Hello, kwe’, and bonjour,
As we move through the winter months, our team remains committed to pushing our ocean-based carbon removal work forward while maintaining the highest standards of monitoring, safety, and collaboration. Here’s a look at what we’ve been up to at our Halifax Harbour pilot project in the past month.
Monitoring Through The Cold
Even in the heart of winter, our ocean monitoring team continued their bi-weekly sampling schedule, braving icy (but beautiful) conditions to ensure robust data collection. Effluent and mooring monitoring remained continuous, with no overages. We are currently exploring new ways to improve the spatial coverage of our monitoring and further enhance the reliability of our tools— stay tuned for more updates in the coming months!
Proving Our Impact: A Robust Dataset
We’ve been digging into an incredible dataset collected in January from our continuous sensor platforms. The results show clear signals of increased pH (decreased acidity!) and lower CO2 content in the waters due to our dosing efforts. This is a significant step toward proving the efficacy of our process, helping us better understand how our approach can restore ocean chemistry through deacidification and directly measure CO2 flux between air and ocean— the ultimate benchmark for ocean-based carbon removal success.
Through it all, our ocean sensors weathered an ice storm, though they did require some post-storm TLC to keep them running optimally.
XPRIZE Carbon Removal Milestones
We recently reached a major milestone, completing the demonstration period for the XPRIZE Carbon Removal Competition on January 31, 2025. Alongside this achievement, we submitted our final application for the grand prize, showcasing our removal of over 1,000 net tonnes of carbon removal. These are critical steps in demonstrating our ability to remove carbon at scale and validate the impact of our approach on a global stage. We are very proud of the work our team put in to achieve this milestone.
Strong Start To The Year, Despite Winter’s Challenges
Post-XPRIZE, our operations team continued to hit the ground running, despite what has been an abnormally harsh winter in Halifax. With major ice and sub-zero temperatures creating significant challenges, our team has (not surprisingly) adapted and persevered. Weekly carbon removal tonnage is steadily progressing, and we’re on track toward making our operations even more sustainable and continuous. We anticipate major site improvements coming this spring.
Lifting Community Voices
Episode 2 of our Breaking Ground, Making Waves speaker series continues our commitment to amplifying diverse perspectives and community leadership. This episode highlighted Cheryl Gehue, a Mi’kmaq leader from the Sipekne’katik First Nation, and her journey in leadership, advocacy, and sustainability. You can listen to the episode and read the blog here.
Celebrating Collaboration
We believe that innovation is fueled by teamwork and knowledge-sharing. To celebrate the incredible collaboration over the past year, we hosted a traditional pizza party at Dalhousie University, bringing together over 30 people, including students, postdocs, technicians, and principal investigators. This research and development team is one of the biggest and best in the world, and we are so proud of the work we’re doing together!
Focusing on People and Process
Taking a step back to reflect is just as important as pushing forward. From a coaching perspective, our team recently took a well-deserved moment to regroup, focusing on safety, sustainability, and continuous improvement. Many team members are also engaged in coaching programs, ensuring that professional growth extends beyond the technical processes and into individual well-being and leadership development.
Looking Ahead
With each dataset analyzed, each tonne of carbon removed, and each partnership strengthened, we move closer to a healthier ocean and planet. As we look toward the spring, we’re excited about the improvements, innovations, and collaborations ahead.
Thank you, wela’lioq, and merci,
The Team at Planetary
