The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on the business world — disrupting schedules, supply lines and revenue streams — but for some companies, the long pause before the economy started chugging back to life offered a bit of time and space to get things right.
While things remain far from business-as-usual, Victoria-based clean-tech firm Cryologistics admits it was thrown a bit of a lifeline when the pandemic hit. The company has developed and is about to start manufacturing an insulated container that uses liquid carbon dioxide to refrigerate large loads of food and pharmaceutical products.
“It has helped in two ways,” said founder Peter Evans. “It gave us some breathing room when everything slowed down, and that gave us time to refresh and revisit our plan and our design went through a full system-optimization phase.
“We’ve been able to improve the efficiency of the technology and improve functionality. And the economics of it are far better now than they were four and a half months ago.”
The company has also benefited from the seed money various levels of government have been willing to spread around Canada to stimulate the economy and keep firms in business.
“I’m so happy to be Canadian right now. The government has stepped up and flooded the economy with money,” said Evans, who acknowledged there are some who worry about the long-term impact of such largesse. “But, on the other side, it has been a game-changer in that companies have been able to stay in operation and fulfil orders and deliver on time.”
Evans said if there hadn’t been government grants, relief and investment, many firms would have been out of business three months ago.
Cryologistics is one of two Victoria firms that received more investment from the province on Wednesday to further its work. The province’s Innovative Clean Energy Fund announced $8.5 million in grants, including $1.4 million for Cyologistics and another $40,000 for Global Energy Horizons’ carbon sequestration and hydrogen production pilot plant in Pemberton.
“These projects will reduce carbon levels, create a cleaner environment and contribute to regional food security and food storage innovation,” said Rob Fleming, MLA for Victoria-Swan Lake.
Cryologistics’ funding comes on the heels of a $2.1-million injection from the federal government this year through Sustainable Development Technology Canada.
“We have been pretty fortunate,” said Evans, noting the money — they have raised more than $7 million in three years — will go toward the commercialization of their technology, marketing and extending their runway before they start bringing in revenue. The company is six weeks away from commercial production and sales. “It’s an exciting period — it has been a long haul,” said Evans.
The company will manufacture the components at two Canadian facilities, Tycrop in Chilliwack and Koenders in Saskatchewan, with final assembly in Chilliwack. Evans said he believes in building as close to home as possible.
Brian De Clare, president of Global Energy Horizons, said it’s looking at a partly made-in-B.C. solution to the planet’s carbon-storage problem. The $40,000 grant they received is small, but he said it’s vital in continuing work on their pilot project.
In partnership with the University of Texas at Austin, the company is developing a process that will use deep-saline aquifers, many kilometres below the Earth’s surface, to store carbon.
De Clare said the pilot project involves bringing water to the surface, extracting geothermal energy from it, processing the water for agricultural use and using the brine left over to store carbon and return it to the aquifer. “Our goal really is to create a hub here in B.C. that could then transfer this knowledge to places around the world,” De Clare said.
