Natural Resources Committee on May 7th, 2021

[Jean-François Samray]

I feel that it can mean a lot. First, Quebec, like a number of other regions in Canada, has access to green electricity. The regions that do not have that access are beginning to get it. The cost of solar and wind energy is also now clearly lower than the energy produced by coal-fired plants.

For Quebec, having access to green electricity producing green hydrogen makes it possible to use the residual CO2 from paper mills, which is biogenic CO2 most of the time, and to combine the hydrogen molecule with the green CO2 molecule to produce biofuels as well.

Having the hydrolysis take place and the biofuels produced right on the paper mills' premises would enhance those sites and achieve the Government of Canada's objectives. By so doing, we would be killing two birds with one stone.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Samray.

As I have a little time left, I'd like to ask Mr. Kumar a quick question.

Mr. Kumar, in your presentation, you talked about the difficulty of reaching the economic optimum size for biomass.

Could you explain what you mean by “optimum size” in more detail?

[Dr. Amit Kumar]

When we talk about biomass utilization, we look at forest or field-based biomass. What I mean by forest-based biomass is this: Let's say that you're looking at forest residues. You have these in the forest. You have to bring these to a location to process them and convert them into different fuels. It is similar for straw. You have to bring straw to a centralized location and then convert it into different types of products and fuels.

The challenge is that if you look at biofuels, the cost of producing liquid fuel or gas or any product is directly related to what the area is that you are trying to bring it into, so that the overall cost of production for a smaller size of biomass facility is much higher. If you are using biomass—let's say 100,000 tonnes compared with half a million tonnes—the dollar-per-litre cost of production of fuels or chemicals is much lower for a size that is at a larger scale, such as half a million tonnes.

The optimum is scale. What I mean by that is the maximum size at which the cost of production is minimal. A lot of these facilities that you see today exist on the smaller side, so the cost of production is higher. If you get to an optimum scale, you can bring down the overall cost of production. That potential is there in Canada because you have large amounts of this biomass available. You could build to scale to where you could get the maximum benefit from economies of scale.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

So, in a word, Mr. Kumar, it means that we would need plants with a high capacity to be able to use biomass optimally.

Do I understand correctly?

[Dr. Amit Kumar]

You would need the large capacity of the plant. These plants.... It's not as if capacity is what they're not doing today. If you look at the forest industry today, you have plants that are at the scale of 700,000 tonnes or even a million tonnes per year. They are processing that scale. If you get to a scale with a larger scale—

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thanks, Dr. Kumar. I'm going to have to stop you there.

[Dr. Amit Kumar]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

We'll go over to Mr. Cannings.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you.

I want to continue with Dr. Kumar, talking about the life cycle of greenhouse gas footprint analyses of various feedstocks. You mentioned how the jurisdiction might play a role.

I have a company in my riding that has plans under way to build renewable natural gas plants using forest waste feedstocks. I'm wondering if you could comment on the life-cycle analysis for that type of renewable natural gas from forest waste feedstocks. How does it compare with regular natural gas? What is the actual footprint for, say, a plant in British Columbia, if you could come up with a number?

[Dr. Amit Kumar]

Typically, if we look at the life cycle of any of these feedstocks, especially when you're using biomass—let's say forest biomass—if you're using it for producing renewable natural gas, the key aspect that goes into the emissions and contributes to the overall life-cycle emissions.... For forest biomass, you're looking at emissions associated with harvesting and transportation, and then at conversion emissions. With regard to most of the typical emissions up to delivery to the plant, you'd look at their being in the range of about, I would say, 5% to 10% of the overall emissions that you are producing.

If I compare this with, let's say, the typical natural gas-based emissions, you are still looking at a reduction of 60% to 70% of the GHG emissions after you take into account the fossil fuel that goes into bringing this biomass to the centralized plant.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you.

Also, I'm not sure if you mentioned it in your testimony, but I know that you've done some analysis of the possible life-cycle analysis for creating biohydrogen from these same feedstocks. I'm just wondering if you could comment on that and the viability of those processes to create hydrogen. We're hearing a lot about hydrogen these days.

Do you want to expand on that?

[Dr. Amit Kumar]

Yes. You could produce biohydrogen from a range of these different biomass feedstocks. When I refer to these feedstocks, they could be wheat, straw, the whole tree biomass or forest residues. Then there are different processes for how you can produce this hydrogen, which could be based on gasification or pyrolysis. The typical range of the cost of production that you are looking at is about $3 to $4 per kilogram of hydrogen. If I compare this with the typical cost of natural gas or SMR-based hydrogen production, you are still looking at a twofold to threefold higher cost compared to natural gas.

In terms of GHG emissions, if you look at the GHG emissions for biomass feedstocks and any biohydrogen compared to natural gas, they are much lower. You are looking at a significant reduction in those numbers, especially on the forest side. People talk about hydrogen from SMR, but they integrate CCS—carbon capture and storage—to produce blue hydrogen. We call that natural gas-based hydrogen “blue hydrogen”. If you compare that with the biomass—so SMR and CCS with biomass—you're looking at an almost 50% reduction in the case of the biomass-based hydrogen. Those are the kinds of hydrogen production numbers that we have come up with for a range of different feedstocks.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Just getting back to the previous line of questioning, what is the availability of these materials to produce hydrogen? How much of the hydrogen market could you take up—or the renewable natural gas market? The people who are doing these plants in my riding seem to think that they have far more material to work with than they could actually use. I'm just wondering if you could comment on that.

[Dr. Amit Kumar]

If you think about a tonne of biomass, a tonne of biomass can give you about 83 kilograms of hydrogen. In my remarks, I said that there is a significant amount in terms of the million tonnes of biomass that are available. Just as forest residue, there are 20 million tonnes. You will have to do a little bit of calculation, but I think you can look at about 83 kilograms, so you could still produce a significant amount of hydrogen.

It's not that you will meet all the demands for hydrogen, but it would be a contributor to the overall demand for hydrogen or renewable natural gas.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, do I have much time?

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

You have 20 seconds.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Then I will just thank you, and I will cede my time.

[Dr. Amit Kumar]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you, Mr. Cannings. I appreciate that.

We're moving into the second round, a round of five minutes each, starting with Mr. Zimmer.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Thank you, everybody.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have several questions, actually, for Dr. Kumar.

I've been looking at some of your research, and you're definitely well-researched and know the topic very well. You talk about life-cycle emissions, and I guess I have a couple of questions about how you measure life-cycle emissions. At what point do you start the process? At what time does that process start? Can you just go over how you measure life-cycle emissions?

[Dr. Amit Kumar]

Let's pick a product. We were discussing hydrogen, so let's pick hydrogen.

If you have to produce hydrogen from biomass—and let's pick a feedstock, forest biomass, which is forest residue—first you have to estimate what the emissions are associated with each of the unit operations that go into bringing the feedstock to the plant. What I mean by that is, if you look at logging residue today, the forest industry cuts a tree and drags it to the roadside. The limbs and the tops of those trees stay there on the roadside, and they take the main stem.

If you want to use this residue to produce hydrogen, you'll take into account the amount of energy that you need in piling this, forwarding it to a pile, chipping it and transporting it to the plant. You are including all the emissions associated with forwarding, piling and transporting.

The conversion emissions are also taken into account, when you look at life-cycle emissions. What is the energy going into the plant to produce the hydrogen?

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

That's what I thought it was, too, so I'm going to ask you for some specifics.

One thing is that, as Conservatives, we are definitely supportive of the renewables sector. I think of geothermal, a project that's in my riding. Any kind of way we can use the natural energy of our planet without producing emissions is a great thing. We are also concerned about the overall, as you say, life-cycle emissions—the comparables.

We have a lot of Canadian natural gas, especially in my neck of the woods in northern B.C. Can you, though, do a direct comparison of the life-cycle emissions of natural gas as it comes out of the ground—a quantity there—with that of renewable natural gas?

Can you do the comparison for us—just a simple comparison, emission to emission?

[Dr. Amit Kumar]

You have to take the natural gas, let's say, to produce heat and power. The biggest difference comes in with the combustion emissions that you take. In any life cycle of these fuels, if you look at the combustion portion of the fuel, that's about 70% to 80% of the whole life cycle. In cases of—

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Do you have a number that says natural gas produces so and so many emissions? It depends, obviously, on what it's being used for, whether it's heating or for whatever product you're making. Just in general, typically in Canada we use it for heating our homes.

Do you have a direct comparison of the emissions from natural gas out of the ground—naturally occurring natural gas—compared with renewable natural gas?

[Dr. Amit Kumar]

Some of the numbers—