Evidence of meeting #27 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was technology.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Dan Mazier Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
Do you have an idea by how much emissions can be reduced by utilizing carbon capture and utilization?
President and Managing Partner, Carbon Infrastructure Partners Corp.
The reports from a variety of research groups often show carbon capture representing between 10% and 20% as an emissions solution across all emissions. In terms of scale, carbon capture is a massive component. This category also includes things like direct-air capture, which would be pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere with industrial processes.
Basically, there's no way for any of the net-zero forecasts to come true without carbon capture playing a leading role in the solution.
Liberal
Conservative
Dan Mazier Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
How important is CCUS to meeting our climate goals?
President and Managing Partner, Carbon Infrastructure Partners Corp.
I think there's no way for Canada to meet any of its climate goals without large-scale deployment of carbon capture, because we need the energy production—
Liberal
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for today's discussion.
I want to start with you, Mr. Germain, and first of all congratulate you on being one of the world's leading clean-tech start-ups. I was reading the report from the Global Cleantech 100 list and I was happy to see your name on the list. Being one of 13 Canadian companies on the global list of the world's leading clean-tech companies is quite an accomplishment.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
Just to contrast some of our earlier testimony, could you comment on the growth of clean tech in Canada and the role that pricing mechanisms have played in stimulating clean tech in Canada?
President and Chief Executive Officer, GHGSat Inc.
Clean tech has certainly been expanding rapidly over the last 10 years or so. There have been a couple of different cycles and venture capital investments in clean tech. In the last five years, it has certainly very much accelerated.
Pricing mechanisms have been an incentive that has helped many clean-tech companies build financial models and business models that allow them to demonstrate to investors that there will be a return on investment for their venture capital investments. That's certainly true in our case. We demonstrate that when there's a price on carbon, it motivates our customers to better understand, control and ultimately reduce their emissions.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
It's been shown that the venture capital in Canada went up to $66.3 billion in 2021. That could never have been dreamed about in 2015 before we had pricing mechanisms in place. Is that a fair statement?
President and Chief Executive Officer, GHGSat Inc.
I would certainly agree with that, although I would point out that I think venture capital in Canada for clean tech still remains dramatically underfunded. Right now the capital available to Canadian companies to go from initial start-up to grow to scale is available primarily outside of Canada. Canada really needs to step up in fostering and accelerating the amount of venture capital available to start-ups in the growth phase in particular.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
It's always good to point that out. Thank you for doing that.
The attraction of external capital into Canada is another part of the equation, though. When we look at Germany and other very mature markets looking for new opportunities, Canada is quite often a country they come to for investments.
President and Chief Executive Officer, GHGSat Inc.
Yes. Over 50% of the capital we've raised—and we've raised over $100 million Canadian—has come from outside of Canada.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
In terms of your business itself, I'm very interested in the work that can be done on soil health and carbon capture within soil. Working with the University of Guelph, we're looking at new ways of managing fertilizer and restoring soil carbon levels through new techniques, and then measuring the results.
Is that something your company is involved in?
President and Chief Executive Officer, GHGSat Inc.
Our company is not directly involved in that, although I am aware of other satellite solutions and aerial solutions that are available for measuring the various compositions of soil and looking at carbon content as well. They are called hyperspectral technologies.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
Thank you.
It's a depth that may be more than we can do in this study, but it just showcases that clean technology also applies to agriculture solutions.
President and Chief Executive Officer, GHGSat Inc.
Absolutely. In our case, we have used our satellites to monitor methane from agricultural feedlots, for example. When you put 10,000 cows into a one-square-kilometre area, they do produce a lot of methane, and we have been able to detect it from space. That can help to prioritize the solutions that are required for dealing with those methane emissions.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
I zoomed in to Guelph using your technology and I looked at the methane on farms around our area and saw that we were in the yellow/orange level, which isn't great, but it could be worse, I suppose. There are some pretty deep oranges around us.
President and Chief Executive Officer, GHGSat Inc.
It can be a lot worse; trust me. Canada has done pretty well. We monitor the entire planet on a regular basis. Although we certainly have room for improvement in Canada, there are lots of other places that need to look at agricultural and other industrial emissions much more rapidly than we do.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
It's great to hear from clean-tech businesses, and congratulations for the great work you're doing.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Thank you. That's very interesting.
Thank you, Mr. Longfield, for always being on time.
Mr. Trudel, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Denis Trudel Bloc Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Germain, I'd like to ask you a few quick questions since I only have two and a half minutes.
Does your technology preclude any likelihood of false reporting of greenhouse gases? For example, can your clients manipulate the data?