Evidence of meeting #33 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 vehicles.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Professor, HEC Montréal, As an Individual
That's a very tough question.
We know the cost is diminishing—the cost of production, the cost of hydrogen, and so on. Nobody knows exactly when. Consultants claim it will be by 2030, but we'll have to wait and see.
If I may add, there was a survey in 1975 claiming that 10% of cars in the streets would be electric vehicles. That was a long time ago, and it was completely wrong. It's always difficult to make forecasts on energy for the future.
Liberal
Patrick Weiler Liberal West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
Absolutely, and I appreciate that.
One of the areas we haven't talked much about is the marine side. Canada is, of course, a trading nation, and in many respects our ports are ideally located to ship to Asia and also to Europe.
I live near the busiest port in Canada, one of the busiest in North America. I was hoping to first ask Mr. Roy and then Mr. Pocard about some of the opportunities you see in that sector, as well as with drayage and doing freight in and around ports.
Professor, HEC Montréal, As an Individual
Yes, there are already drayage projects in Los Angeles, where both battery electric trucks and hydrogen trucks are in use as experiments.
In terms of marine use, there are ferries that run on hydrogen. They are built in Norway. This I see as a future.
When you talk about exports using marine, again, Germany is a big market. There was a conference on March 15, and they're begging for hydrogen. They are ready to import hydrogen from Canada. I think that as a federal government, you should really look into this as an opportunity for the Canadian economy.
Vice-President Marketing , Ballard Power Systems Inc.
I would like to add to that. Ports represent a really great opportunity to deploy hydrogen, because you have the drayage trucks. We are pushing our products in the port of Vancouver so we should see, hopefully, some drayage trucking operation shortly.
You have the yard trucks in the port. A lot of vehicles operate in the ports, and those vehicles are similarly operating on hydrogen in California ports and also in Europe.
The last are the vessels. The marine vessels are a bit more challenging because of their size and their certification.
What we have at Ballard today are six projects for ships that are being built using hydrogen, and solar ships. We are looking at ferries for passengers or barges for inland navigation. It's a beginning where we can see the growing role of hydrogen. Actually, we see more and more shipyard operators coming to us and saying, “We need to reduce our emissions. How can hydrogen play a role in that? What is the role of fuel cells?”
There is a really big change that we have noticed in that sector, I would say, in the past 18 months.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Weiler.
Unfortunately, that's all the time we have today. All good things must come to an end, and this was a very good meeting with excellent witnesses and great information. Thank you to all of you. We really appreciate it.
We must conclude the meeting now and go to our other duties in the House of Commons. Thank you all.
We'll see you Friday.
The meeting is adjourned.