Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to talk, today, about clean energy.
I was at an energy conference a few years ago, where a very wise CEO came out and said, “We cannot miss out on having a better tomorrow because we're fantasizing about having a perfect tomorrow.” That stuck with me. A lot of times, we Canadians sit around boardroom tables and talk about cutting down the forest and having solar panels. We almost have a dream of running the world off smiles and fairy dust. Until we figure out the technologies they use in the Monsters, Inc. movie, we're going to be a long way from that.
What we need to do is take a very common-sense approach. If we want to get serious about transitioning globally, we have to sit down and address what the low-hanging fruits are for that transition. That's a common-sense approach. We eat the elephant one bite at a time, and we pick the low-hanging fruit.
The world's demand for coal is still increasing, as far as I know. The answer, every year, to “what year has the most amount of coal?” seems to always be “last year”. In Canada, we're doing a very good job. Alberta has phased out most of their coal, if not all of their coal. I believe most of it is gone now. Although coal has a very important role in steel manufacturing, it is not the cleanest form of energy. What we're seeing globally is the use of coal still increasing. We have two issues happening. We have the third world coming online and getting electrified. We also have an energy race that needs energy to power AI. We are kind of entering a cold war AI race. It's among the geopolitical superpowers of the world. We come here every week and talk about how energy demands are growing and growing. We need to focus on the small steps we can do.
I would like to know if Mr. Pivnick could elaborate on how much better our oil and natural gas are here in Canada versus the oil and natural gas in other parts of the world.
How can we use that natural gas to mitigate the coal requirements of the global economy?