Thank you for your question.
First of all, let me try to explain in a little bit more detail what I mean by Canada focusing on responsible energy development. We have a huge opportunity to contribute to global sustainability.
The fact is that we are a fossil fuel society in Canada right now for the most part, and what I'm trying to indicate here is that by developing the technologies that can mitigate the environmental detrimental effects, all that energy production usage, we cannot only clean up our own act, we can make money at it, because those technologies can be sold to those areas of the world where they can make a lot more difference.
Let me give you an example. I believe the number is, if we did everything we could to clean up CO2 emissions in Canada--let's not debate whether that puts us at economic disadvantage or not, let's just say we did that--we would contribute to a reduction in GHGs of less than 2% in the world, which, frankly, isn't going to make a penny's worth of difference.
The role for Canada is to show leadership and develop the technologies such that countries like China and India--China is putting out 22% of the world's GHGs and it's going like this right now. We can sell and transfer those technologies to China, which will (a) make us money and (b) really contribute to a reduction in world GHGs. If we're truly interested in reducing GHGs around the world, and the only way you're going to do anything for global warming is to reduce world GHG emissions, not just Canadian.... In fact, as I've indicated, Canadian GHGs are just a tiny fraction. We can show leadership in saying we've done it; we can show a tremendous export potential for showing we can then ship these technologies to other parts of the world.
The interesting thing is that China and India are going to rely heavily on coal. Whether we like it or not, that's the reserve they've got, and they want to be a 21st century economy. They're relying heavily on coal, and our coals in western Canada, the Saskatchewan and Alberta lignite brown coals and the sub-bituminous coals, are quite similar to the coals burned in China and India. So the technologies we develop could be enormously applicable there versus this FutureGen project in the U.S., which is focused on bituminous coals that have no applicability in the west and no applicability to China and India. So that's a U.S. initiative. We could take a Canadian initiative, which really shows us as a responsible leader.
We need to be able to show that we can produce and use energy in a responsible manner and that the production and use of energy in a responsible manner is good for society. We can advance our society and we can have a richer society because of it, and we can help other nations do so. It's a fairly global statement.
When you talk about a rapid deployment of technology--and do I think we could reach 20% renewables by 2050? The answer is yes, I think we could, but only if we really focus not so much on the white lab coat end, although we have to keep that up.... Please never say that Michael Raymont said we should cut back funding in universities and for basic research; we shouldn't. The money that goes to some of the applied work should be pushed very much to make certain it is absolutely industry relevant, and there should be money spent to the pull side to make certain we're addressing the right issues there.
The answer is yes, we could be at that level by 2050, but unless we want to suffer some very painful interim step, we'd better press ahead with responsible development in the oil sands to bridge that gap, and well beyond that, because at 20%, they're still not doing a whole lot for us.
The biggest issues with renewables are probably, yes, partly around the technologies themselves, but some of them, as other members of the committee have pointed out, are quite well developed, like wind; it is more around integrating that wind into existing delivery mechanisms to deliver the right type of fuel to the customer who demands it within existing infrastructure. To string new wires around this country and to bury and string new pipe around this country is a task that nobody's even thinking of.
The question on wind, you see, is one of integration. Because the wind blows intermittently, to pair it with hydro is perfect; it is an ideal opportunity for Quebec to exploit. The reason Alberta has put its limits on is quite simply that the rest of Alberta's electricity is coal fired, and you cannot, as Denmark has shown....
Denmark, by the way, after leading in wind energy, very recently put its own limit on the amount of wind power that can be generated there, because they finally realized that when you take a holistic, integrated systems energy look at it, you cannot integrate more than, typically, somewhere between 10% and 20% wind energy into a coal-fired regime. Coal-fired power plants can't respond that quickly to the vagaries of the wind, so you have to have a base spinning load.
I can tell you that Denmark's experience is that they now have over 20% of their electricity generated by wind, but they have seen reductions in greenhouse gases of only 3% to 4%. That's precisely because they're actually keeping their coal-fired power plants running, spinning their turbines so they can turn them on quickly when the wind drops.
With hydro, you can turn them on and off really quickly. You can turn the turbine on, you can turn it off, and when you've turned it down because the wind's blowing, you're preserving your head of water. What's more--even better--when you have the wind blowing at night and you're generating a lot of electricity and nobody really needs it, you can take that electricity and pump water uphill into what's called pumped storage. So the combination of wind and hydro is perfect.
What I'm talking about here is choosing the right combinations and the right integration and the right integration with existing distribution systems. Those will be the keys to whether we can get renewables to 20% by 2050.
