Thank you to all of our witnesses today.
My first bit of questioning is for Mr. Thompson. I'm keeping in mind a couple of the points that I picked up from Mr. Wharton in terms of new generation costs being more than those of existing technologies, an issue not to be taken lightly in terms of determining where the government and where even individual industries invest in what they do. My question will eventually round back to his assessment of hydro being high capital and low operating. I'm just wondering if that will be a similar reality for geothermal.
In the Yukon right now, the interest in geothermal has primarily been focused on heat pump systems. I can think of the town of Mayo as an example for the Na-Cho Nyak Dun First Nation. An investment of about $3 million is going into a project that's going to provide housing energy and efficient, sustainable, low-cost central heating for the houses there.
Currently I know the city of Whitehorse uses low-grade geothermal resources as does Mayo to heat their pipes in the winter to keep them from freezing. There's been an investment in the exploration of an artesian well in Haines Junction for geothermal exploration. Certainly we've been familiar with geothermal energy in the Yukon for a long time with the Takhini Hot Springs and there it is right in front of you. This heat energy is used to heat the buildings but hasn't really exploded, although there's been significant investment by the Canadian government and the territorial government in some geothermal projects in Mayo and Haines Junction.
When you look at the studies, and I'm not sure if you know these well, Mr. Thompson, but the Yukon is estimated to have around 500 to 1,500 megawatts of geothermal energy available for electricity production, which is substantial.
Without straying too far from our innovation aspect of this study, I'm wondering what the future looks like in terms of innovation that may bring down those capital costs. Is that what it will take or is it, in your assessment, purely a political and social drive to move to that geothermal technology that exists there? Or are we going to see some positive innovative shifts that might have the territory move in that direction to maximize those 500 to 1,500 megawatts to take advantage of the approximately 13 geothermal wells right in the Yukon, eight in northern B.C. along the border, and another 18 that are close to the Northwest Territories/Yukon border?
I guess that's all combined with the reality that mining is really exploding up there, an opportunity. So they're looking for more affordable, greener, cleaner ways of providing energy to the mines. It seems like an opportunity that would be ripe for private investment. I know there's not a really specific comment there. This is not a specific question, but I'm wondering if you have any comments on that? Where do you think we go from here?