Thanks very much for having me today. I appreciate being here.
My name is Gary Schubak. I manage the Hydrogen Highway here in British Columbia. I work with John. John is my boss.
My intent is just to take five minutes and explain what we're doing in British Columbia on the Hydrogen Highway and emphasize the importance of government partnership to our effort.
What is the Hydrogen Highway? I think I'll begin with that.
The Hydrogen Highway is a practical demonstration program of hydrogen and fuel cell technology. Its aim is to accelerate the commercialization of these technologies, get them out in the public, and provide an infrastructure for vehicle companies, bus companies, and other technology providers to deploy in British Columbia. It's about environmental stewardship. It's about growing the economy and homegrown Canadian technology companies.
We're a leader, as John said, and we want to maintain that lead. We look at the Hydrogen Highway as a practical program to build that lead and maintain it.
There are a number of factors that are important to mention. One is the infrastructure, and I'll speak quickly about that.
In British Columbia today we have a good, budding growth of hydrogen infrastructure. We have five filling stations in the lower mainland, in Victoria, that fuel hydrogen vehicles for demonstration programs. Our goal is to have seven by the time the 2010 Olympic Games are being deployed in Vancouver-Whistler. Not a lot of people know that, but that's something about which we're trying to get the message out.
These are stations that are active and functioning. Vehicles are being deployed and filled every day by these stations and are being driven every day on the roads of Vancouver and Victoria.
In partnership with the fueling stations, we have a number of demonstration programs in the city and in the southwestern province. We have a fleet of Ford Focus fuel cell vehicles in Vancouver and Victoria. We have a number of shuttle buses and hydrogen-powered pickup trucks. We have four transit buses in Port Coquitlam that operate on a blend of natural gas and hydrogen that reduce emissions and improve efficiency. All these vehicles are operating around the network of fueling stations we've installed in partnership with the government over the last five years.
Our goal now is to move from demonstration to commercial deployment, and we're starting to see that. We've maybe all heard the announcement that B.C. Transit will be putting 20 fuel-cell-powered buses in Whistler for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. That's fantastic.
It's another node on the Hydrogen Highway where the world's largest fueling station for hydrogen will be deployed in Whistler. The world's largest fuel cell vehicle fleet will be deployed in the community of Whistler. These are Canadian technologies. This is a New Flyer bus, the chassis provider. Ballard Power Systems is the fuel cell provider.
Who am I forgetting?
Dynatek provides the fuel tanks, and Air Liquide Canada is providing the hydrogen. This is a Canadian solution that we get to deploy and showcase in front of the whole world through the Olympics. This is one growth idea that the Hydrogen Highway can promote.
There are others that we want to promote, with shuttle bus fleets that could take people from the airport to important venues, or the deployment of hubs of hydrogen for material-handling warehouse applications that are on the cusp of commercialization right now. We can get behind that and accelerate it here.
That's what the Hydrogen Highway is about, and the reason we're here is that it's also about partnership and having the opportunity to talk to you and express our gratitude for the past partnership we've had with government to get where we are today. But to reinforce that to go forward, we need that partnership to be even stronger and more robust.
It's about growth, and we are at a point now where we see a lot of exciting growth opportunities for building these fleets, building the infrastructure, attracting the companies that are leaders in this area to come to Vancouver, to come to British Columbia. That's certainly something that I, as the manager of the Hydrogen Highway, would love to see.
Thank you very much for your time.