Thank you.
Good morning, Mr. Chair, committee members, and fellow witnesses.
As president and CEO of Blueprint Energy Inc., I am pleased to have been called as a witness and afforded the opportunity to describe our transportation innovation: why it's beneficial, where it adds value, the barriers we face and the support we have received in terms of government regulations, and supportive measures on policy to the committee.
By way of background, I have extensive finance, technology, investment, and business development experience with innovative technologies, typically at the pre-commercial and moving-to-commercial stage. My statement is offered through the lens of an MBA through the University of Ottawa and 20 years of practical experience.
Blueprint Energy is a leader in research and development of flywheel energy storage systems. The roots of the company span over a decade, successfully transitioning from its origins at the University of Ottawa to private sector research projects and now the pre-commercial project stage. Having over 50 projects and totalling $10 million in R and D, Blueprint has a depth of knowledge and understanding of the physics and applicability of flywheel technology that is matched by few in the world.
Our goal is to integrate flywheel energy storage systems into hybrid vehicles and to make them the default energy storage system replacing traditional chemical batteries.
A flywheel, which is sometimes referred to as a mechanical battery, is not a new concept. It's basic in nature and is highly adaptable. Flywheels are nothing more than a disk that spins around a fixed axis. The amount of energy a flywheel can store is proportional to its mass, the square of the speed at which it spins, and the square of its radius. This formula, and a wide range of variables affecting it, takes a simple concept and allows for great engineering latitude.
While the flywheel can be referred to as a mechanical battery, we have to distinguish that there are two different types in how the flywheel receives and releases its energy.
The first type is a mechanical flywheel. Its input and output, if you will, is derived by a mechanical device; that is, a gear attached turns a flywheel and it will spin up the rotating device to store the energy. Conversely, to release the energy from the mechanical flywheel turns a gear, and it in turns moves something.
The second type is an electrical flywheel. Its input and output, as the name suggests, are through electricity or a current; that is, electrical current drives the spinning of the disk to store energy. When energy is released, the output is in the form of electricity, thereby acting like a normal chemical battery.
Blueprint Energy has fully developed, tested, and patented technology for electrical flywheels, and it is this that forms our basis of commercial efforts in integrating flywheels into hybrid vehicles.
So how does a flywheel work in vehicles? What allows a flywheel-based hybrid vehicle to satisfy performance, range, durability, and price metrics without the requirement to change ownership habits or the transportation industry's infrastructure?
Here's how it works. The flywheel simply captures the natural wasted energy produced by a vehicle and stores it until it's called upon by computer modules. We must first understand that the vast majority of wasted energy in fuel consumption in vehicles is in the deceleration, or braking period, and in the acceleration period from a still or near still state to a cruising state—that is, if you will, coming to a stop sign or being in bumper to bumper traffic.
What we do is we capture the wasted energy at the braking process—or heat energy—and convert it into electricity. That in turn spins the flywheel, resulting in stored energy. The vehicle now needs to accelerate, and instead of drawing on the carbon fuel, whether it's gas, diesel, or bioethanol—we're fuel-agnostic—