Natural Resources Committee on Feb. 28th, 2013

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Truckenbrodt, I will go to you.

I wonder if you agree with Mr. Petsinis when he says that government shouldn't be picking winners and losers.

[Dr. Andreas Truckenbrodt]

Absolutely, it's not the government's job.

What he also said in the very beginning was that the car companies are working on all the different technologies because they have their specific applications. Customers will choose them according to their special needs.

The only thing government should make sure of is that there is a level playing field for the various technologies by not picking one above another.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Yes, it's been a very interesting panel today with all of the variety we have here. You can see the competition you have out here and what we as government are dealing with when we try to put you all into our thinking as to where things are going in the future.

I'll stay with you for a moment, please, Mr. Truckenbrodt. With regard to hydrogen infrastructure, we've talked about it being really expensive. I think you said it was a showstopper. We've also heard that natural gas infrastructure is very expensive. Can you put one of those ahead of the other as far as which one you think is going to be most easily commercially adaptable? I hope that's a fair question for you.

[Dr. Andreas Truckenbrodt]

Just to be clear, I said that the expenses or the investment required in hydrogen infrastructure is not a showstopper.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

So it's not a show stopper.

[Dr. Andreas Truckenbrodt]

It is not. It is very difficult to really say which one is more difficult. Both in natural gas and hydrogen, we are talking about gaseous fuels, so the challenges are quite similar.

To your question of whether society will be able to invest in both natural gas infrastructure and hydrogen infrastructure, for us, hydrogen has the huge benefit that at the end of the day it's really a clean zero-emission technology. But there are parts of the natural gas infrastructure that exist. But we believe that hydrogen infrastructure is a necessary investment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Ms. Crockatt. Your time is up.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I didn't want to interrupt Ms. Crockatt during her questioning and I know it wasn't her intention to mislead the committee, but I think the record will reflect that nowhere in my statement did I endorse the Kinder Morgan pipeline project. I simply said that our party does not support the Northern Gateway project.

We're willing to look at other places along the west coast, but I at no time endorsed the Kinder Morgan project.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Okay, Mr. Nicholls, that is debate.

We will go now to Mr. Gravelle, and if there is time left, to Mr. Mai.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you.

I just have a couple of quick questions for Mr. Petsinis and Mr. Truckenbrodt.

It's concerning the money you invest in research and development. Can you tell us how much money your company invests and how much the government invests in the development of electric cars or fuel cells?

[Philip Petsinis]

We have made a specific commitment to the Government of Canada on investing almost a billion dollars in research and development activities on a variety of technologies over a given time period. That is probably not the extent of what we will do.

Again, I'll go back to my theme. There is no silver bullet technology in the vehicle transportation sector. To attain the greenhouse gas reduction objectives as well as to meet customer demands and requirements to facilitate their needs, it really is more of a shotgun approach. You will need to provide these varying technologies to do that.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

You said a billion dollars. So how much does the government invest in R and D development?

[Philip Petsinis]

There are various programs we've utilized. I don't have those figures readily available but we utilize the NSERC programs—

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Can you supply those figures to the committee?

[Philip Petsinis]

I'll have to investigate that from a company perspective to see how we could break that down.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Truckenbrodt, I have the same question.

[Dr. Andreas Truckenbrodt]

Overall, Daimler has invested approximately €1.5 billion in the development of hydrogen fuel cell technology over the last 17 years. That is substantial.

Just in our operations here in the Vancouver area, we are spending approximately $40 million to $50 million every year on this technology, plus the investment that happens in Germany for Daimler and in Japan for Nissan. I do not have those numbers apparently. It's a lot.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

How much does the Canadian government invest?

[Dr. Andreas Truckenbrodt]

As we said before, the Canadian government has some programs running. We currently have an SDTC contribution of 22% to that one project that was $11.5 million from 2010 to 2013.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Have you got some facts and figures that you could table for this committee on the amount of money that the government has given your company for R and D?

[Dr. Andreas Truckenbrodt]

I'll have to collect the numbers and get back to you.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you.

I have one more quick question before I pass off to Mr. Mai.

If we had a Canadian national transportation strategy that included electric cars and fuel cell cars would that be helpful to your companies—or if we had a strategy, period?

[Philip Petsinis]

The U.S. and Canadian governments have established a strategy indirectly via the regulatory process and the greenhouse gas emissions required by vehicles over the 2012-2025 period. In that regulation certain incentives are provided to manufacturers to develop certain types of technologies.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

But that's not a transportation strategy.

[Philip Petsinis]

Infrastructure is the missing link in that strategy, but there is no question that none of these objectives can be achieved without allowing the industry to develop all of these types of advanced technologies. They're leaving it to the industry to pick and choose which ones they want to work on.