Environment Committee on June 7th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Answer in 15 seconds, please, Mr. Leyburne.

[Drew Leyburne]

I would say we don't treat CCUS any differently from any of the other clean technologies you've heard about before. This is truly a cross-departmental effort. The hub co-locates federal employees from multiple agencies and departments in a single place, so they can make sure we're making it a smooth path for clean-tech players, including in CCUS.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Right.

Ms. Pauzé, we now go to you for three and a half minutes.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm looking for some clarification, so I have a quick question for the NRCan officials.

NRCan shared a table that shows the percentage of electricity generation by source in Canada and in each province. My understanding from the table is that nearly all of Prince Edward Island's electricity is wind-powered.

Is that true or false?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Can Mr. Leyburne, from Natural Resources Canada, take that question?

[Drew Leyburne]

Yes, P.E.I. would be among the provinces with the highest variable renewable proportion of their electricity.

André, do you want to jump in, if you have the specific details for P.E.I.?

[André Bernier]

Thank you. That statistic is correct for the electricity that's generated in Prince Edward Island, but they import a fair bit of electricity from New Brunswick. You can imagine that as the wind goes up and down, their imports from New Brunswick vary as well.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you.

My next question is for you, Mr. Noseworthy. According to our information, the net zero accelerator initiative will provide up to $8 billion in support of projects—a huge amount of money.

In response to one of Mr. Longfield's questions, we heard that part of the $8 billion will support carbon capture and storage.

As Mr. Longfield pointed out, the situation is urgent—we are in a climate crisis. It will take years for carbon capture and storage technology to get to where it needs to be. Out west, Shell's Quest carbon capture and storage facility emitted more greenhouse gases than it captured.

Aside from the portion that will go towards carbon capture and storage projects, will other Canadian industries receive any of the $8 billion?

If so, can you name some?

[Andrew Noseworthy]

The strategic innovation fund is, in fact, available to all industries. As it is technology agnostic, we will fund any project that ultimately seeks to decarbonize an industry and reduce its GHG footprint from the existing situation.

We're doing two things at the moment to try to drive industry into the program in a productive way and drive new projects. As Kendal mentioned, we have a call to action to try to drive projects across industry to meet our 2030 targets. We've also established something called the industrial decarbonization team—

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

I'm going to stop you there, Mr. Noseworthy. I'd like you to send us a list of companies that received some of the $8 billion in funding.

I'm moving on to my next question.

Sustainable Development Technology Canada, or SDTC, is the largest funder of small and medium-sized clean tech businesses in Canada, having invested $1.38 billion. Are the companies subject to some sort of follow-up assessment, to determine whether the funding actually helped to lower greenhouse gas emissions?

When the commissioner appeared before the committee, he told us that the 2030 emissions reduction plan had not met its targets at all and that, on the contrary, industries that had benefited from funding continued to produce a significant amount of greenhouse gases.

Does SDTC conduct a follow-up assessment to determine whether the funding met the objective?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Please provide a brief answer.

[Andrew Noseworthy]

SDTC was the first organization to actively track GHG emissions across the federal government. Our understanding is that all of the projects they funded to date have material GHG reductions.

Kendal, I don't know if you can provide further detail.

[Kendal Hembroff]

For example, since SDTC was created, it has achieved an estimated 22.4 megatonnes of annual GHG emissions reductions, which I think is a fairly significant achievement. We can also provide numbers in terms of the jobs that have been created, both directly and indirectly, as a result of SDTC investments. We can provide some examples of success stories of SDTC. If it's helpful, we can also provide information on the criteria that SDTC uses for assessing potential projects.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Chair, the witness just offered to follow up in writing with the number of jobs that were created and other information, so I would very much appreciate getting that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Of course.

Please send us that information, Ms. Hembroff.

We now go to Ms. Collins for three and a half minutes.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just have a quick follow-up to some of Mr. Longfield's comments.

A 2021 study found that more than 80% of CCS projects attempted in the U.S. ended in failure. One of Canada's flagship projects, the Boundary Dam, promised a capture rate of 90%. It didn't come close to reaching that, so SaskPower lowered its expectations to 65%, which is a target the facility still regularly fails to meet.

The emissions reduction plan doesn't leave a lot of room for error to even meet the low end of the government's emissions target of 40%. Is the government relying on CCS projects to meet their promised capture rates, which, so far, have not been achieved?

[Drew Leyburne]

I'm happy to jump in about the generalities, but maybe my colleagues from ECCC could talk about the climate plan itself and the role of CCUS there.

What I would say is that Boundary Dam, Weyburn-Midale and some of these projects we're looking at that were initiated over a decade ago have experienced many of the things that most clean technologies face when they're being demonstrated for the first time.

We know that if you were to build another Boundary Dam now, you would be able to do it at significantly lower cost as a direct result of the learning gained from projects like Boundary Dam. That's the same cycle we see from solar PV, from wind and from all the other technologies that are now commercial. They had this awkward—

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Because I have such a short amount of time, I'll just remind you that the IPCC has said that carbon capture and storage is one of the least effective and most expensive options.

I just want an answer around the emissions reduction plan and the fact that there's not a lot of wiggle room for it to meet that 40%.

[Vincent Ngan]

Absolutely, and I would like to address the member.

I also refer the member to the “2030 Emissions Reduction Plan” and its modelling annex. That is a breakdown of reductions by sector and technological pathways. Policies and measures incentivizing fuel switching to primarily electricity, greater use of biofuels and hydrogens, and the adoption of zero-emissions vehicles account for 50.6% of the total reductions, whereas the deployment of CCUS and solvents account for 12.9% and 7.8% of the total reductions—

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thank you so much.

On that 12.9%, I would just say that if that is unproven technology, expensive and least effective, that's concerning given that the emissions reduction plan aims only at the low end of the target, at 40%.

I'll go back to my question on the strategic innovation fund and the two large emitter projects. How will the government ensure that those investments will achieve the planned emissions reductions?

[Andrew Noseworthy]

We have regular contact with the proponents. Our assessment of the projects requires them to bring forward very specific GHG emissions commitments associated with the projects. As part of our contribution to those projects, we actively track them during the full period of investment.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

The strategic innovation fund also committed $47.5 million to Moltex Energy to develop SMR technology in New Brunswick, and $25 million for the development of carbon capture technology.

How does the government factor in how those technologies will help achieve Canada's goal of net zero by 2050, especially given that the Department of Industry has said that these are early-stage technologies and they can't currently compare the GHG impacts directly to projects focused on emissions reduction prior to 2030?

[Andrew Noseworthy]

Our investment strategy to date with the strategic innovation fund is to understand that while we need to put significant emphasis on large-scale projects that can scale up quite quickly, if we don't invest in early-stage technologies that can also help us meet our climate goal, we may not get there.

We have done a number of early-stage investments, like the ones you have mentioned around Moltex and SMR technology generally, with the expectation that if we do not make those investments now, they will not be in a place to help us meet our goals, ultimately to 2030 or 2050. We anticipate that if we do not make those investments—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I'm sorry. We're out of time here.

Mr. Dreeshen, you have six minutes, please.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Thanks again, Mr. Chair.

As a former math and science teacher, I'm mostly focused on things you can measure. I know there have been a lot of numbers put around about goals and so on, but there was a report out of the U.S. in 2020, entitled “Mines, Minerals, and 'Green' Energy: A Reality Check”. It compared hydrocarbons with green technology, which had, on average, about a tenfold increase in the quantities of material extracted and processed to produce the same amount of energy.

I know that Canada has an amazing mining record and that we do some amazing work. Of course, that's as long as the mine is going in somebody's else's constituency and not their own. There's always that concern.

When it comes to things like average battery life, this study stated that “each mile of driving an electric car 'consumes' [about] five pounds of earth” over the life of that battery, whereas with an internal combustion engine, “about 0.2 pounds of liquids” are used. Non-recyclable solar panels by 2050 will “double the tonnage” of all of the global plastic waste we have now. Over that time, there will be “3 million tons...of unrecyclable plastics from worn-out wind turbine blades”. As well, “By 2030, more than 10 million tons per year of batteries will become garbage.”

That is something we have to be looking at. We just finished our study on nuclear waste. Where is it going to be buried? How are we going to deal with that? Somebody has to be responsible for that.

My first question is this: Do we have a plan that is going to deal with how this material will be managed once it has gone past its useful life?

NRCan, perhaps it's best for us to discuss this with you.