The mood at the COP30 climate conference in Brazil this month was apocalyptic. “There is no time to waste with tactical delays or stonewalling,” intoned Simon Stiell, the UN climate chief. Jamaica, still reeling from a devastating hurricane three weeks earlier, sent a government minister to deliver a cri-de-coeur warning that its survival was at stake. Outside, thousands of protesters filled the streets of Bélem calling for immediate action.
And yet a sense of urgency on climate action seems to be draining from the corridors of power. The U.S. has essentially torched its copy of the Paris Agreement; fewer than 70 of the remaining 195 signatories have filed emissions reduction plans that were due in February. The private sector is also pulling back, with mentions of climate targets on corporate earnings calls dropping 76 per cent.
On the flip side, there are signs of progress on climate commitments. Solar is now the cheapest form of electricity, and as countries look to secure a reliable domestic source of energy, it’s becoming even more attractive. In 2024, investment in clean energy outpaced fossil fuels by $800 billion, and renewables recently overtook coal as the world’s leading power source. Carbon emissions may have peaked in China — the world’s largest polluter — thanks to the rapid adoption of electric vehicles as well as solar and reforestation efforts. And researchers are continuing to develop new technologies to help decarbonize the economy. Every delay in meeting climate goals is strengthening the case for investing in clean technologies.
With luck, our current difficulties will be seen not as a fork in the road, but a bump on the path to decarbonization. Still, the world of clean technologies is being moulded to new realities. Here is a look at four of the biggest trends shaping cleantech right now.
Rise of resilience tech
Clean technology investors are scrambling to adjust to a world of changing climate commitments, shifting trade relationships, growing political instability and increasingly frequent natural disasters.
Global investment in clean energy set new records in the first half of the year. Deals tended to fall in areas key to security, national resilience and adaptation to climate change. These include technologies such as novel nuclear energy technologies, back-up power supplies, innovations related to critical mineral supplies and space-based monitoring systems. And demand for adaptation technology is expected to continue to rise: McKinsey estimates that the market could reach $1 trillion by 2030, proving on an epic scale that necessity is the mother of invention.
Notable Canadian raises include Moment Energy’s $21.5 million, which the Vancouver company will direct to the construction of a battery factory in the U.S., as well as FeX’s recent $4.8 million round, which will help the Montreal startup further develop technology that chemically stores energy in iron.
These deals reflect what data and insight firm Sightline Climate calls a “newly protectionist world” in which “access to domestic energy and critical and strategic minerals are non-negotiable.”
Creating building blocks from life
Forget everything you learned about construction from “The Three Little Pigs.” Houses made of materials like bricks and concrete are terrible for the environment. Studies have shown annual lowrise home construction in Canada could cause the same emissions as 3.1 million cars. Straw houses are the future.
To shrink the carbon footprint of new homes, researchers are developing building materials from biomass feedstocks, such as recycled paper and agricultural byproducts. These include linoleum made from linseed oil, cellulose wall sections, wooden beams, chopped straw for insulation, seaweed panels for sound dampening and a mixture of hemp and lime for infilling walls.
A study from the Rocky Mountain Institute found that using these components offers a two-for-one deal on climate benefits. It avoids the hefty emissions associated with manufacturing building materials like cement; plus, the biomass itself contains carbon that is sequestered in the walls and floors of these houses for decades. “They often offer net carbon storage, providing a ‘negative emission’ for as long as these materials are in the building,” says Chris Magwood, an expert on carbon-free buildings at the institute.
Many biomass building products are as strong and resistant to heat and moisture as conventional materials and have been tested in studies such as TMU’s Zero House prototype project six years ago. But as is often the case with sustainable technologies, the barriers to adoption are more logistical than technical.
“Many of the feedstocks exist on vast scales and are often residues or byproducts of farming, forestry and waste collection,” says Magwood. “But they haven’t yet been transformed into robust supply chains.”
Harnessing alternate energy
Canada’s power grid faces soaring demand. As people trade gas cars for EVs and fossil-fuel furnaces for heat pumps, electricity needs are expected to rise by at least 60 per cent by 2050. To ease the strain, engineers are looking for other energy sources to tap. They’re casting their eyes toward wasted heat.
Even in the depths of a Canadian winter, there are many ways to warm things up. The brakes on your car, machinery whirring in a factory, data centres — they all create heat. Capturing and reusing that thermal energy could save $200 billion globally. The problem is that much of the wasted heat is not particularly hot — closer to a cup of tea than a jet of steam — which has limited its usefulness. But a wave of next-gen technologies is finally making it viable to harness this radiant energy.
For instance, Toronto-based startup Cardinal Volta is exploring how a technique called the organic Rankine cycle (ORC) can leverage the excess warmth from industrial processes. Whereas older heat capture systems required sources to have temperatures over 500 degrees Celsius, highly efficient ORC technology works with temperatures as low as 70 degrees Celsius. By combining this technique with advanced heat pumps, Cardinal Volta converts this waste heat into affordable electricity. The company, which was founded last year, is targeting industries such as cement, chemicals and metal production, which are some of the hardest to decarbonize.
Other companies are harnessing an even more abundant source of heat: the ground. Energy-efficient geothermal exchange systems regulate indoor temperatures by using waterpipes in deep boreholes to transfer heat between buildings and the ground. New projects, such as a net-zero emission rec centre planned in North York, have integrated this technology into their plans, but retrofitting existing condos and offices is difficult, partly because a typical drill rig stands over 10 metres tall.
Thermacity Energy thinks it has cracked the problem with a (literally groundbreaking) miniaturized drill that measures about two metres in height, small enough to fit into a parking garage. The company has also developed a more efficient approach to drilling boreholes to create independent hot and cold fields for geothermal storage that are sized to meet a building’s specific needs.
CEO Ross King says the technology “reduces carbon emissions, creates more energy-efficient urban environments, captures and stores lost wind and solar power and relieves the constraints of an overtaxed electrical power grid.” It can be used in almost any building to retroactively convert it to cleaner heating source, a boon for built-up areas where options for decarbonizing existing homes can be limited.
More science, less science fiction
“There Is No Planet B” shows up on countless placards at climate demonstrations. But in recent years, Silicon Valley billionaires have been pushing the idea that we might need another world after all. Elon Musk is famously keen on establishing a Mars colony. Jeff Bezos believes millions of humans will live in space within a few decades.
Critics have pushed back on this tech-utopianism. In his book “More Everything Forever,” astrophysicist and author Adam Becker dismissed promises of fantastical technologies as “an excuse to steer society in a dangerous direction, in the service of an impossible future.” He called for tech to be seen as part of the solution, not our salvation.
Tempering ambition with realism involves focusing on the scalable solutions that exist here and now. That means continuing the shift from fossil fuels to renewables and using technology to tread more lightly on the planet. Canadian company Aslan Renewables, for instance, is reanimating thousands of abandoned water mill sites all over North America. It has developed a small turbine that can fit into rivers, enabling these icons of the industrial past to power their communities once again. Meanwhile, Enurgen is helping solar energy realize its full potential. The Ottawa-based startup has developed software that allows solar farm developers to precisely model the output from different configurations of panels given the exact characteristics of the land in question. This helps producers maximize their yields, making more projects viable.
These kinds of solutions may not have the glamour of moonshots. But they are practical and quickly deployable — and as we run perilously short on time to avoid the worst of climate change, that’s what counts.
On Dec. 2 and 3, leaders in the global cleantech ecosystem will gather in Toronto for MaRS Climate Impact. Register now for this landmark conference and connect with innovators on the front lines of climate change.
Torstar, the parent company of the Toronto Star, has partnered with MaRS to highlight innovation in Canadian companies.
