Natural Resources Committee on April 23rd, 2007

[Ken Epp, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Some of them do, but that should be extended. One of the roads I travel has a lot of truck traffic in one direction and mostly cars in the other, and I would think it would be advantageous for the sensors to detect half a mile away if a truck is coming and give him a green light so he doesn't have to stop.

[Sherif Barakat]

The other area about braking is what's nice about electric cars is that once you stop, the engine's not running. You can stop the engine.

[Ken Epp, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Yes, I'm aware of that.

There's another area I've thought a great deal about. I just about got blown out of my shoes when I walked to the building today, because of the high wind. Surely we should be able to harness that.

As I said before, I'm an old guy. In the forties on a farm in Saskatchewan we had wind power. We used wind power to pump water for the cattle. We used wind power to generate electricity for our 32-volt system. That was the only electricity we had. That was way back in the forties and fifties.

We've gone in the reverse direction on that. Of course, it becomes a matter of economics, but surely we should be able to come up with a very efficient system, especially with the new technologies in batteries and so on. Perhaps more houses could get energy self-sufficiency by having a series of generators.

[Sherif Barakat]

Yes. I certainly don't disagree with that. As I said, there are a number of things we can do, particularly in houses.

The difficulty in a big city when energy becomes a little problematic is if you have a wind turbine on every house. But definitely a combination of systems with the advance of batteries can help get us more energy efficient.

[Ken Epp, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Alan Tonks]

Thank you, Mr. Epp.

One question, if I may, from the chair.

Mr. Barakat, thank you for being here.

I understand the nature of research, but when it comes to political action, it seems to me that the round table on the economy and sustainable development is more of a political action arm, if you will, of our system of creating crowns or NGOs or whatever and nurturing them. Do you ever meet in concert with the round table with respect to advice or action or advocacy or priority setting?

[Sherif Barakat]

Yes. We've done that a couple of times, not extensively, and we follow their work and their reports quite closely, because this is one of the areas where you get direction as well, where experts think energy is going or what the requirements are. So we follow these reports closely.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Alan Tonks]

If a report came out of the round table on the economy and sustainable development with respect to aviation—and I see that one of the areas you have etched out is aviation—and there is fairly compelling evidence that aviation and the emissions that are projected are devastating with respect to climate change, greenhouse gases, and so on, if the round table came out with a report, would you take that and establish a higher priority with respect to what you are doing in the area of aviation?

[Sherif Barakat]

Absolutely. I mentioned this area because this area is already establishing some projects with Environment Canada because of the expected increase in aviation in high altitudes. We're establishing a project to have measurements of major emissions, particularly close to the layer we worry about--have planes follow the big 380 or 747 to look at emissions.

Because of the increased aviation across continents, it will have two things. One, it will reduce the distance between airplanes so they can examine the effect of the exhaust or the turbulence of one on the other. The other thing is, what are we putting in the atmosphere up there and how can we mitigate it? That's a major item.

The other thing is to work with companies like GE and others that produce engines to try to minimize emissions.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Alan Tonks]

At what point do you report that out, in terms of your work plan?

[Sherif Barakat]

Now that we're working with the industry, in aerospace, we can get you quite a bit of material on what we do, from engine certification to cold weather testing, ice testing, emission for gas turbines and so on.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Alan Tonks]

As a case study for this committee's information, there is an example where we have fairly compelling evidence that technology change is required in that particular sector in industry. Your role is to do research and add value to the Canadian economy, but climate change is a world issue. How do you effect that behaviour change in that technology area?

[Sherif Barakat]

We can certainly get you quite a bit of information on that.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Alan Tonks]

Would the committee be interested in getting a thumbnail sketch on that?

[Sherif Barakat]

I don't know if you have noticed it when you're coming from the airport, but we have the big wind tunnel at NRC. There's also a hangar there, and we have four or five airplanes—all experimental. Some of them sometimes fly to study hurricanes, but others fly to study and measure emissions for Environment Canada and stuff like that. So that's actually—

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Alan Tonks]

Yes. Well, we won't take any of those experimental aircraft to Churchill Falls.

[Sherif Barakat]

I wouldn't either.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Alan Tonks]

But I think we would be interested in an update on that, Mr. Barakat.

[Sherif Barakat]

Certainly. We'll get you that.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Alan Tonks]

Thank you so much.

On behalf of the committee, we thank you and Mr. Norgaard for being here. It has helped considerably in our understanding of what—

[Sherif Barakat]

If I may, if you're in Ottawa and we can have a few minutes of your valuable time, please come aboard. I will show you that work, right at NRC.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Alan Tonks]

Good. Thank you so much. Maybe we'll have a visit there too.

[Sherif Barakat]

Yes, absolutely.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Alan Tonks]

Do you serve lunch?

[Sherif Barakat]

We can do that too. I don't know if it's as good as the cafeteria here.