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.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC
On a point of order, are we not going until 5:30? That's according to the agenda. I have a couple more questions and I think we have time for another quick, full round three.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
Chair, you, the clerk, and I talked regarding the 5:30 that's marked down. That does not give adequate time for us to close up. The suggestion, and my agreed-upon time, was 5 o'clock. That gives us 10 minutes. I think if there maybe was, in that 10 minutes, three or four minutes for each party, that would be fine with me.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC
Three or four minutes would be fine, thank you.
Dr. Hamza, in your role as a scientist working with various technological propositions, you have obviously seen many submissions of similar and different natures to what Mr. Gradek is bringing forward. What are your concerns with this process per se? Where are the potential weak links in this proposal, in your professional opinion?
4:50 p.m.
Director General, Department of Natural Resources, CANMET Energy Technology Centre (CETC) - Devon
This is a very critical question that, with the permission of the chairman, I don't like to answer. We look at all technologies and we have opinions about them. We actually produced reports for Mr. Gradek and others. If he's interested, he can make the reports and the conclusions of the reports available to you. You can judge for yourself.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC
We're here in a situation as a number of lay people and non-scientists for the most part--with the exception of a couple of areas of expertise. We're trying to evaluate a technology. My original question of why you are here.... It seems too good to be true. It's dealing with the elimination of tailings ponds. Dr. Schindler was talking about the 10-year goal for what we have here. It deals with all sorts of energy efficiencies in a very easy way.
What I'm concerned with is.... What's that?
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC
It's in Montreal? Even better. If it moves to my riding, that would be wonderful.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
I think the question is excellent, but I take Mr. Hamza's point. I don't know to what extent we can start comparing technologies—
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC
Perhaps in general, then. Of all the different technologies that come forward as miracle solutions to things, what are the factors involved in which they get picked up or not? Is it just about industry policies, trying to keep it closed shop? Is it a question of money sent toward investment in capital and venture capital in these technologies?
4:50 p.m.
Director General, Department of Natural Resources, CANMET Energy Technology Centre (CETC) - Devon
I'll give you a general answer. The oil sands industry deals with huge amounts of materials being moved, and they have to be moved fast in a certain way. They go mainly with technologies that can deal with huge amounts of materials. They don't want to have any kinks in the operation that would delay them. Sometimes they are very careful about what new technologies they apply. They have to fit it in with this general principle of dealing with hundreds of millions of tonnes moving in all directions. That's just my opinion.
4:50 p.m.
President, Gradek Energy Inc.
That question is a broad question. I mean, to accomplish what?
4:50 p.m.
President, Gradek Energy Inc.
At this stage, the pilot project for both phases amounts to about $50 million.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Thank you. That was a very good line of questioning.
Does anyone else have a question?
4:50 p.m.
Bloc
Christian Ouellet Bloc Brome—Missisquoi, QC
He asked the question. I wanted to know whether it was as expensive as burying CO2 in the ground. It appears not.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
I think we're starting to sound a bit like that television show on CBC, Dragons' Den, as in, “How much money do you need?”
4:50 p.m.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
4:50 p.m.
The Chair
Madam Duncan, do you have questions?
4:50 p.m.
NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
I guess, Mr. Chair, my questions would be along a completely different line. As a point of order, I find it very peculiar that we spent almost an hour on one technology when we're not a technological review committee. We had an opportunity to look at the thousands of other technologies that, frankly, Dr. Hamza and Dr. Kasperski could speak to us about. I don't have the time to ask about those now.
I guess my question to Dr. Kasperski and Dr. Hamza is, how many technologies are in the hopper right now being looked at? Are there limitations because the researchers aren't getting funding? What would you see as the major barriers to moving forward with a more environmentally benign tar sands activity? Based on the science that you're seeing coming forward technologically, do you even think that's possible in the near future?
I'm particularly interested because, as we speak, more permit extensions and new projects are being approved. The history in Alberta is that the projects are always grandfathered. We've heard from other testimony that nothing is going to be done about the existing projects and the ones that are approved.
My question is, what chance is there, really, that we're going to see new technologies or approaches genuinely applied in the near future that are actually going to make this industry have less impact?
4:55 p.m.
Director General, Department of Natural Resources, CANMET Energy Technology Centre (CETC) - Devon
This is a very good question, actually.
I am very optimistic with what we see around. The technology that we are investigating now will be in the very near future. There's also a change in the pace of the industry in trying to experiment with us in many cases with these new technologies. So I think it is very close.
Actually, what came out later was directive 74 of the Alberta government, which really focuses on capturing fines from the new operations, keeping it in separate ponds, and having it at a certain level of compactness, where you can work on it, for example, in a very short time. All of this is coming together. I believe that in a very short time--I would say in the immediate to medium-term future--we are going to have a very good resolution.
