Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My name is Ray Won, and I'm here with Wayne Wissing. We're privileged to have this opportunity to meet with your committee to discuss a most important topic, that being opportunities in CO2 reductions while creating a sought-after product for the European Union and Far East markets. Before starting our presentation, I'd like to provide a quick preamble on why the two of us are here as witnesses.
Over the past six years, Wayne and I have had numerous conversations on renewable energy solutions for Canada. Many of these conversations were a result of Wayne's observations and experiences gained through annual visits to Europe. Through these visits, he saw first-hand how Europe was adopting, and in many cases leading, the alternative energy movement. Wayne's professional engineering background lent itself well to analyzing many technical aspects of the observed solutions, and gave him the ability to envisage how they could be adopted by Canada.
Canada has adopted a number of renewable energy solutions across our nation. The first was the burning of felled trees, using the wood for heating and cooking. Today we also use some methane gas and wood waste products. The burning of biomass materials may be for direct heat, such as in wood-burning stoves and furnaces, or for boiling water, which generates the steam required to drive the turbines that produce electricity. As of 2014, Canada produced 2,043 megawatts of electricity through biomass technologies.
For decades, Canada has been blessed with hundreds of lakes and streams that supply hydro power. British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, and Newfoundland are the primary producers of hydroelectricity. Canada is therefore the world's second-largest producer of renewable power using hydro's kinetic energy. This equates to 378.8 terawatts.
Though the uptake of wind energy and solar was slower in Canada than in other developed nations, we have seen significant growth in these sectors. As of 2014, Canada produced 9,694 megawatts of wind energy, followed by 1,843 megawatts of solar energy. Rounding out the list, we have geothermal generation and will soon have ocean wave and tide generation.
It is now accepted that renewable energy is not the real question. It's how we transport and store the generated electricity when the winds don't blow and the sun doesn't shine. This moves us into the discussion of the battery and the many forms it can take.
Today's presentation will focus on a number of important points. We trust that our discussions will answer the questions that the committee sent beforehand.
At this time I'd like to turn the floor over to Wayne. Sometimes my job is to take some of these many thoughts he has and distill them into something that is more understandable. If you see me nudge him, you'll know that I'm on that track of trying to get him to get to the point.
Thanks very much.