Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you again for inviting me back. I was here a year ago for a similar standing committee.
I'm different from a lot of the witnesses here today, because I rely on components that they're going to make for the public-private system of transportation that we've created in Ontario. As a geologist and an engineer, I question a lot of things, and in our path, it's been 12 years of development to this stage, so when Patrick sent that letter to me and described what we needed to talk about here today, I looked at a number of silos that need to be crossed. Number one is that when we looked at what we needed to build the right hovercraft and move people in a sustainable manner, sustainability to me is more than net zero; it's the amount of havoc we wreak on the environment to go a complete cycle.
For example, when someone asks me what kind of wind generation we're using, I can reply that we're using Typhoon, because studies show that the noise resonance of the current systems disturbs bee populations to death and affects people who live within half a kilometre. There have been federal studies that have somehow disappeared that we need to address.
Then we talk about lithium. Elon Musk is a great guy, but how do we deal with spent lithium? Have we talked about how much energy has been used to lift the lithium out of the ground and the energy needed to produce enough lithium for just one car? That's a concern for me.
What we've done is design the first terminals in the world that are off the grid. We have designed a craft that will be something that's important. I use biodiesel fuel. I use solar power panels. We use reverse osmosis and water catchment off our structures. It's about taking all the great things we have while also managing the way that they're leaving us behind.
We say we're in global warming; the realization needs to be deeper than that. This planet will survive whether we're here or not; it's whether we're going to survive here as well. Also, we're the only species that seems to be destroying enemies we don't see, and they are not even enemies; they're natural creatures. Again, for me, it's that in whatever paths we take, we need to understand what the full life cycle is, zero to zero.
As well, you talk about government funding in different bits and pieces. For huge companies, that's great, but you're asking a lot of companies to create a lot of new technology, and they're start-ups. One of the hurdles for start-ups for a lot of companies is that they'll say that they don't really have funding to do a start-up in a proper manner. Then when you have private investors, they ask what the government is kicking in. Then when you see the government, they ask what the private investor is.... You're in a stalemate then.
Therefore, I'm your litmus test for all the details you're trying to solve today, and there's enough mind in management with all these corporations to figure it out. I'm using biodiesel with a DF injector system. We're at 1.1% of emissions remaining. It's just taking that technology and understanding how we manage it and how we store it. Also, storage is huge, because we have electrical panels on the roofs and we need to store that.
For me, I'm a catalyst of all these great people here today, but we need to be smart about it and manage it in the right way. What I'm here to do is answer, and I can tell you my path, because I've been doing this for 12 years and have spent a lot of time here in Ottawa.
Thank you again.