Natural Resources Committee on April 21st, 2009

[Dr. Alan Meier]

I'm not quite sure how to answer that, because I think it's a yes and no. We are now creating a system where some of the revenues from the fuel tax are going into research for energy efficiency. We have a parallel tax on electricity that is used to support energy efficiency research. But as far as the Kyoto Protocol goes, I don't know.

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

You can't answer the question. I recall that when gas prices in the United States rose to $4 a gallon, people traded in their SUVs for smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles. Mr. Bush once said that Americans were addicted to oil.

I was wondering if California had a program aimed at encouraging people to buy smaller vehicles or more fuel-efficient trucks, particularly since it's hot in California and with global warming, drought problems will only get worse.

I know that the state is making a considerable effort in this area. Is there a government program in place to encourage or assist people who want to trade in their gas guzzler for a smaller vehicle?

[Dr. Alan Meier]

Unfortunately, there is not to my knowledge a program in the state. However, there is a program being proposed in the upcoming energy legislation to get rid of the guzzlers and get people to trade the old energy inefficient cars for more fuel efficient cars. But the simple answer to your question is no.

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

You live in an amazing, very sunny state. Has solar energy and geothermal energy technology been embraced for new home and new building construction?

Mr. Foster could also answer that question because this kind of technology is found around the world. Are people embracing new solar and geothermal energy technology?

[Dr. Alan Meier]

Mr. Foster, would you like to go first?

[David Foster]

Sure, I can speak briefly to that.

Primarily, on the state level there are currently solar programs that provide financing mechanisms and rebates for individual homeowners who install photovoltaic systems on their homes. And in talking to people in the solar industry itself, they really have lived and died on the extension of these state-based solar tax credits for the last number of years.

The ones I've spoken to certainly would prefer to see a system similar to what Germany adopted, a feed-in tariff that made the sale of electricity produced in individual home-based systems back to utilities financially attractive. And that would cause the expansion of home-based solar systems in the U.S. the same way it did in Germany.

As far as geothermal installations go, I'm not aware of any particular incentive programs to push those. I am aware of efforts to push that industry, though. And one of our partners, the steelworkers union, through one of their career development centres, has even created a program to teach people how to become geothermal heat pump installers in their own homes as part of an effort to preach energy efficiency and self-sufficiency.

[Dr. Alan Meier]

Perhaps I can add to that.

There are both federal and state incentives and programs to encourage energy efficiency and renewables in homes. California has led most of the United States with building codes that require energy-efficient homes, so many of the homes now built require practically no heating or cooling under normal operating systems. Homeowners can also get tax credits for various efficiency measures at both state and federal levels for investing in energy efficiency and solar.

Recently my own town of Berkeley, California, has undertaken a new scheme to help pay for and capitalize solar installations on roofs of homes in such a way that they're carried on your taxes. So if you sell the home the buyer of that home actually has to continue paying for the solar installation. But the result is that the owner of the home can get a very large solar installation for practically no initial capital investment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

We go now to Mr. Allen, for up to five minutes.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Meier, I was sort of reflecting on your comments and the pie charts you talked about. You had one pie chart showing the supply side and the other showing the demand side. That was focused a little bit more on electricity usage, if I'm not mistaken. Do you just want to clarify that?

[Dr. Alan Meier]

Actually there were two of them on electricity, when I was talking about refrigerators versus electricity sources, and then motors. And then I went to fuel oil, which was for the tires.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Do you have any comprehensive diagrams of these that would indicate the total energy supply, and on the other side, the total demand for all energy use, including oil and electricity?

And has there been any work done on another slice on the demand side, which would show the energy used by community, as opposed to end-use being motors, cars, and that type of thing?

[Dr. Alan Meier]

On the supply side, it's very easy, and you can go onto the web as I did a few days ago while preparing to examine Canada's supply mix, and that's not a problem.

The end-use side is a problem. I have no idea what it is for Canada, because I know it's not the same as the United States, and I am not aware of anybody who has made that kind of breakdown.

And then you asked about urban versus--

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Excuse me for interrupting, but do you know what the end-use is for the U.S.?

[Dr. Alan Meier]

The end use for which?

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

For the United States.

[Dr. Alan Meier]

I was talking about an end-use breakdown, which says this much energy is used by refrigerators, this much is used for lighting, this much for aluminum production, and so on. That's what I mean by an end-use breakdown, but I think you meant something else.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

I did. I meant the end use by community, whether the—

[Dr. Alan Meier]

Okay, by community. To answer that question, no, there is not a good survey. However, I believe you could take some of the Canadian survey data and you could slice it that way and get a good sense of urban and rural residential use, and perhaps commercial use differs. I'm not absolutely sure, but it certainly could be done in the United States.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Okay, thank you.

Mr. Foster, we were talking about your technology, and you were talking about the wind power and development you've had in that area, including the farmers and that type of thing. In terms of these community energy systems, what types of systems do you believe are the ones that hold the greatest potential for future energy supplies?

Maybe the second thing, and just as important, is using the wind power example. Have you found challenges in some of these wind power developments with respect to some of the new issues on setbacks and other types of things for these wind power installations that are close to homes and neighbourhoods?

[David Foster]

Yes, on your last point, there certainly do continue to be siting issues for various reasons. Either local residents or conservation advocates have found reasons that particular wind turbine farm sites have been unattractive to them. I would certainly say that by and large the siting for wind farms in the U.S. has been far, far less contentious than the siting for traditional fossil fuel or nuclear power plants has been. The contentious issues have been, by far, in the minority.

In terms of the technologies that appear to be the most promising, I think there is a debate among economic development specialists about what they would prefer seeing. On the one hand are the very large, high-megawatt wind farms that produce several hundred megawatts of power within a relatively small area in the form of a traditional power plant and then have significant transmission corridors built, attached to them, to bring wind power to big urban centres. On the other hand are some economic developers who have a vision of returning to a highly decentralized power system in which one really doesn't rely on these big development projects to the extent we have historically. They point to the very clear economic development benefits that have accrued across some rural communities where it has allowed traditional family farms to maintain agricultural production, with a side income from electric production.

I don't tend to have a strong feeling about either one of those. It seems clear to me that both of them provide necessary and important economic benefits. I can't see us in the U.S. getting to the scale of wind development needed to make an appreciable contribution to global warming solutions without there being very large, significant wind farms all up and down the Midwestern corridor, from the North Dakota-Canada border down to Texas. There, the potential for producing at least 100,000 megawatts of wind power I think is very, very strong.

I do recognize there is a real value to using small wind development, even individualized, home-based wind turbines, which are now available enough to provide some meaningful support for an individual rural home, especially when excess power produced during windy periods can be sold back to the grid and help make those economically attractive.

I like both models. I think there's a place for both models in the system. As the turbines themselves become more and more efficient, they of course produce power at a much more attractive rate.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Foster, and thank you, Mr. Allen.

We go now to Mr. Bagnell and, if he leaves time, to Mr. Regan.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Could you talk about any schemes whereby a homeowner who's very enthusiastic about solar and wind and geothermal can sell energy back to utilities where they allow that?

That question is to whoever can answer it.

[David Foster]

That system is exactly what was set up in my state of Minnesota through the state-mandated community-based economic development program. This program required utilities in rural parts of the state to buy back the excess generation from individual wind turbines that were installed by small farmers. It really gave them the economic wherewithal to finance putting these projects in place.

So individual farmers started doing that. They would put up one, two, three wind turbines. They would continue farming all around the wind turbines themselves. The power sales that were guaranteed through state legislation provided a financing mechanism that allowed the installations to take place. The state has estimated that in some cases, farmers may earn as much as $100,000, once their capital costs have been paid back, from the sale of electricity.

That's essentially the same kind of mechanism that Germany has used. A feed-in tariff sparked the really significant growth of the solar industry in Germany, including the manufacturing of solar panels.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Meier, did you have an answer as well?

[Dr. Alan Meier]

Yes.

I agree with everything you said. All I can say is that a house a block away from mine has a photovoltaic collector on its roof, and every time I walk past I can see the little display outside that shows how much electricity the house is using and how much it's feeding into the grid. It's happening fairly frequently now in California.

I might point out that I saw a similar kind of installation in rural Austria, where a few farms worked together to create a generator based on, I guess, wood waste. All the farmers contributed some of their wood waste. They generated electricity for themselves, for the nearby farms, and then exported--that is, sold--the surplus electricity. It turned out to be a very effective arrangement there, and provided that group of farmers with a second source of income.