I am a professor at the Centre Eau Terre Environnement in Quebec City, where I conduct research on geothermal energy in my capacity as a research chair at the Institut nordique du Québec. We evaluate the geothermal potential of northern communities [Technical difficulty—Editor] and a UNESCO working group as part of its international geoscience and geoparks programme.
I will be delivering my statement in French today,
but I will be happy to answer questions in English if needed.
I'm going to tell you about geothermal systems, which are a clean technology used to heat and cool buildings and to generate electricity. Heating and cooling buildings generally involve geothermal heat pumps, which are installed over surface boreholes drilled to a depth of 100 metres. This makes it possible to extract energy from the ground and to direct it into buildings to achieve significant energy savings in the range of 60% to 70%. While these systems are installed in institutional, commercial and industrial buildings, the market penetration rate of this process as a heating technology is still marginal, in the order of 1% to 2%.
At the other end of the geothermal technologies spectrum, we have geothermal power stations, which draw on geothermal reservoirs situated at depths ranging from two to five kilometers beneath the earth's surface. Since the deeper you drill, the hotter it gets, it's possible, at those depths, to extract underground water at temperatures of more than 100 degrees Celsius.
Geothermal energy offers many benefits. It emits less greenhouse gas than fossil fuels. It's also a primary energy that's available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, unlike solar and wind energy, which are intermittent sources of renewable energy. Geothermal has a smaller surface footprint than hydroelectric dams, in particular. However, the cost to install geothermal systems is still high. To lower those costs and disseminate the technology, government assistance is needed to accelerate the research and development required to progress to the pilot project stage.
In the course of my research, I'm in touch with numerous isolated northern communities, which, in many instances, are indigenous communities where diesel is the primary energy source. Those communities want energy independence and must therefore find new local solutions to reduce energy imports from the south. My work is to support and assist them to ensure that projects designed by local interests are based on advanced scientific principles so those communities can access the best technologies and meet the highest environmental standards.
We lack support for the moment. We need increased government assistance in order to advance research and development projects and community demonstration projects.
Thank you.