Natural Resources committee  Ms. Liu, CCS, if you look at it from a holistic point of view.... The Society of Petroleum Engineers put out a paper in 2008. They disclosed in that paper that CCS is not a viable economical solution for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the reason being that total volume of sequestered CO2 that would be retained in a formation would be approximately 1% of the total volume of fluids that would have been recovered through EOR.

Natural Resources committee  Suncor has been trying to make a go of CTT, consolidated tailings technology, which CANMET and the University of Alberta developed and promoted. They tried for 15 years and were never able to pass the 20% threshold—

Natural Resources committee  Would you like me to answer in French or in English?

Natural Resources committee  A major change was implemented in 2013, relating to the treatment of eligible expenditures in the SR&ED; program. Since then, not all capital expenditures are eligible. This is a major change, especially in the case of a project where big expenditures are required, and especially at a stage when there is a jump in expenditures.

Natural Resources committee  The U.S. has the Small Business Act, whereby the government will go ahead and guarantee, to the bank or the financial institution, 85% of the funds required to commercialize a technology, so we're not exactly on an equal footing with U.S. technologies or green technologies, and it's hurting Canadian industry enormously.

Natural Resources committee  We haven't been able to access very much in terms of government funding. Less than 5% of our funding is from government. However, the metrics with regard to policy and regulations for programs such as renewable or clean energy are not there. I can pick a waste stream composed of wood chips, and burn it; I've got a biofuel.

Natural Resources committee  Again, as Mr. Nelson mentioned, on the $1.4 billion, I don't know where it went. The oil sands industry has an approach with side issues whereby, since they are not generating revenue, they are left on a schedule that is not very short. This is where government should come in and impose a timeline.

Natural Resources committee  Do you mean the process, or the development stages over the last 20 years?

Natural Resources committee  We've been at this technology development for 20 years. It's a very disruptive and innovative technology, and so you won't have any industry stakeholders look at it and embrace it with open arms. They'll come to you and say, “Show me that it works; prove it.” They'll try to look at it from every standpoint whereby it might impact upon their efficiency or upon their bottom line in a negative way.

Natural Resources committee  Well, we've had to come up and understand exactly what we're dealing with. You have to analyze what are tailings, what's involved, and from there how you approach it. You have to look at it from the standpoint of a life-cycle analysis in terms of thermodynamics and energy recovery, with the smallest carbon footprint possible, and take that into effect.

Natural Resources committee  The oil sands industry has a prerogative, which is production. That's the only thing that is on stream. Everything else is off stream, it's offline. All of their efforts are geared to increasing production. That's the revenue stream. If you look at their R and D expenditures over the last 20 years, you'll notice that it hasn't been geared towards environmental issues; it's geared towards production.

Natural Resources committee  No. I could demonstrate to you. In the graphic I am showing you, on the right side is the tailings water subjected to five minutes of our process. What's on the left side is a control, which is after 24 hours. In order to get this fine result after five minutes and be able to send back over 75% of the water completely clean—it's cleaner than the Athabaska River water—

Natural Resources committee  Well, it's very clean. We have it down to drinkable water levels. This is not what they're looking for; they are thinking, “Give me water that's suitable to go ahead and increase my production. If you can give me warm water, all the better.”

Natural Resources committee  There's an article in The Globe and Mail today by the retiring president of Total that makes a very good statement concerning the oil patch's philosophy on new technologies. His comments are extremely good. Second, what we're looking for from the government side is.... There is policy in place—and I've raised it in regard to CRCE,—whereby the metrics of evaluating the benefits of the policy, or a process that has been put in place, lag behind the times.

Natural Resources committee  That would be 20% in terms of a CRCE project.