Natural Resources committee  The future is looking very good. The technology, I believe, is now there. As I said, I've looked at the numbers closely on what it would cost to generate power on a smaller scale. The key thing here is scalability and small communities need this to be done in smaller power plants

Natural Resources committee  You're quite right. A lot of the bio-generation technologies are coming from Europe. The battery technologies certainly are a little more domestic, which is very promising. Training-wise, the sorts of people who are needed to operate and maintain these plants are electricians, po

Natural Resources committee  One is in getting steady feedstocks for the biomass. There are plenty of them around. You've heard from some of the earlier witnesses that there are quite some challenges in getting the different forestry suppliers and the different groups and provincial agencies and whatnot all

Natural Resources committee  If you were to fill up your vehicle with 100% biofuel, no. As a one-to-one comparison, they are more expensive than the fuels on the market now. Where they get their value is as a fuel blend. As I said, the biofuel that's created is a lot cleaner and it's a much higher-grade fu

Natural Resources committee  Yes, absolutely. One of my clients is in construction now. It's natural gas to liquid, so it doesn't have the bio component, but the client is building a plant just outside of Calgary for 300 barrels a day, turning natural gas into this high-grade, synthetic diesel. They've rai

Natural Resources committee  In my business, I'm finding that the availability of skilled engineering, engineers, and technologists is actually quite good right now. It helps that I live in a very attractive location in the South Okanagan, so it's not too hard to attract folks. There is definitely more of

Natural Resources committee  Okay. That's a summary of some of the technologies we've been working on. I'm happy to answer questions. Thank you.

Natural Resources committee  Good morning and thank you for the invitation. My name is Chris Struthers. I run a small electrical power engineering consulting business in Penticton, British Columbia. My specialty is electric power. I'm not a forestry expert, but my work does take me to a wide range of clien