Thank you for letting me share my perspective on opportunities and interests today.
First, I'll give you a little about myself and my background. I have called the Yukon my home for 42 years. I grew up in Whitehorse. I graduated from high school in Whitehorse. Like most Yukon students, I had to leave the Yukon for post-secondary education. But I have returned. I am an industrial engineer with a computer science background. I have been certified as a project management professional. Prior to my role with Cold Climate Innovation, I spent seven years working in the field of telecommunications across northern Canada in product development, project management, and marketing. I have also spent seven years developing and implementing computer software throughout the United States.
Now I'll speak about our centre. The Yukon Research Centre, located at Yukon College in Whitehorse, is Canada's largest research and innovation facility north of 60. The YRC provides a broad array of programs and services with multi-year public and private funding. The YRC is poised to support Canada's chairmanship of the Arctic Council. I would like to share a few examples of our contribution for today's discussion.
The YRC integrates itself into all aspects of the pursuit of resources and sustainable development in the Yukon and the Arctic region. We are involved with information communication technology, mining, alternative energies, agriculture, housing construction, industrial applications, transportation systems, permafrost engineering, waste reduction, and synthetic fuels. In essence, the YRC initiatives can be pursued in a manner that improves the health and well-being of people who deliver northern economies. A recent example is our resource and sustainable development for the Arctic program, or ReSDA. ReSDA is designed to find ways to ensure that a larger share of the benefits of resource development in the Arctic stay in the region with fewer costs to northern communities.
I would like now to profile two major programs within the YRC. For the past 12 years, the YRC's northern climate exchange has been a leader in the north at building the capacity of northern communities to identify hazards such as permafrost and flooding for adaptation to climate change. Several rural communities in the Yukon have benefited from these climate change-related reports, and the city council of Whitehorse has adapted these findings into their future community planning. Since 95% of Yukon's electrical generation comes from hydro that is distributed through a stranded grid, we also partnered with a local energy provider to study the effects of climate change on the glacier-fed Yukon River.
Recently, Cold Climate Innovation, or CCI, under my leadership, was established through financial support of the Yukon government economic development branch. We are focused on the development, commercialization, and export of sustainable cold climate technologies and related solutions for northern regions around the world. CCI supports the partnership between applied scientific researchers, industry, and government dedicated to addressing cold climate and technical issues affecting northerners. The mandate of the CCI is to stimulate economic development in the Yukon through cold climate innovation and technologies. We focus on these two statements to build an economy in the north, by the north, and for the north.
I have come to understand that the CCI business model, an innovation sector that I represent today, does not fit into the traditional or standard definition of economic development in the north. In building the CCI, I have come to believe that innovation is the biggest opportunity space in the Arctic economies. As an example, with Prime Minister Harper's announcement of the Canadian High Arctic Research Station in Cambridge Bay, we assessed this opportunity and offered support with four separate initiatives, which include: using our proven methodology to conduct a community energy audit that will establish a comprehensive baseline on the energy usage within Cambridge Bay; new technologies for wind power installation in remote communities; wind and solar monitoring; and a very important heat recovery ventilation study that will place up to 10 HRV units from three Canadian manufacturers in various communities within all three territories.
The project goal is to develop specifications for the most effective and efficient HRV and to challenge Canadian HRV manufacturers to build the best-of-class HRV. It will be used in the new CHARS facility and sold globally.
It surprises some to learn that CCI is also active internationally. The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade has been a great partner to the Canadian International Centre for the Arctic Region in circumpolar affairs. We partnered with DFAIT on a mission to Scandinavia in 2010 and developed a joint initiative with a Danish technical university for joint research projects. It has resulted in their students attending a Yukon-based master's and doctoral-level course on advanced highway design through permafrost. It is delivered each spring in Whitehorse and includes a valuable field trip to the Alaska highway permafrost test facility, where students and professional engineers learn adaptive techniques. Through our partnership with the University of Laval in Montreal, this permafrost course has earned the attention of Russian and Chinese interests, whose students will likely attend the May 2013 course.
I would also like to highlight our efforts to bring the first continuous feed plastics-to-fuel machine in North America to Whitehorse. In partnership with Blest Co., in Japan, and with financial contributions from the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency, we are developing a ruggedized machine that can convert 10 kilograms of plastic to 10 litres of fuel every hour. This fuel will be used to heat buildings while reducing landfill requirements in northern communities.
Yukon College is also proud to be the first institute in the Canadian north to be eligible for grants through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. We have been successful in receiving funding for a three-year study on mine remediation using biochar and for a five-year industrial chair on the mining life cycle.
Since wild-harvested foods represent a large portion of northern diets, the Arctic Council may also be interested to know that we have submitted an NSERC application, under the college-university Idea to Innovation fund, to work jointly with the University of Toronto and an industry partner to develop an airborne mercury measuring device. It is our goal to have this product developed, tested, and commercialized prior to the United Nations making it mandatory for countries to monitor airborne mercury particulates.
These are just a few of the 27 projects, totalling $1.8 million in public and private funds, that Cold Climate Innovation completed last year.
It has always been our goal to have an industry partner and a post-secondary master's or doctoral student involved in all of our projects. By doing this, we help solve industry problems while supporting the retention of our knowledge economy.
I would like to highlight again that innovation is the untapped opportunity space in northern economies. The YRC can help showcase Canadian expertise and can collaborate with other circumpolar communities on an exchange of tools and technologies to prepare for a changing Arctic.
Thank you very much.