Total has become an industrial partner to CO2 Solutions in the latter company’s US$15 million (€12.2 million) Valorisation Carbone Québec project, which launched last year. The nature of Total’s industrial partnership is that, in return for its financial backing of the further development of the technology, it will receive project data, which would be useful in future CCS projects. VCQ now has 11 partners in total, with Université Laval, the Quebec government, Suncor Energy Inc, Société Investissement Québec and the engineering firm Hatch being amongst the others. The new partnership is a sign of the interest that CO2 Solutions is generating amongst industry in a field in which many companies are looking to gain the upper hand. VCG is currently competing in the Carbon XPRIZE challenge, sponsored by U.S. utility NRG and Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA), which has a prize of US$20 million (€16.3 million). Entrants are scored on how much industrial carbon dioxide emissions their technologies convert into useful products, and there remain 23 competitors in the second round of the competition.