Ian MacGregor is a doer, a builder and a visionary. From a young age, he’s followed his mother’s sage advice: “When someone tells you that you can’t do something, that just means they can’t do it. It has nothing to do with you.”
And he’s proved that true through a lifetime of innovation. MacGregor is an entrepreneur who likes to build projects from the ground up. He embraces technical complexity, demonstrated in the $10 billion Sturgeon Refinery project he spearheaded and completed. He also conceived and built the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line, which is the largest system in the world for the capture and storage of manmade CO2. This system is now fully operational and resulted in the storage of about 2 million tons of CO2 last year.
After earning his Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from the University of Calgary in 1971, MacGregor decided he’d earn a better living as a welder; so, he began working in a double garage. The rest is history. Because he likes commercial opportunity that permits growth to world scale, he often embarks on endeavors others conclude are not economically or technically viable, specializing in building and/or fixing big pieces of missing infrastructure.
Ian is now working on a new project – building a world scale Carbon Removal and Green Hydrogen hub.
Using scrap wood fibre as the feedstock, the hub’s Natural Air Capture facility makes and importantly sequesters CO2. In addition, renewable fuels are manufactured. The goal is to remove 1 GT of CO2 from the atmosphere and make large quantities of clean hydrogen and ammonia. Four hubs across Canada and the US are planned and include a standardized plant design, close to existing carbon sequestration infrastructure and forest operations.
