Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with you today and provide input into the budgetary process.
I'm going to focus on one particular subsector, even though we are globally competitive in five, where we see tremendous investment and growth.
As noted, my name is Malcolm Bruce. I'm the CEO of Edmonton Global, the Edmonton metropolitan region's economic development agency. Our shareholder group is the 14 member municipalities that make up the Edmonton region.
The Edmonton region is driving historic and almost unparalleled growth in Canada. At the forefront of this particular growth opportunity is hydrogen. This is one the best solutions for those industries that are really hard to electrify. Think about heavy industry, chemicals, advanced manufacturing production, concrete, steel and glass, things that require intense heat to be created. There are also things that need to move very long distances: heavy-haul trucking, mining, farming and vehicles such as transportation trains, long-distance bussing, cargo ships and airplanes. These things can't be easily plugged in or economically viable if they need to spend a third of their lives charging.
Today, the Edmonton region is by far the largest producer of hydrogen in Canada. If the Edmonton region were a country, right now we would be the second-largest producer of hydrogen in the world. Almost all the hydrogen currently is used in heavy industry. Most of it has a fairly large carbon footprint. This is changing.
Right now, Air Products is building the world's largest net-zero hydrogen facility in Edmonton, at a cost of $1.6 billion, making it truly a global-scale project. Hydrogen and our capabilities in carbon capture enable other massive net-zero projects to happen here first. Heidelberg Materials has planned to renovate and build the first and largest-scale net-zero cement facility right here in the region.
Solving the carbon challenge for industries like cement production is where our biggest gains will come from. We need projects like this if Canada wants to meet its net-zero commitment. For perspective on how important decarbonizing cement is, if you took every electric car in the world in 2022 and doubled their combined battery efficiency, that would be roughly equivalent to the carbon impact of decreasing the cement industry's emissions by 1%.
Heidelberg's project, a project they want to build here, isn't reducing it by 1%. They are reducing it 100%, showing to the entire industry that this is possible. They've chosen Edmonton to be the global leader and example.
Our partners in Alberta's Industrial Heartland Association, which is located in the northeast quadrant of the region, are very close to making a number of announcements by a global Fortune 500 company that will create the largest and first net-zero ethylene and polyethylene facility. Should this $12-billion project go forward and be approved by the company's board, this will produce, again, another global-scale net-zero hydrogen facility that will need to be built, equivalent to the Air Products one and probably larger. This company has signalled that this project will be roughly twice the size of the Air Products one and take over as the largest net-zero hydrogen facility in the world.
Our region is also working on massive-scale multi-billion dollar projects around Mitsubishi, Shell, Petronas and many others. These projects are focused on shipping net-zero hydrogen, mainly as ammonia, to Asia and California.
We can not only help decarbonize Canada, but also have a significant impact on the world. It's Canada's time, and the path to net-zero runs through the Edmonton region. These are investments being made by some of the world's biggest companies. They are serious, and they want to move quickly.
When I listed these projects, almost all the words that I said, except for Air Products, were “planning to”, “signalling” and “intention.” Many of these deals are not done. These projects are Canada's to win, but they are also Canada's to lose. Frankly, global investors aren't confident in Canada's ability to deliver. The trust our nation has built over generations is quickly dissipating, as investors watch our nation create roadblocks and squander away many of our nation's biggest economic opportunities, in particular around resource development. Global energy transition is real. Canada can be a leader in this space.
Companies search out environments that are predictable and transparent and move with speed. Right now, Canada is failing on all of these fronts. We are slow to act, slow to approve and confusing to investors and, rather than building projects, we're building uncertainty and risk. We need to shift our thinking and our approach to policies and regulations to empower the kinds of investment we want: to become enablers rather than gatekeepers.
Environmental stewardship and indigenous inclusion should be part of the assets that are sought out. Done right, inclusion makes projects far stronger and more sustainable and can significantly reduce the risks.
At Edmonton Global, we're extremely optimistic about our future for the region and the future of Canada. This is absolutely the best place to live and to grow a business if you want to make a difference and have an impact.
Don't get me wrong: We will find success either way. Our fundamentals are strong, our talent pool is well educated and young, and our financial, legal and social structures are the envy of the world. The question is, how much of the opportunity will be realized? If we—