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.
Conservative
Greg McLean Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
When you produce this charger, when it's going through the production process, you have copper, you have aluminum. You have all kinds of building that happens. You have construction. You have cables. Everything has to be built. All of these have a CO2 footprint to get towards the location. It's the front-end CO2 expense, if you will.
Do you have any comment on that?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Hyundai Auto Canada Corp.
Understood. Yes, I think it's short term. I think that in the long term, the net impact of putting infrastructure together is going to be a lower carbon footprint and eventually no carbon footprint.
You're absolutely right that in the short term trucks running on gas will be delivering the material necessary to put those chargers in place, but over time those chargers are going to be producing electricity, hopefully from clean energy, that is going to result in a better, lower-carbon footprint for the country.
Conservative
Conservative
Greg McLean Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
Okay.
How much does your electric vehicle weigh compared to comparable non-electric vehicles?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Hyundai Auto Canada Corp.
I will get that information. I was asked that question earlier and I will provide that to you as well. I do not have that at my disposal right now. Sorry.
Liberal
Bryan May Liberal Cambridge, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm going to go back to Mr. Romano for part of my question time.
First of all, it's good to see you. As many on this call know, I co-chair the Liberal auto caucus, and it's great to see a manufacturer on this study, because I think it's an important perspective that we need to address.
I think you're right: I think we have seen a massive evolution in automaking in just the past five years. I remember in my early days as an elected member of Parliament listening to manufacturers explain to us in the auto caucus why this isn't going to work and why electric vehicles are not the future. How quickly that has changed. A lot of that is market driven, but a lot of it is also the reality that we have to do our part to manage climate change.
One of the big issues that we had early on with electric vehicles—and it comes back to infrastructure—was the proprietary nature of charging stations. I know there's been some work to help alleviate that situation, but I'll pose this question as a hypothetical. Imagine having a gas engine vehicle and pulling up to a gas station and realizing that you can't pump gas at that gas station because it has a triangular nozzle versus a hexagonal nozzle. To me, that's how silly this problem is.
Can you speak to that a bit? Has the industry solved that problem? When it comes to hydrogen, is that also going to be a problem, or have we learned from that issue?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Hyundai Auto Canada Corp.
We have a standard for hydrogen. We do not have a standard for electric vehicles that has been adopted by all manufacturers, but there are adapters that are bridging that problem.
I think the bigger issue right now is that we don't.... The people providing the charging infrastructure all require sign-ups. People have to enrol, which means that if you're driving down the highway and you want to use a ChargePoint, you have to be a ChargePoint customer. You can't take a Visa card and swipe it and get your charge. That becomes just one more obstacle limiting the adoption of EVs. Eventually, we need to have all chargers operate in a fashion similar to a gas station pump, where any credit card we use, any bank card we use, can be utilized to charge those cars.
That just isn't the case today. Right now, there are no standards out there for that type of service. I think part of the building of the infrastructure will require those standards to be put in place.
Liberal
Bryan May Liberal Cambridge, ON
Is this something that the industry needs to solve, or do governments need to step in and say that they want to support the building of this infrastructure, but that there are barriers that seem to be an industry issue?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Hyundai Auto Canada Corp.
I believe the industry will solve those problems, but I think government support in encouraging greater utilization of chargers—fast chargers, DC chargers—throughout the country will accelerate the adoption of EVs in general by the population.
Liberal
Bryan May Liberal Cambridge, ON
Mr. Moore, I saw you nodding your head when I was asking the question. I was wondering if you had anything to add to that.
Vice-President, Investor Relations, Government Relations and Sustainability, Air Products Inc.
No. I was just happy to hear the acknowledgement that the hydrogen industry has a standard for dispensing fuel into the vehicles, which is obviously very important.
Liberal
Bryan May Liberal Cambridge, ON
Are there other issues—maybe awareness issues—that you guys are focusing on? I was looking at your website earlier, and one of the key messages is a focus on safety. In terms of reaching out to your customers, is that something that we've heard, that people are concerned about the safety of hydrogen?
Vice-President, Investor Relations, Government Relations and Sustainability, Air Products Inc.
I would say that we have not heard that people are particularly concerned about the safety of hydrogen.
I think everybody should bring a respect to using any type of energy source, whether that be gasoline, diesel, a battery or hydrogen, and we're very comfortable that when hydrogen is handled by people who have experience, they follow the safety protocols. It's a very safe product, and we handle and transport it every day.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Thank you, Mr. May.
We're moving on to Mr. Simard for two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Mario Simard Bloc Jonquière, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to make a quick comment to my friend Mr. McLean. The activity sector that wastes taxpayer's money may not be transportation electrification, but rather oil. The oil industry has been given $24 billion over the past four years. Just in the budget we studied, $560 million is earmarked for the oil sector. I don't think the transportation electrification industry is receiving that kind of money.
I have a question for Mr. Roy.
I took note of a statistic Mr. Pocard brought up. He was telling us that a bus using blue hydrogen as fuel had an 83% reduction in emissions, compared with diesel, and that, if that same bus was electric, the emissions reduction would be only 50%. That may apply in Alberta, but it certainly does not apply in Quebec. Given the transportation electrification in Quebec and Lion Electric's bus project, let's say that our emissions are well below those that may have been calculated for Alberta.
Would you agree in saying that calculating emissions certainly depends on the available and usable sources of energy? In that sense, Quebec is at a different level than the other Canadian provinces.
Professor, HEC Montréal, As an Individual
A distinction must be made.
In terms of emissions from vehicle operations, all vehicles with an electric engine are zero emission.
In terms of the source of energy, in Quebec, hydrogen is produced using electricity—the green hydrogen we are familiar with. When the hydrogen is blue, Mr. Moore says that it is possible to produce hydrogen where 95% of the CO2 would be captured. So that is within 5% of the zero-emission goal.
Those are the two aspects we can comment on. As for the rest, such as the manufacturing of vehicles, battery recycling and that entire cycle, extensive studies are clearly required.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Thank you, Mr. Simard. I'm going to have to stop you there, unfortunately.
Mr. Cannings, we're going over to you.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Thank you.
I'd like to go back to Mr. Moore.
Earlier Monsieur Simard was talking about the differences between green and blue hydrogen and whether we want to use those colours or not. I know your project in Alberta involves carbon capture and storage, but I'm not sure if I heard you mention whether that project involves storage that uses enhanced oil recovery, as most carbon capture and storage projects do in North America.
The fact is that projects using enhanced oil recovery start out as carbon negative because they're storing carbon, but over a period of years, six to 10—I forget the exact number of studies in the United States—they turn carbon positive. I'm wondering if your industry has factored that in or whether you're not using enhanced oil recovery.
Vice-President, Investor Relations, Government Relations and Sustainability, Air Products Inc.
Thank you very much.
Again, for this net-zero project, we expect the CO2 to be sequestered, not used for enhanced oil recovery.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Thank you. That's the main question I had, because I do have concerns, and a lot of people have concerns, about carbon capture that does involve enhanced oil recovery. In fact, most of the 45Q investments in the United States are used for those kinds of projects, and that's the concern I had with Mr. McLean's bill.
I'll go back to Mr. Romano.
The Conservative narrative here seems to be that this can't work and that this shift to electric or hydrogen vehicles can't happen. Can you comment on the period of time when there is a carbon footprint of the production of the vehicles and when that footprint shifts to positive? How long is the period for an electric vehicle until it becomes truly carbon negative?