Natural Resources Committee on April 18th, 2013

[Jonathan Will]

It emits and it recaptures.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

But does it put CO2 into the atmosphere? That's my question. What does “emitting” mean? What does “non-emitting” mean?

[Jonathan Will]

Biomass, when it grows, absorbs carbon dioxide. Then when you produce energy with it, it releases it. But then when it grows back, it regenerates. It recaptures it.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Right. But when you talk about 75% or more being non-emitting, I think of hydro and things like that. But is biomass part of your non-emitting budget?

[Jonathan Will]

Yes, it's a small amount. It represents 1.4% of total electricity, and it would be that portion of the 77%.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

One always sees reference to geothermal and marine energy, and the great potential of these energies. Are they still at pilot-project levels, or are significant amounts of energy being generated in Canada from these sources?

[Jonathan Will]

Geothermal currently is in demonstration phases. There are no large commercial operations for the generation of electricity. In terms of the other example....

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

It's marine.

[Jonathan Will]

In terms of marine, there have been a few pilot projects done by industry. The federal government is working toward developing a framework for managing Canadian offshore wind.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Is it your opinion that geothermal and marine forms of renewable energy are slated to grow dramatically? Or is this going to be one of those things for which we'll never really get past 1% or something like that?

[Jonathan Will]

They have significant potential. The issue is how the cost curves of all these various technologies evolve over time and whether they become cost-competitive. There's a competition among renewables themselves as well as against conventional sources of electricity generation such as hydro and natural gas. So it really depends on the assumptions and the progress that's made in reducing costs. You clearly see the cost reductions from some of these technologies. It just becomes a question of when they will reach parity with other things. But premium electricity companies are willing to put on alternate sources.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

I understand that. In practical terms, what's your opinion of how far away geothermal is from being widely used?

[Jonathan Will]

Generally, in terms of electricity, the costs in most applications are currently not competitive with other sources.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Are they really not competitive, or are they approaching it? I'm sure it's technically feasible; it's been done. Is it really 30 years into the future, 50 years into the future?

[Jonathan Will]

There are some limited applications that would be sooner than that, but on a wide scale it is likely to remain small.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Garneau.

We go now to Mr. Allen, followed by Mr. Trost, and then the NDP, briefly.

Go ahead, Mr. Allen.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to follow my line of questioning a little bit on natural gas and exports, but I couldn't help but make an observation, Mr. Chair, about some of the questioning by the NDP—and I typically don't lob a political comment in every now and then, but today I feel I need to. I'm shocked by all the questions being asked on further investment. If we put more investment into the oil companies' marketing in these other countries, I can't imagine we'd be called for subsidizing big oil by the opposition.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

The position should be somewhat consistent, I would hope.

I'll continue on natural gas, given that I was just given gas.

On the projection in your chart on slide 7, can you talk about the source of the bump in natural gas production in the 2020 range in the regions of Canada where we see that?

I also noted your chart on page 21, where you show the consumption and domestic supply of gas going to the U.S. Do you have an overlay of the demand curve for Canada that corresponds with this supply chart on page 7?

[Jeff Labonté]

The predominant bump in slide 7 is the coming-on-strength shale gas and unconventional gas development. Much of it is tight and shale gas, just to be accurate about it.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Do you have locations for that?

[Jeff Labonté]

The majority of the locations listed there are in western Canada. They continue to be in western Canada.

Most of the projections recognize the potential in eastern Canadian provinces but recognize that there isn't a regulatory context nor a context that supports the development of those resources at this point in time.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Do you also have the domestic demand curve to apply to that?

[Jeff Labonté]

I'm just going to reference that. I'll try to be quick here.

Is this the U.S. demand curve?