Natural Resources Committee on April 23rd, 2009

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

In a totally different area, I know that Germany really loves its little Volkswagen cars. Are your automobile factories engaged in research and development with a view to making more electric cars, buses and trains?

[Dr. Christine Wörlen]

Actually one of our most important train manufacturers here is Bombardier. Volkswagen is just looking into going into electric and also hydrogen. It is the same for Daimler Benz and BMW. They are all looking into new drive trains and new ways of being mobile.

[Peter Öhrström]

There is no difference in Sweden. We still have Volvo and Saab in Sweden, although the Americans own them now. But they are also looking into electricity and new ways of making this happen. We already have electric trains in Sweden.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, and merci, Madame Bonsant.

We go now to Mr. Trost, for up to five minutes.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Let me express my appreciation to our guests for visiting us via television. I have had the privilege of visiting Sweden, and I have spent a couple of months in Germany over the years. Once upon a time my German was even quite respectable. It was spoken by my grandparents quite a bit, and even by my parents. It is still their first language.

I guess I have a variety of questions. One of them starts with different countries having different sorts of energy mixes, backgrounds, and resources. It seems, gathering from other comments, that Sweden is independent on electricity, heating, and energy, and Germany a little bit more, not as endowed with as much natural resources.

My question is this. Are your countries energy-independent in the electric market? I know natural gas is imported all over western Europe. Mr. Putin has made that very clear over the years. But when it comes to electricity, is Germany self-sufficient? Is Sweden self-sufficient? Do you rely on other countries? If so, in what sense? If not, how have you made yourselves independent?

[Dr. Christine Wörlen]

Germany is a net exporter of electricity and produces somewhat more electricity than it consumes. However, in terms of the resources that go into that production of electricity, everything comes from abroad. Let me correct that. We have some power plants that run on lignite, which is a very low-grade type of dirty fuel, coal. These are the only fossil fuels in a significant amount that we can take from within the country. A share of about 10% of our natural gas demand is also covered from domestic sources. Everything else, all the rest of the natural gas, all the rest of the coal, the hard coal in particular, and all the rest of the uranium, is imported.

[Peter Öhrström]

Self-sufficiency is actually not easy to answer because it is a question of time. You have peaks of demand and you have the normal level of demand. In terms of the net over the year, the net import and export, I would say Sweden normally is a net exporter of electricity.

But during peak times we may import, especially since the system is integrated with Europe. Sweden is integrated with, for example, Germany. That means that if the production cost is lower in Germany, then the German production plant supplies Sweden and vice versa.

So it is an integrated system. It is not really any more a question of—

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

To summarize, European integration of the electrical system is very important. That would be a correct summary, then?

[Peter Öhrström]

Yes.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

My next question is on balance of sources for electricity. It comes from a situation we have in Alberta, where they have expanded their electricity generated from wind, but they're beginning to bump up to limits as far as balancing in their system, balance on the electrical grid, because of the intermittent nature of wind. So here is a very broad question. How do Sweden and Germany try to find the optimal mix of various technologies to balance it out?

I know and understand that wind mixes very, very well with hydro and it doesn't mix quite as well with coal or other things. One, how do you find the maximum blend of sources for electricity? Two, is there an ultimate limit you view as possible for renewables, at which point renewables will tap out and no longer become practical?

Those are my two interrelated questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Who would like to answer that?

[Dr. Christine Wörlen]

I can go first.

In Germany I think, in the very long run, technology will solve it. We have very ambitious targets of building renewable energy plants. The government has just said it wants to build 50% of electricity in 2030, but we know that today already we have trouble integrating this electricity into the electric grid we have now. We now have 14% on an annual average.

The only way to solve it is to develop new technologies, to develop storage technologies, to develop integration with, for example, electric cars or electric mobility. In Germany I think this is seen as a positive challenge in terms of being a technology leader and developing new technologies that help overall solve the problem of both energy security and climate change.

It's policy that tells us where to go and industry that follows.

[Peter Öhrström]

When it comes to the wind industry and the electricity grid, so far it's not really a problem because wind production is way too small in comparison to hydro power in Sweden. So it's not a problem to balance.

There is electricity quality as well, so there is a lot of research in developing smart electricity grids. This is basically done because we want to be able to get more wind power into the system because the wind power is much more difficult to regulate due to the quality of the electricity. The smart electricity grid is one of the reasons. So it's new technology, yes.

The second question I didn't get, actually.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Do I still have time left, Mr. Chairman?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Actually, no, Mr. Trost. We don't have time to go back to that. We have about five minutes left.

Mr. Tonks, if you could take about four minutes, then Mr. Anderson has time for one question.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Madam Wörlen, we're very proud of Bombardier here. They have been running some very creative ads. With your permission, I'm going to suggest they should have a little clip that is a repeat of your comment with respect to Bombardier.

[Dr. Christine Wörlen]

No, please don't.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Okay.

A large component of our energy production is from incineration. There was a comment made, and I'm not sure whether it's in both countries' experience, that incineration has increased with respect to the percentage of the energy components. In Canada, we're having a great deal of opposition to incineration—at least in my area, which is an urbanized area in Toronto. Could you just outline a little how incineration fits into your overall energy strategy?

[Peter Öhrström]

To the strategy, it's very easy because we have waste, garbage, which is a problem. It has to be dumped somewhere; you have to get rid of it. Incineration is a way to get rid of the problem and at the same time produce electricity and heat. If you can do this in an environmentally good way, then this is the best way for society.

The emissions from these modern incineration plants are far less than from a dump. You get problems from a dump, but from the incineration plants you have less emission than you have from a dump, so you reduce emissions, you produce electricity, and you produce heat. So what's the problem, actually?

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

I would invite you to come and listen to the problem.

[Dr. Christine Wörlen]

We had the public acceptance issue in the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1970s our dumps filled up, and we didn't have any more space to add any more, so there was a move to incineration in the 1980s, which stopped in the 1990s because the public opposition was too strong. The government turned to a very detailed and intricate system of recycling. Now we have very low rates of waste that actually have to be dumped. We might have a trash export problem. It's something that's not very openly discussed, so I'm not sure there is none, but there might be one. But we also have very intricate recycling systems.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Chairman, I don't think I framed the question with respect to the percentage of GDP isolated to wind power.

What percentage of the GDP does the total green technology envelope represent in each country in terms of machinery and applications and interfaces?

[Dr. Christine Wörlen]

Every time I look at that number I see that it is disappointingly low, but I couldn't quote it for you, unfortunately. I can pull it up for you.

[Peter Öhrström]

Unfortunately, we don't have the figures from Sweden right here. I'm sorry.