The second of three posts looking at the Foresight 50 by region. Read our first post about BC’s cleantech allstars. 

Many of Alberta’s most investable cleantech innovators are pursuing opportunities in the province’s long-standing economic powerhouse - natural resource development and extraction.

The Foresight 50, announced on November 23, is a collection of the most investable cleantech companies in Canada as determined by a panel of industry experts. The Foresight 50 recognizes companies from a variety of sectors - watertech, carbon capture utilization and storage, clean energy production, and bioeconomy solutions. 

While the Foresight 50 represents a diverse set of solutions spanning sectors and geographies, there is something common across the 18 Alberta-based ventures included on this year’s list. All offer technology-based solutions directly relevant to or drawn from the experience of the Province’s leading incumbent industries, energy and agriculture. 

Many Alberta cleantech ventures are focused on minimizing the carbon footprint of the natural resource extraction process.

• 2S Water has created integrated water monitoring technology that can detect heavy metals in real time, giving mining, forestry, and oil and gas operations immediate feedback on water contamination.
• Arolytics’ emissions monitoring system leverages data that optimizes how the oil and gas sector tracks, manages, and forecasts greenhouse gas emissions. 
• Proton Technologies Canada leverages existing energy reserves and infrastructure with the potential to make hydrogen at a lower cost and footprint than electrolysis or steam methane reforming. 
• SensorUp allows companies to automate the operations of methane emissions detection, quantification, monitoring, reporting, repair, and prediction.
• Summit Nanotech has developed the world’s most efficient lithium mining method, streamlining the extraction process and increasing yields sustainably.   
• Total Containment’s Envirolock Systems are a combination of pipeline leak detection and leak containment systems. The technology mitigates the impact pipelines can have on the environment.
• Westgen Technologies has developed a remote power generation system which provides an economic solution to eliminating methane venting from pneumatic devices, and can reduce well site emissions by up to 99.5%.

Others are focused on repurposing captured carbon to create innovative, sustainable products, industrial solutions, and green cities. 

• Carbon Upcycling Technologies utilizes captured carbon to create a diverse line of products like concrete additives and an anti-corrosion coating, but also a line of consumer retail products as well. 
• Clean02 sequesters carbon emissions within environmentally friendly products like soaps and body bars, accelerating the transition to a circular lifestyle.
• ZS2 Technologies utilizes low-carbon building materials to reduce the carbon footprint of our built environment. 

Some have chosen to focus on another industry that is a historic cornerstone of Alberta’s economy - agriculture.

• Future Fields is disrupting the agricultural industry by embracing cellular agriculture, eliminating the need for livestock and farmland.
• G2V Optics has created smart lighting for indoor agriculture, aerospace applications, and solar cell technology development.

Alberta is also home to cleantech ventures that offer innovative wastewater treatment solutions.

• FREDsense uses genetically modified bacteria to detect emerging contaminants and hard to detect chemicals.
• Swirltex is providing efficiencies in wastewater treatment and recycling with a membrane technology that can significantly improve filtration.

Alberta’s innovators represent a variety of different sectors. Others on the Foresight 50 are developing solutions incorporating artificial intelligence, diesel fuel additives, hemp-based bioplastics, and geothermal heat. 

• Drishya.ai uses artificial intelligence to help oil and gas companies meet their emissions targets while increasing efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
• Katal Energy has developed a diesel fuel additive that reduces emissions, improving air quality in communities where their customers operate. 
• Eavor Technologies is harnessing the power of geothermal heat to create a clean, sustainable form of energy production in a closed-loop system.
• Zila Works has developed a hemp-based bioplastic to enable product manufacturers to reduce their carbon footprint.

Meet the Foresight 50 and check out detailed profiles of all ventures in the Pitchbook.