Evidence of meeting #64 for Natural Resources in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was nuclear.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
No, it certainly is. All information is helpful here.
Mr. Rovang, would you like to come in on that as well? Being on this side of the border, maybe you'd like to talk about the SR and ED tax credit as part of that.
5:15 p.m.
Manager of Research and Development, Syncrude
Certainly, our research and development efforts, which we conduct, are submitted to SR and ED. In addition, if there are research and development qualified activities that are conducted in our operations, we will also consider and submit those, if appropriate. How it mechanically works is this flows through to our owners as tax credits, but it's certainly one of the items that does help to encourage research and development activities.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Mr. Gilleland, I'm going to start with you on this one, but just very briefly, because I only have a few minutes left.
Earlier, you mentioned the term “carbon sequestration”. Pardon my ignorance—I'm a guest here on this panel today—but I do remember some heavy investments into carbon sequestration. There was a great amount of interest in Europe about it. I just want to get your opinion on where we are with that now.
Is it something that is stagnant, or is it, pardon the expression, full steam ahead?
5:15 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, TerraPower
My impression—and please take it as an impression, since I haven't look at it for a while—is that it is somewhat stagnant. But I would not like to present this as the latest information. That would be five years ago.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
So it's not as prominent to you as it once was?
5:15 p.m.
Manager of Research and Development, Syncrude
Is the question at hand the one with respect to sequestration?
5:15 p.m.
Manager of Research and Development, Syncrude
We are interested, and we partner with others for research in that area. We don't directly conduct research at our facility, but we do participate with others. Currently, we are concentrating our resources on a process efficiency that in turn directly reduces emissions, instead of having to sequester them once they are produced. It's certainly an area of interest.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Is that something the federal government has invested in heavily, or is it your own investment?
5:15 p.m.
Manager of Research and Development, Syncrude
At this point, I would say it's our own investment, but it is leveraged through work with others. By working collectively with others, we essentially leverage our effort, resources, and expenditures.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
That's not bad.
I want to talk to Mr. Rovang for just a moment.
Syncrude collaborates extensively with academia, with the universities. To that extent, how much do you consult with the public as well?
5:15 p.m.
Manager of Research and Development, Syncrude
That's an interesting question. I want to answer it in two parts. First, I just want to touch on the collaboration with academia and universities for a second, because a significant part of that is the involvement of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council. Basically, the chairs at the university that we participate in are also partially funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council. I guess it's an indirect answer to your question initially, but if you like, the public funds and moneys are actually also supporting those university chairs, so that's the tie-in.
With public consultation, there are different processes in which what is important to the public enters our specific research and development activities. An example I may have mentioned earlier was that public stakeholder desire for more rapid and effective reclamation is translating directly into our efforts. As I mentioned, we have a high degree of environmental research. Over the years, we have shifted from some of our fundamentals. For example, bitumen production research, while still a key component, is no longer nearly as large as our tailings and environmental research, which are both demanded of us as a company—it's something we want to do—from a regulatory perspective and also from a public stakeholder perspective. We do receive feedback and react to that.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
Thank you, Mr. Rovang.
Thank you, Mr. Simms.
As the members can see, we have the bells going for votes. We'll take about another five minutes. I think that has been agreed to.
Mr. Leef and Ms. Crockatt can divide that five minutes between them as they wish.
Please, go ahead.
5:20 p.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
Actually, we had agreed to 10 minutes. The bells are for 5:45, so it was to go right to the end.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Joan Crockatt Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
Mr. Gilleland, you are talking about fourth-generation reactors. I just wanted to ask you a little bit more about that. According to my information, it will take at least 15 to 20 years before one could actually be built. Is that what you are working with too? It looks as though your timeframe is a little shorter than that.
5:20 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, TerraPower
Yes, our timeframe is shorter. We hope that by 2023 we could have a prototype up and running. I can't warrant that date, but we are that optimistic because the particular concept is a variation on reactors that have been built before. We found that innovation can lead you to adopt some things that exist and do new things with them. That's our approach. There are other concepts that aren't planned to be online until 2050. There are a number of concepts like that as well, including some of our own.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Joan Crockatt Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
I really appreciate your moral cause, that you want to bring energy to people who don't have power right now. But I wonder whether you're going to be able to secure a social licence to operate by putting a nuclear reactor in third world countries.
Have you given consideration to that?