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Business Spotlight – Calgary Start-Up Innovating Carbon Capture

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Let me begin by saying that the ecosystem of tech and green entrepreneurs in Alberta never ceases to amaze me. Respect to our educational institutions and accelerator programs that are supporting start-up ventures grow and get to a stage of market validation. The difficulty for some may be immediate revenue, but the potential for their technology and benefit to our planet are the key differentiators as we move towards a new green economy here in Alberta. The conversation may stay polarized on whether keeping all our eggs in the oil and gas basket is our best foot forward, but there’s promise in this province to be the driving force behind a sustainable energy future. In 2016, renewable energy sources made up only 12.3% of the total energy generated in Alberta, four years on we now find ourselves advancing towards our 2030 goal with vast improvements from highly skilled individuals, the question is, who is doing all the hard work?

            (2020 Emerging Leaders – Roger Mah receives accreditation from Clean50 )

We spoke with Roger Mah, a Calgary entrepreneur who co-founded his company ZoraMat Solutions Inc. His company specializes in carbon capture, bio gas purification and natural gas efficiency improvements. While studying for his bachelor’s degree in Applied Chemistry from the University of Calgary, he spent over a year working in research and development as part of his degree in the Alberta Oil Sands. He mentions:

“It gave me perspective on the economic engine that drives this province. That was part of what pushed me towards my Ph.D at the University of Calgary.”

            (From Left – CSO George Shimizu, CEO Roger Mah and CTO Jared Taylor)

After finishing his Ph.D in Chemistry, he received the opportunity to do a non-traditional postdoctoral fellowship, allowing Roger to work for the CMC Research Institute. Nearing the end of his term with the CMC Research Institute, an opportunity emerged for Roger to take this technology from his Ph.D supervisors group out of the lab and implement it to a possible commercial application. With backing from GreenSTEM, Roger and his co-founders, George Shimizu (CSO) and Jared Taylor (CTO), armed with support, experience and education, founded ZoraMat Solutions Inc in January of 2019.

“It has allowed me to really put 100% of my effort and time into this company and give it real a shot…”

GreenSTEM is an entrepreneurial pilot program for science, technology, engineering, math masters and Ph.D. graduates. The 2-year program enables entrepreneurship and provides a two-year commercialization runway for “deep technology” companies involved in science based innovation. You can learn more about their support for entrepreneurs here.

Repurposing Carbon

Carbon dioxide is a commodity with some value. It is used, both directly and as a feedstock, by a range of industries and has been for over a century. Most CO2 used by industries today is a byproduct of fossil fuel processes, often from natural gas or coal-fueled plants. Just like burning fossil fuels, it transfers CO2 from the geosphere to the atmosphere. If CO2 that is pulled out of the air became more plentiful and cheaper, we could see the change by competing with earthbound CO2 . In theory, any industry that uses carbon from under the ground for fuel, beverages, directly in industrial processes, as a feedstock to create other products, could switch to air-captured CO2 if the appropriate chemical process is taken. Airborne CO2 emissions have a low concentration which can make capturing large quantities a challenge. ZoraMat’s solution is to capture CO2 as part of the industrial process, preventing CO2 from entering the atmosphere.

 

What is Zoralite?

Roger defines Zoralite as a ‘specialty chemical’, similar in look to flour. On a molecular level is where the real chemical innovation plays its part. Zoralite acts like a molecular ‘sponge’ to soak up CO2 from emissions in the presence of water, which works as a competitive advantage for their team. Zoralite can capture CO2 from wet industrial flue gas streams then release the CO2 by applying heat or vacuum. In the efforts to exemplify the processes using the ‘sponge’ analogy, Roger mentions:

          (Zoralite)

 

“Zoralite soaks up the carbon dioxide, similar to soaking up the grime from a pan in your kitchen sink. Then, what comes through is a clean dish or your treated gas. Then you can use a process to squeeze out that sponge. So for us, what we do is we heat it up or we apply a vacuum. And by squeezing the sponge, all of that dirty water comes up, or for us, a pure stream of CO2.”

 

 

A simplified analogy but an extensive process that has taken years to develop. This technology could play a major role in what we see as a collaborative effort moving into a new green economy while re evaluating our industrial energy efficiency. The team at ZoraMat is actively seeking partnerships to help scale this process for larger commercial use. If you would like to learn more about ZoraMat or Zoralite, check out their website here or to contact their team.

 

“A New Dawn Towards A Clear Blue Sky” – ZoraMat Solutions Inc.”

 

 

For more stories, visit Todayville Calgary

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Cannabis Legalization Is Starting to Look Like a Really Dumb Idea

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The Audit David Clinton's avatar David Clinton

Back in March 2024, I wrote about some early indications that Canada’s legalization of cannabis was, on balance, causing more harm than good. Well it looks like we’ve now moved past “early indications” and entered the “nervously searching for the exit” stage.

The new concerns follow the recent release of a couple of groundbreaking Canadian studiesCannabis Use Disorder Emergency Department Visits and Hospitalizations and 5-Year Mortality which found evidence relating cannabis use to early death, and Convergence of Cannabis and Psychosis on the Dopamine System which describes a possible biological mechanism linking cannabis use to psychosis.

Canadian governments had very little moral liability for the medical consequences of cannabis use before they legalized it in 2018. However, legalization predictably led to a near doubling of consumption. In 2012, according to Statistics Canada, just 12.2 percent of Canadians 15 and over had used cannabis in the previous 12 months. By 2022, that number had climbed to 22 percent – representing nearly seven million Canadians. Cases of cannabis use disorder (CUD) treated in Ontario hospitals increased from just 456 in 2006 to 3,263 in 2021.

The government’s decision to legalize the drug¹ has arguably placed millions of additional people at risk of serious health outcomes.

Let’s take a look at the new evidence. The mortality study used hospital care and mortality data for more than eleven million Ontario residents. The researchers were given meaningful access to raw data from multiple government sources and were apparently compliant with all appropriate privacy regulations. They tracked 107,103 individuals who, between 2006 and 2021, were treated in an Ontario hospital for cannabis use disorder.

The main control group used for statistical comparison was all Ontarians. And the secondary control group was made up of individuals with incident hospital-based care for other substance use disorders, like alcohol, opioids, stimulants.

The primary outcome tracked by the study was all-cause mortality. The secondary outcome was mortality subdivided into alcohol poisoning, opioid poisoning, poisoning by other drugs, trauma, intentional self-harm, cancer, infection, diseases of the circulatory system, respiratory system, and gastrointestinal system.

The researchers adjusted for age, sex, neighborhood income quintile, immigrant status, and rurality (urban vs rural residence). They also controlled for comorbid mental health and care for substance use during the previous 3 years.

In other words, this looks like a well-constructed retrospective study based on excellent data resources.

What did they discover? People who received hospital-based care for cannabis use disorder were six times more likely to die early than the general population. And those CUD-related deaths lead to an average 1.8 life-years lost. After adjusting for demographic factors and other conditions, the added risk of early death was still three times greater than the general population. (Although people with CUD incidents were less likely to die young than those with other substance abuse disorders.)

CUD incidents were associated with increased risks for suicide (9.7 times higher), trauma (4.6 times higher), opioid poisoning (5.3 times higher), and cardiovascular and respiratory diseases (2 times higher).

The Convergence of Cannabis and Psychosis study was performed in and around London, Ontario. This one is a bit beyond my technical range, but they claim that:

Elevated dopamine function in a critical SN/VTA subregion may be associated with psychosis risk in people with CUD. Cannabis was associated with the hypothesized final common pathway for the clinical expression of psychotic symptoms.

Which does indicate that there may be more connecting cannabis to overall harm than just social or economic influences.

I’m not suggesting that the government should restore the original ban on cannabis. Like alcohol prohibition, the moment when that might have been possible is now long past. But I am wondering why politicians find it so difficult to wait for even minimal scientific evidence before driving the country over the cliff?

 

1 This should not be confused with the separate question of decriminalization – which has probably provided significant net value to society.
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‘Experts’ Warned Free Markets Would Ruin Argentina — Looks Like They Were Dead Wrong

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Melissa O’Rourke

The current state of Argentina’s economy is a far cry from what “experts” predicted when they warned that President Javier Milei’s pro-free market leadership would devastate the country.

The chainsaw-wielding libertarian rose to power on promises to slash government spending, implement free-market policies and lift strict currency controls to rescue a nation crippled by inflation, debt and entrenched poverty. Though the pundit class warned that Milei’s policies would spark an economic collapse, the results so far have been a rebuke to those warnings.

Just days before the November 2023 presidential election, 108 economists from around the world signed an open letter claiming that Milei’s “simple solutions” were “likely to cause more devastation in the real world in the short run, while severely reducing policy space in the long run.”

“His policies are poorly thought through. Far from building a consensus, he would struggle to govern,” The Economist’s editorial board wrote in a September 2023 piece describing “Javier Milei’s dangerous allure.”

Well over a year into Milei’s presidency, Argentina is showing its strongest economic performance in years. The country’s gross domestic product (GDP) jumped 7.7% in April compared to the same month in 2024, far exceeding expectations.

The GDP is expected to rise by 5.2% in 2025, compared to declines of 1.3% in 2024 and 1.9% in 2023, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Inflation, a long-standing hallmark of Argentina’s economic dysfunction, dropped to 1.5% between April and May, reaching a five-year low. Annual inflation has plunged from 160.9% in November 2023 — just before Milei took office — to 43.5% in May.

Meanwhile, poverty rates have also declined sharply, falling from 52.9% in the first half of 2024 to 38.1% in the second half of the year.

Argentina’s rental housing supply also increased by 212% between December 2023 and June 2024, after Milei repealed the country’s rent control laws, according to the Cato Institute.

“Against the background of a difficult legacy of macroeconomic imbalances, Argentina has embarked on an ambitious reform process, starting with an unprecedented upfront fiscal adjustment. Reforms have started to pay off. Inflation has receded and the economy is set for a strong recovery,” the OECD noted in its new analysis of the Argentinian economy. “Maintaining the reform momentum will be key to restore confidence, boost investment and productivity growth.”

Milei — a self-described anarcho-capitalist — has been an ardent supporter of President Donald Trump’s efforts to downsize the U.S. government, including the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) push to cut spending.

“I come from a country that bought all of those stupid ideas that went from being one of the most affluent countries in the world to one to one of the [poorest],” Milei said in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2024. “If you don’t fight for your freedom, they will drag you into misery … Don’t surrender.”

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