Transport Committee on May 15th, 2012

[An hon. member]

He just had to slide that in.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Jonathan Burke]

Yes.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Thank you. That's all I needed to know.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

I am going to open the floor for one more round of brief questions.

Go ahead, Mr. Sullivan.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

I didn't get to ask you this, but CN and other rail companies are clearly very interested. We had folks from natural gas, the sales people, tell us that they were working with them, but they couldn't tell us.... Can you tell us anything about your—

[Jonathan Burke]

It's public knowledge—there are two press releases about it—that we are working with CN and Gaz Métro on a program partly supported by Sustainable Development Technology Canada. The project is to develop and test, with CN, a transcontinental locomotive running on liquefied natural gas.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

How big would the tank be?

[Jonathan Burke]

It varies.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

It depends on how far it can go, I guess.

[Jonathan Burke]

It will likely be like a tender car in that it will hearken back to coal-powered rail. The fuel will be in a tender car. It will take the weight of the fuel off the locomotive itself. That tender car could potentially provide the fuel to get it across Canada and back again.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Wow. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

We'll go to Mr. Poilievre.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

On the personal vehicles, absent the availability of refueling stations, it is very difficult for a consumer to be an early adopter of a natural gas powered vehicle, unless the natural gas powered vehicle could run on gasoline as well.

I think there are two or three natural gas filling stations in Ottawa. If I could make the decision that I would refuel there as often as possible, but should I go on a road trip to northern Ontario I would have the ability to gas up with regular gasoline, it then would become a possibility for me.

Particularly in Europe, where you're doing personal vehicles, is the technology you're developing for hybrid gas—gasoline to natural gas—or just natural gas?

[Jonathan Burke]

The majority of them are what's called bi-fuel. They seamlessly switch if one fuel runs out. But the dominant fuel is always natural gas. The F-250/F-350 product, our Westport WiNG product, which we're doing with Ford Motor Company, will be bi-fuel. That means they will predominantly run on natural gas. But when they need to—for example, when they run out of natural gas or want to get that extended range—they can just continue to run on gasoline. That provides the maximum amount of flexibility to the consumer.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

So you can just simply refill it at a gasoline station with gasoline. Is that the same with your fleet vehicles, diesel to natural gas?

[Jonathan Burke]

They are predominantly designed to run exclusively on natural gas. For example, Transport Robert's trucks, if needed, can idle on diesel alone, but they were designed and configured to run predominantly on natural gas at all times.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

You mentioned that the regulations for the type of combustion chamber you have on your vehicles are peculiar because it is both natural gas and with a diesel catalyst.

[Jonathan Burke]

Yes, our regulations—because it's a compression ignition engine, so the type of engine and size of engine as well—require certain conformance to certain EPA standards. There's not really much getting around that.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

If we're going to work with our American partners to harmonize regulations, is there something we could take to the EPA to help remove the obstacles to your work in this regard?

[Jonathan Burke]

At this time, no. We've worked with the EPA on harmonizing standards for natural gas vehicles, and I spend a lot of time in Washington, D.C., meeting with them and talking about the standards around natural gas vehicles. We have a very distinct advantage with this new greenhouse gas regulation for heavy-duty trucking, that natural gas is well ahead of diesel, but that advantage will erode if we don't keep our product ahead of the curve as well, which we fully intend to do. We expect to match and exceed all of diesel's advantages as they emerge over the next few years to meet these greenhouse gas emission standards, so we will continue to have a significant advantage over diesel.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

I have to stop it there.

I just have one question. Dodge is coming out with natural gas. Are you doing that project for them?

[Jonathan Burke]

We're not doing that particular product.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

What they have is diesel, though, is it not?

[Jonathan Burke]

No, that's with their own natural gas, spark-ignited engine.