A Calgary-based clean energy and biotech startup is aiming to transform the way the world’s livestock is fed by providing a low-cost, low-carbon, alternative to fish or soybean meal — by tapping into an abundant Canadian resource: coal.
Cvictus — which recently received a $1.7-million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to scale its technology — says it is on a mission to resurrect a proven, decades-old industrial fermentation process that converts methanol into a high protein material used in animal feed.
First commercialized in Britain in the 1980s, the technology — though successful — was abandoned shortly after due to skyrocketing methanol prices.
Cvictus is revitalizing the method by leveraging its proprietary system for extracting beneficial gases to produce feedstocks, such as methanol, from coal deep beneath…
