Transport Committee on Feb. 28th, 2012

[Geoff Munro]

—and “clean coal” is actually a term that's now gaining recognition in the context of two particular technological innovations. One is how you burn it: the pressure, the temperature, and whether it's with or without oxygen. A number of combustion experiments are going on to try to fine-tune how the coal is actually burned.

Of course, coal is not coal, coal, coal; depending on what seam of coal it's taken from, it will have different characteristics, different pollutants, etc., so there's a fine-tuning effort associated with that part of it.

The biggest concern on clean coal is being able to take carbon from the burn, capture it, and store it. We know how to do that technologically. The problem, of course, is that the capture step of that CCS, as it's known, is considerably expensive. Figuring out how to reduce the cost of capturing carbon is an initiative that a number of us are involved in, both inside government among the various departments and among colleagues in other parts of the innovation system.

Clean coal, if it's going to truly be clean, will be burned to as clean as it can be; then the pollutants will be captured, and the carbon dioxide, being the biggest component, will be captured and stored.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Toet.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Before starting, I wanted to thank you for the great printed pieces you left us with. When I got it freshly out of the box, it brought back reminders of my previous life in the print and communications business. To have that reminder every once in a while is a great thing, so I did appreciate that.

I wanted to talk a little about innovation challenges in the context of innovation versus bringing that innovation to market. That's one of the key challenges we face throughout the world, I think, and it's one of the challenges the Canadian industry faces. The commercial viability issue always has to come back into this. There has to be a commercially viable need or requirement for that particular innovation in order for it to go to market. That also involves, obviously, the public deciding that they want to invest in it, and not just in a monetary way; they also want to invest in that technology for them to use.

What is happening with regard to the industries themselves being involved in helping to bring their innovations to market? From your perspective, what are you seeing out there in Canada through the different industries that are innovators? How are they working to bring innovations forward as very marketable commodities in the end?

[Dr. Ian Potter]

That's an excellent question.

With regard to the role of innovation, as you are aware, there have been numerous attempts to codify how you actually move it forward successfully over the decades. Unfortunately the parameters around which it's done at any one time always move. The global economic situation and the local challenges are always changing.

Specifically on the commercial side, where I see a lot more of NRC's work going is that a lot of that innovation is actually happening in the companies themselves—with the people on the shop floor, if you like. I know NRCan is also involved in this sort of thing. A lot happens in universities, and it's about how you bridge the difference between academic research and innovation by the companies. That's where NRCan and NRC come in, with our particular roles in particular sectors.

For me it's about how you bring those companies in earlier to connect with those ideas. If there's an idea in academia, how do you actually bring the companies in pretty much on day one and tell them that you have something that might be of interest to them—not tomorrow, but maybe five, 10, or 15 years down the road—while at the same time they're training their future employees?

That way they take ownership of it. They can see it and nurture it. They can advise where appropriate, as opposed to having me say, “I do this great work in my lab, and it's wonderful. It's the best kept secret I've ever had; here's the report, and I'm going to make you really happy, but I'm not quite sure how”.

We have to get away from just giving them the report and instead actually bring them in earlier.

Some of that is the “skin in the game”. Is it money? Is it just their time? Time is money to these people, so we need to bring them into the discussion earlier and have them sit on advisory committees and boards and that sort of thing.

The other challenge that Geoff and I were talking about just last week is investments. That challenge comes back to the earlier question on demonstration. Having a demonstration just for the sake of a demonstration is good, but it has to go beyond that. How do we transfer that knowledge to the broader community? How do we make sure that the learning from that activity is not just a report and that people are involved and that we can actually transfer the demonstration knowledge that's been built up to the translators?

Most of it's actually not in the report. It's the journey that you've gone on, hence the road map type of activities. How do you take that to the broader innovative communities and those companies that you know are desperate for innovation? There are a lot of them out there, as opposed to people who are just what I would call parasitic, the followers rather than the leaders. How do we nurture those followers more effectively?

I think there is a role, and I think the government labs are pretty much on that journey to help capture that value we put in through R and D investment.

[Geoff Munro]

I certainly concur with what Ian has said. If you dig into the innovative activities of the federal government laboratories, the ones that are primarily in the non-regulatory role, you'll find that the integration with the industry is—I don't know what kind of timeframe to put on it, whether it's five or 10 years—getting stronger and stronger all the time.

I'll admit I sound a little bit like a broken record when I repeat the road map reference, but clearly that tool works very effectively for us. However, it's not the only one. We have a materials technology lab in Hamilton that is one of the focal points for the lightweighting discussion we were having a few minutes ago. In Hamilton you have steel and automotive; when you walk the shop floor, you're not sure if the person there is a university employee or student, a Government of Canada lab employee, or an industrial R and D person unless you stop and ask them. That kind of integration of thinking in how we use something is how you make sure that the S and T investments and the R and D investments are going to be relevant to the operational use.

One other point I would make is that often it's not the major companies in a discipline that are the principal innovators; rather, it's those in their supply chain. For that reason, we have to continue to work not only with the majors that want innovation but also with the small and medium-sized enterprises where a lot of innovation takes place. Those are the guys on the shop floor who say they can do this in a much better and smarter way, and we have to facilitate their integration with this community of innovation activity as it's unfolding.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Before I recognize Mr. Nicholls, I just want to say that I too, in a previous life, was in the car business, and it seems as though they've been lightweighting cars for the last 25 years. You mentioned matching power to the size of the vehicle. You can have a lightweight car that gets no mileage if you don't have the right engine and transmission in it. I believe that's how we got the doughnut spare tires in the late 1960s. It was to lighten up the car.

Is it true that products are being held back that could actually be more efficient? I ask that as a question.

[Geoff Munro]

I can't speak to that. I don't know.

I do know that there's lots of work on lightweighting going on that has the potential to be in the marketplace. Whether somebody has something hidden away in a backroom, I don't know; certainly, we don't.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

We've all heard of the 100-mile-per-gallon carburetor. You've obviously never found that out, eh?

Go ahead, Mr. Nicholls.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I was listening with interest to the parliamentary secretary's comments about the 200 years of innovation. I'm interested in innovation in terms of building Canada's competition in the world. I looked at the World Economic Forum to see where our weaknesses are. One weakness I found in Canada's economy was that we're 49th in government procurement of innovative technologies. There are other economies lapping us on this issue. I know that we have the CICP program, and hopefully, with time, that will pick up and will improve our ranking in the world.

It's often been said that government is not good at picking and choosing winners and losers in innovative technologies. All the same, governments still do it. They do it in transport, in terms of modes of transport that they choose to privilege over others.

My first question is addressed to Mr. Treboutat. What proportion of services do you provide for automotive transport compared to rail, and how is the allocation of resources by mode decided?

[Paul Treboutat]

Thank you for your question.

Just to clarify, are you asking what percentage of CSTT resources is allocated or dedicated to trucking?

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

I mean automotive transport as compared to rail.

[Paul Treboutat]

Okay. Concerning automotive transport, are you referring to freight trucks?

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

I think it's service transport, freight trucks, and automotive—road transport.

[Paul Treboutat]

Okay.

As we mentioned in the opening speech, CSTT operates on a full cost recovery basis. In simple terms, that means we're focused on key areas of surface transportation technology, but more so on the engineering consulting side of the business to leverage the unique testing infrastructure we have on site on our campus. It's a 45-acre campus east of the Ottawa airport.

Over the years, the breakdown in business activity that we've undertaken, road versus rail, has been, if I recall, about 80% on what we define as the road vehicle side and about 20% on what we define as the rail side. That percentage is not based an allocation of money from CSTT or through any program. It's based on market attractiveness, meaning market pull from clients we've been able to identify who are interested in the unique testing infrastructure, skills, knowledge, and capabilities that CSTT possesses.

Of course, in every piece of business we do in transportation, we're always keen on looking for an opportunity to enhance our value with that key client and to working toward a contracted type of R and D scenario.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

My next question goes to Mr. Potter.

The Library of Parliament submitted to us a list of federal organizations that distribute funds for transportation R and D. The Government of Canada has a number of research programs in which the NRC participates. The Automotive Partnership of Canada, the Institute for Aerospace Research, and the Institute for Ocean Technology are some of them.

Why is there not an equivalent institute for rail, and do you see this as potentially a gap in current support for R and D? I know there's a rail division of the NRC, but it's unclear how much research they actually do.

[Dr. Ian Potter]

The institute's structure has existed for several decades now. As part of the revised strategic direction, which the minister will be talking about, I believe, in the new fiscal year, we are looking at refocusing many of our activities. Surface transportation will remain within what was the NRC Centre for Surface Transportation Technology. Rail is a critical function within that. We need to see how we can grow that and what the needs are. There is no point in just doing stuff because we think it's a good idea; there has to be a need driving it. One of those challenges is the needs for tomorrow as opposed to the needs in 15 years, or what the time frame of innovation is. Some things we may stop. That's the strong program development function we will be building at NRC.

We are also putting a major focus on automotive. The GDP contribution of automotive to the country is huge. That permeates many different areas at NRC at the moment, but there is not an institute I can point you to that is the automotive institute; it's embedded in many others.

Focusing on the sectors that are critical to Canada is one of the main areas I think NRC will come forward with, and I hope that the minister will support this and that it will be endorsed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Mr. Richards is next.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Thanks, Mr. Chair, and my thanks to all of you for being here today. We have a very knowledgeable panel down there.

I want to ask some questions about electric vehicles. I don't have a very good understanding of electric vehicles and their technology.

We talk about all these new technologies, new types of fuel, and new ways of powering vehicles. Can anyone tell me why there is not more research done on our existing gasoline-powered engines to try to make them more energy efficient? We already have all of the infrastructure there for these vehicles. They are commonly used. It seems to me it would make common sense to look at ways we can improve their efficiency. I'm wondering why there is not more research done on improving them. Over the last quite a few years now, there haven't been any significant advancements in improving the efficiency of gasoline-powered motors. Why could we not be looking more at how to improve their fuel efficiency?

[Dr. Ian Potter]

For whatever reason, you always hear about electric vehicles. You hear about fuel cells, because it's all about flavour of the month, but it's been the flavour of the last couple of decades.

There will be electric vehicles and there will be fuel-cell vehicles, but the guts of our economy are still the reciprocating engine. There has been a lot of movement in technology for that system. Jeff mentioned types of fuelling systems. There have been other things, such as on-board computer diagnostics, that drive efficiency. I used to do my own engine maintenance; I don't go near it now, because I need a computer to do so. It's a very high-technology piece of equipment.

I'll give an example on the lightweighting aspect. People think about lightweighting in terms of the vehicle body, but they're wrong. The engine block is a big chunk of metal, and it's very heavy, as anybody who has ever lifted an engine can tell you. How do we use aluminum as an engine block? That's some of the research we are doing at the moment. How do you make aluminum into a lightweight engine block?

There is a lot of internal combustion engine research going on. There are new cycles of reciprocating engines coming out every day. Part of it is testing. There are some great labs in Canada. Jeff has some, and I have some. There are industry labs. Ford has a major engine lab in Windsor. It has 12 of the best test cells you will ever see, and it's in our own back garden. There is a lot of innovation, and I think there's still—pun intended—a lot of mileage in research on internal combustion engines.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

I apologize if I phrased the question in a way that discounted the great stuff that is being done. What I was trying to get at is that when we talk about mileage, it seems that the focus is always on trying to have hybrid vehicles or electric power.

Are there not ways we can find efficiency in terms of our mileage, our fuel economy, with gasoline power? Is there research being done in that specific area? Is there hope that gasoline engines can meet the challenges we're looking at alternative fuels for?

[Geoff Munro]

The simple answer is yes. When I was talking about the three aspects of the technological advancements that can take place—the game changers, the things that are already in stream, and the legacy fleet—the latter two both involve the internal combustion engine. It can be the engine itself—and there is work going on there—or the automobile that the engine is driving, because it has to be looked at as a full unit, obviously.

It can be lightweighting or aerodynamics, and even driver training, believe it or not, can make as much as a 10% difference in fuel economy. Whether that driver training is actual training or vehicle control technology that deals with how fast a car can accelerate and that kind of thing, they can all play towards an overall more efficient automobile that is using an internal combustion engine. It's both the engine and the car in which it's being used.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Ms. Morin.

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

I want to begin by thanking the witnesses for joining us today.

Mr. Munro you talked a lot about vehicle electrification. Could you tell me if you are talking about only cars or trains? What types of vehicles are you currently conducting research on?

[Geoff Munro]

The two subjects...as a matter of fact, all three that I've talked about—electric vehicles, lightweighting, and the natural gas road map—are focused on the on-road vehicles at this point in time. We're not involved in the rail or marine or aircraft areas at the moment.

Taking a segue, if I might for just a moment, one of the things we are looking at in the context of the natural gas road map is other modes of transportation that might take advantage of natural gas being a cleaner fuel than conventional diesel or gasoline, but that work has not started yet.

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

So you plan to study how natural gas could be used in trains, but no research is currently being conducted on rail electrification. Is that right?