Evidence of meeting #19 for Natural Resources in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was minerals.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
12:30 p.m.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Thank you.
I'll turn to Mr. Cleary and talk about hydrogen again and what the government can do there.
I was talking to someone in the hydrogen sector a couple of days ago. First, she pointed out that Canada has a tremendous amount of technical know-how when it comes to hydrogen in the world. We're one of the leading technical hydrogen countries around. However, to build out that innovation, we need real infrastructure, infrastructure to move the hydrogen and so on. She likened it to the government building the infrastructure for roads or building the infrastructure for electric transmission lines.
This is something that these hydrogen companies can't afford to do on their own. This is something the government could really help with.
I wonder if you could comment on where you think the federal government could really help in terms of taking on some of the actual infrastructure problems faced by a lot of the new clean energy projects, specifically with hydrogen.
12:35 p.m.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, BlackRock Metals Inc.
It's a good question, and it's a tough one.
We have utilities that deliver natural gas and we have reforming technologies that allow us to take natural gas to produce hydrogen. That's where I think we should start in terms of a plan, which is to focus on those industries that are willing and able to take and produce great hydrogen as a first step and then backfill to either incent those companies to do carbon capture, so that we're using effectively blue hydrogen, and then finally to work with the electrical utilities. For example, in Quebec, Hydro-Québec has now created a hydrogen unit.
This has been slow going and it's only in the last year or two that it's really gotten under way. We need more emphasis on this, because if we can show that we're going to deliver commercial levels of hydrogen to industry, then the rest of the hydrogen strategy can follow that because you'll have volumes of hydrogen being used. That's where we have to get to. It starts with industry. It starts with the existing infrastructure, the natural gas. Then it's utilizing carbon capture, moving to electrolysis and electricity generated. A lot of the same infrastructure can be used in terms of the gas utilities.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Greg McLean Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
Thank you. I thought we were going to finish that round, Mr. Chair.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
This is the same round. I just wanted to make sure we got the full round in.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Greg McLean Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
Thank you very much.
I'll go back to Mr. Blondal at Nano One.
Mr. Blondal, I understand that you are creating a process or a material that will do away with cobalt as a cathode for batteries. Is this correct?
12:35 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Nano One Materials Corp.
We actually work on a variety of different cathode materials, and one of them does have no cobalt in it. That is correct.
12:35 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Nano One Materials Corp.
I would say it's probably two to four years away, depending on commercial adoption in various regions around the world.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Greg McLean Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
As an ESG alternative, lower cobalt would be a huge step forward. I thank you very much for pursuing that. Congratulations on your recent financing. It went very well, I understand.
I'll move back to Mr. Breton.
Mr. Breton, we talked about the electricity system and how we're going to have to build it going forward. I didn't hear your choice about how that actually has to be built and where we are going to get that power, given the fact that we're going to have to consume about twice as much power in a static scenario in the next 30 years with all the applications coming online here.
As we replace power, what do we replace that with?
12:35 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Electric Mobility Canada
As I said before, since electric mobility takes a lot less energy than gas or diesel vehicles, we won't have to double the amount of energy that we have to use now for electricity. Because of vehicle-to-grid and vehicle-to-home, what we'll be able to do is be a lot more efficient with our energy.
As I mentioned earlier—I don't know if you heard that—the electric grid right now is not as smart as it could be. With those systems, because most of the people are charging at night—
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Greg McLean Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
I did hear this. I understand this. Nevertheless, we're going to need more power at the end of the day. You're telling me we won't need more hydroelectricity and we won't need more uranium. We're just going to fumble through with a more efficient system.
12:35 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Electric Mobility Canada
It's both. We will need more energy, but not that much more energy to compensate. Since electric mobility is so much more efficient than gas mobility—
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Greg McLean Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
Thank you.
We do need more energy. Can you tell me where it's going to come from?
12:40 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Electric Mobility Canada
As I said, more wind power, more water power, more solar power. The price of that energy is going down really quickly. I don't know if you heard that there was a wind power project accepted in Alberta that was just over 3.4¢ per kilowatt hour. With these new projects linked with geothermal energy, vehicle-to-grid, vehicle-to-home and more hydro power, we'll be able to have affordable energy, cleaner energy, and it will be more than sufficient to meet the demand.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Thank you, Mr. Breton, and thank you, Mr. McLean.
Last up is Mr. Sidhu for three minutes or less, if he feels so disposed.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
Maninder Sidhu Liberal Brampton East, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for being here today.
I want to give everybody the opportunity to chime in here. I know that some of the answers were cut off due to a lack of time. If anybody wants to add anything else, we're talking about a very interesting topic here, and I just wanted to give the witnesses an opportunity to add to their answers.
Go ahead, Mr. Breton.
12:40 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Electric Mobility Canada
As other people have mentioned, I think we need a national electric mobility strategy going from mining, materials, metals, supply chains and the whole supply chain, so that we can have a clear vision of where we are going for the future of Canada. Right now, we don't have that strategy. We have a hydrogen strategy, which makes total sense, but we need an electric mobility strategy so that we have a national vision for the creation of jobs, for the transition in jobs and obviously for a good transition to lower greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution in Canada.
12:40 p.m.
Director, Regulation and Public Policy, Propulsion Québec
Yes, just to add to what Mr. Breton said, and also to follow up on what Mr. Blondal and Mr. Cleary said, the importance here is to do some kind of SWOT analysis—strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats—map the whole supply chain and then say, okay, for those weaknesses we have, we need to build and work on R and D projects. As well, for those threats and opportunities, we need to focus investment there and stimulate those areas where we have the most potential to develop our supply chain.
As Mr. Blondal was saying, doing so is most likely to be focused on CAM production—cathode active materials—and also on cell making. By doing that, you will be providing clients to those upstream and facilitating market access to upstream projects such as mining projects. This is how Europe has been developing its supply chain and, in my view, that's how we should be developing it.
Thank you.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Thank you.
Mr. Blondal had his hand up. Then we can move over to Ms. Houde.
12:40 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Nano One Materials Corp.
Yes. Maybe I'll just echo that same thing.
We believe that integrating the supply chain is going to create the kind of demand we need for the critical minerals within Canada. Certainly by integrating we can also make it more efficient, clean it up, green it up and make ourselves a very competitive clean technology supply chain throughout the world. Integration is really required there. In our mind, piloting that integration is really key. That goes from mining to refining to conversion to cathode, all the way through to the cell production. That's where we look to the government for support.
Thank you.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal