Mr. Chair, and members of the committee, I also run a clean energy company and we're the largest producer of geothermal power in Canada. Geothermal takes the earth's heat and either makes electricity from it, which needs very high heat pools in the earth, or makes space heat to heat rooms like this, which requires much lower temperature earth heat resources.
We produce electricity in Iceland and the United States from geothermal heat. You need really hot temperatures. You need all kinds of things to work together. It's a very risky, very high-cost business. Typically it doesn't work in Canada. We just don't have the right resources in Canada to make geothermal electricity. However, geothermal heat can and will be used as a core part of our low-carbon future across the country, taking advantage of the fact that if you drill a hole 100 feet down in the earth, everywhere it will generate heat that can be used to heat buildings and mines and communities. Over time, it's going to be a growing source of energy generation in Canada for space heat, which is a big chunk of our energy requirements. It's a slow business, but I see that it will definitely increase in use.
As for geothermal electricity, I think we should forget about it. It's just not economic today. I can tell you that from a lot of experience at the school of hard knocks and a lot of bruises I got. I blew a lot of money in that business before I came to that realization.