Syncrude.
Evidence of meeting #20 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was technologies.
Evidence of meeting #20 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was technologies.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Will that involve building a mini-plant by the side of a tailings pond?
4:25 p.m.
President, Gradek Energy Inc.
We've opted to go and set up the pilot plant north of Edmonton, a Fort Saskatchewan site that is suitable, to have access to resources for machining and so on, to do changes on the fly, to correct any problems that may crop up during our pilot. Piloting is R and D.
For that, we have to look at whether the engineering design is suitable. Did they mess up somewhere? As for the beads, that part of the technology is failsafe because the beads work no matter how you use them.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
4:25 p.m.
President, Gradek Energy Inc.
Yes. We process it, and then all the data gets analyzed; the dilbit gets analyzed.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
How long do you figure before you get such a positive result that Syncrude and all the other oil sands producers decide to make your process a permanent part of their operation?
4:25 p.m.
President, Gradek Energy Inc.
There could be wishful thinking. We don't know.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Three to six months. You've been working on this technology for how long now?
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Fourteen years. When did you start talking to the government or oil sands producers about the technology?
4:30 p.m.
President, Gradek Energy Inc.
Initially we started on the environmental aspect for oil spills, and we worked with the Canadian Coast Guard, Environment Canada, and it was strictly for oil spills.
There was a huge change in Canada's policies regarding oil spills, and the Canadian Coast Guard started outsourcing work. They are no longer a responder; they are simply an observer. They don't respond. It has gone to private industry. So to have a suitable business model that would make sense, we had to go and look at something where there was a daily occurrence of a spill. The oil sands industry invited us to take a look at tailings.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
That's 12 years to get to this point. Did things go smoothly? Were there funding issues? Did you approach the government as well? Did you approach NRCan? I know they do a lot of work on water, on tailings ponds.
4:30 p.m.
President, Gradek Energy Inc.
We worked with NRCan in our batch testing. A protocol was set up with SNC Lavalin, and all the tests were executed at NRCan facilities in CANMET, Devon, with the assistance of Dr. Hamza. We also had it at the University of Alberta with Dr. Jacob Masliyah, who was twice NSERC chair on the oil sands. They cross-validated all the data.
The oil sands industry participated with us in all those tests. The positive results led to the conclusion that this technology does have potential. Let's bring it to the next phase. Let's do it at the preliminary engineering design for continuous flow process.
From there we went and tested each component at the OEM to see what the reaction would be in that component.
So we've lined everything up. We've got all the components sized properly, lined up properly, and we can go ahead and execute our pilot project, which will be good.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
You say it will eliminate the need for tailings ponds. Does that mean that at some point the water from the process of separation is just going to flow straight into your plant and then there won't be a need to store what is now tailings effluent? It will just go through your plant and there won't need to be--
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
How long will it take to get to that point, do you think?
4:30 p.m.
President, Gradek Energy Inc.
It all depends on how much financing and we can go ahead.