Natural Resources Committee on April 25th, 2022

[Daniel Breton]

Okay. I'm sorry.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you very much.

We'll now go to Mr. Simard for two and a half minutes.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I noticed the beautiful love affair between my colleague Mr. McLean and Mr. Breton. I just want to point out that if Mr. McLean wishes to talk about public funds being squandered unnecessarily, he should look to the oil and gas sector. He would find more valid points there.

I have a question for Mr. Keefer. As we know, the Point Lepreau overhaul has gone about $3 billion over budget.

Do you know how much one kilowatt hour generated by hydroelectricity costs compared to one kilowatt hour generated by nuclear power? Do you have any numbers on that?

[Dr. Christopher Keefer]

Thank you for the question, Mario.

I don't have data precisely on New Brunswick. I think it's important to remember that nuclear plants were built instead of coal and gas plants. Our Pickering nuclear station was built instead of a four-gigawatt coal plant. I'm not sure what would have been built instead of Point Lepreau. We should look at that. I'll bet you that it was coal.

You heard my colleague; he gave you the numbers for here in Ontario. Nuclear is the second-cheapest source of electricity after hydro, so I think it's a very good investment for New Brunswick to make. Point Lepreau had a refurbishment. That plant is going to be operating into the 2040s, 2050s, providing air pollution-free, carbon-free energy for the people of New Brunswick that is reliable.

I can get back to you on the numbers on it. I am not an expert on New Brunswick nuclear. But thank you for the question.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

I wonder if Mr. Richards has any figures that would help us compare the cost of hydroelectricity to that of nuclear power in Quebec.

[Chad Richards]

Through you, Mr. Chair, to the honourable member, I don't have numbers specific to Quebec or New Brunswick.

In Ontario, using data from the 2021 Ontario Energy Board total unit supply costs, hydroelectric power in Ontario was about six cents per kilowatt hour. Combined to nuclear, it was 8.9¢ per kilowatt hour.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

I will let Mr. Morrice ask the final question.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

It will have to be very briefly.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

We have the numbers already. The forecast from the small modular reactor road map steering committee is that the first SMR won't go online until 2030, and at 16.3¢ per kilowatt hour. Quebec is currently selling to New York at 5¢ per kilowatt hour.

If we're going to take urgent action on climate change in the most cost-effective way, what is your response to these kinds of figures?

[Dr. Christopher Keefer]

Quebec, as we heard from our friend involved in the electric vehicle fleet, is going to need to use a lot more of its own electricity. We would be shameless, I think, to freeload off that generation that they've built in Quebec. We each need to take responsibility for our own climate solutions.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

If I can just—

[Dr. Christopher Keefer]

No, no. I—

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Sorry, this is my time.

Quebec is selling their—

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Actually, we're out of time, if we're going to play that.

Now I'm going to go to Mr. Angus, and he'll get his last two and a half minutes.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Kirby, I want to turn to you.

If this was 2006, this would be a great conversation. We could plan and we would have lots of time ahead of us. But I'm looking at the IPCC that says that in five years we have to have a serious plan.

We need stuff that we can pretty much take off the shelf and get up and running. It's why I question small modular reactors. None of them have been approved yet, and we're hearing 2030 maybe at the earliest.

For hydrogen, what's it going to take to get this technology? Is this another pie in the sky thing that we're going to have to spend billions on and try out a whole bunch of ideas, or can we get hydrogen up and running in the next few years? What would it take?

[Mark Kirby]

Hydrogen is certainly not pie in the sky. It's already a very major industry.

I understand that there is a debate on what source of power we get it from. However, hydrogen complements them all. If you're making nuclear, you can try to produce power, heat and hydrogen. If you're talking renewables and wind and solar, you can use the hydrogen to help smooth the band and provide additional value to them. If you're talking fossil fuels and a just transition for the fossil fuel sector, you can produce hydrogen and sequester or manage the carbon and allow that industry to continue thriving.

My personal view is that we're going to need all of these solutions. As you mentioned, we have a very short period of time—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I get that, but are you able to do it now?

[Mark Kirby]

We can start making hydrogen now. We are making hydrogen. We're one of the largest clean hydrogen producers in the world.

It is not as far advanced as battery technology; there's no question about that. We need to be smart about how we deploy that and start putting this into the hubs I mentioned. You concentrate and get the good economics in place and you can start deploying buses today. We can already start deploying light-duty vehicles. We can start deploying trucks that are going to be coming in the near future. When you talk to the major truck producers, they know they have to decarbonize trucking and they know that's going to have to be done with hydrogen.

We need to get ready. That can be done cost effectively.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I have a quick question, Mr. Breton, because my time is running out.

In terms of training, I've been meeting with steelworkers, the IBEW and Unifor, and they're all getting set. They don't see this as going to be a low-paying job, a grunt future. They see a good future.

On the issue of training of mechanics for electric vehicles underground in the mines, mine mechanics are one of the main sources. Do we have to have a whole transition in training, or are their skills transferable? What do we need to do to get their skills ready for electric vehicles?

[Daniel Breton]

Actually, we do need to support mechanics and workers who are working right now on internal combustion engine vehicles, because there is a huge lack, I can tell you that. I work on a regular basis with dealers, with people.... I worked at the GM assembly plant in Sainte-Thérèse back in the day, and I can tell you that right now there's a huge gap. But there's good news, because I'm talking to people in the private sector right now who are working on putting together a training program. I'm talking to NRCan as well. So things are happening. More and more colleges and universities are getting on board with this. It's happening now. It didn't happen two years ago or five years ago. It's happening right now, so we really need to accelerate the deployment of training programs.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Excellent.

That, unfortunately, is the end of our time today.

I would like to thank each of our witnesses. We're back fresh and have had some good exchanges here today. I appreciate all of the witnesses joining us.

If there's anything from the conversation that has come up that you would like to provide additional information on, we invite you to submit written briefs of up to 10 pages. You can send those in through our clerk. I'll leave that with you, if you want to provide any additional information.

Before we go into our closed session to continue our review of the report, we do need to adopt a revision to our budget for the study, now that we can actually have people come here in person. There was a revision that was circulated to the committee. We had originally budgeted $11,925. We're requesting an extra $8,750 to be able to bring in some witnesses in person for the study. If everyone is in agreement, could we get a motion for that?

Mr. Bragdon? Okay. We need a seconder. Okay, Ms. Jones.

Is there any discussion?

(Motion agreed to)

Thank you.

With that, we're going to suspend.

We'll let our witnesses go. I think that our analysts need to come back in, as well as Mr. Chahal.

We'll get you to switch into the closed session. We'll be picking up the emissions reduction fund report in just a couple of minutes.

Thank you.

[Proceedings continue in camera]