fall.
“Southwestern Manitoba perfectly embodies what the carbon removal industry needs to succeed: ideal geology, clean energy, a skilled workforce, and forward-thinking leadership,” Deep Sky CEO Alex Petre said in a statement.
Deep Sky was founded in 2022 by Hopper co-founders Frederic Lalonde and Joost Ouwerkerk. The company monetizes its DAC technology by selling carbon credits to large companies hoping to offset their carbon footprints. Companies like Microsoft and the RBC have already purchased carbon credits from Deep Sky worth about 10,000 tonnes of stored CO2 over 10 years.
RELATED: Deep Sky boots up inaugural direct air carbon capture facility in Alberta
Deep Sky opened its pilot DAC facility in Innisfail, Alta., roughly an hour away from Calgary, this past August. Dubbed Deep Sky Alpha, the facility will capture 3,000 tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere by the end of the year. A spokesperson told BetaKit that Deep Sky Alpha is a smaller-scale facility that serves as an innovation centre to select the best DAC systems for its large-scale facilities, like Deep Sky Manitoba.
The spokesperson added that Deep Sky will “support a lot” of the new facility’s $500 million price tag itself, but will be seeking additional investment to reach full commercial scale. Deep Sky has raised more than $130 million from investors, including a $40-million USD ($57.3 million CAD) grant from Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Catalyst.
Deep Sky has begun engaging with municipal, Indigenous, and other local stakeholders as it evaluates potential sites for the Manitoba project, which includes the Pipestone and Two Borders areas southwest of Brandon, the spokesperson told BetaKit. It has already signed a Declaration of Relationship with the Dakota Nations of Manitoba to explore investment and other partnership opportunities.
Deep Sky anticipates selecting its final site this fall, ahead of drilling the CO2 storage well by the end of this year. It plans to begin construction of its initial. 30,000-tonne removal capacity in 2026. The rest of the capacity will be built out in “phases.” The company said the Manitoba site is “among a portfolio of large-scale projects that are under development,” including in Quebec.
Phil De Luna, Deep Sky’s former chief science and commercial officer, said in June that Canada has an opportunity to “step up” as the United States government scales back its climate change mitigation efforts. Last week, Deep Sky poached the operations of CarbonCapture subsidiary True North Carbon, which intended to set up its 2,000-tonne DAC project in Arizona before American policies drove it to Deep Sky’s Alberta facility, according to the Financial Post.
Feature image courtesy Deep Sky.