Evidence of meeting #29 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.
5:40 p.m.
Liberal
Joanne Thompson Liberal St. John's East, NL
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Thomson, one of the best ways we can rapidly reduce net emissions from fields is to increase the use of biofuels. Would you be able to discuss the importance of biofuels in the transition to a net-zero economy?
5:40 p.m.
President, Advanced Biofuels Canada
Thank you. It's a great question.
In short, they're indispensable. There's modelling from the Canadian Climate Institute, from the IEA, from the California EPA and from the California Air Resources Board. All of them tell us that we'll have a lot of internal combustion engines around, as I already mentioned. Fully 75% of the greenhouse gases that are emitted when you turn on a vehicle come from the crude oil in it. The only way to address those 75% of emissions is to switch to something that's non-fossil. That would be renewable natural gas, or a biofuel, or a synthetic fuel that's made from direct air capture.
With 75% of transportation emissions and significant internal combustion engine fleets, we can't have them running on fossil fuels. Even if those fossil fuels have slightly lower carbon emissions because of technology, you really have to be fuel switching, which is why electrification is so important in light-duty. In heavy-duty, it's more difficult. Shipping, aviation, rail and long-haul trucking are regarded as places where biofuels or synthetic fuels are going to be critical for decades.
5:40 p.m.
Liberal
Joanne Thompson Liberal St. John's East, NL
Thank you.
Dr. Smith, perhaps I could go back to a point you made in the last question around biomass and technologies. What role can government play to ensure that technology that is being developed is actually able to scale and have that real-world impact?
5:40 p.m.
Distinguished James McGill Professor, McGill University, As an Individual
As always, I guess, there's financial support. There's a need to...if you want them to be pushed all the way out. It's not always easy. I've gotten a number of research findings all the way to technologies and actual products, but a number of the ones that I thought would succeed failed. It was just because there was something missing at some step along the way.
If it comes to the point where you have something ready to go out the door but the right company is not there, or there's a company there that could be the right company but they just don't have the support.... They're not growing and things like that. There's nothing making them move. Again, it's a recognition of the importance of some of those specific areas and the need to do something to make it work.
It would be nice if there was someone we could speak to—because each situation can be quite unique—where we could say, “Look, we have this situation right now. We have this technology and this company, but there's a piece missing in that bridge. Could you guys fill that missing piece?”
It's not always the same. A uniform policy doesn't always work.
5:45 p.m.
Liberal
Joanne Thompson Liberal St. John's East, NL
Thank you.
Mr. Saik, could you go back to your last point and explain to the committee how different types of precision farming techniques that thousands of farmers are already using can help significantly reduce emissions?
5:45 p.m.
Founder and Chief Executive Officer, AGvisorPRO Inc.
Again, I think this goes back to some fundamentals in sustainability. Number one is soil health. Number two is water use efficiency. Number three is greenhouse gas balance. Number four is farm viability. For these programs that we're putting forward, farmers need to be viable.
The fifth area, actually, is love. Farmers love their livestock. They love their land. It's intergenerational. We need to recognize that farming and agriculture are about learning, unlearning and relearning. The technologies that we're bringing together are at lightspeed. I think one of the Achilles heels, believe it or not, in making agriculture more sustainable, is broadband. We need broadband across the country.
5:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Thank you.
We'll have to stop there.
Thank you for a very interesting panel on what can be done in the agricultural sector to reduce emissions. Thanks again to all the panellists and members for the excellent questions.
We don't have a meeting on Friday, because we have a meeting of the steering committee, so we'll see members after the Thanksgiving break.
Have a good Thanksgiving.
The meeting is adjourned.