Natural Resources committee  Very briefly, if I may add, one of the advantages of solar energy, either to produce electricity or to produce thermal energy, is that it is decentralized. So you don't have a grid. That's probably the best thing you can have, in terms of being decentralized and also in alleviating the grid that's already there.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you. All I can do is tell you about my experience when I lived in Austria for a number of years in the early 1990s. I was a beginner in solar energy. There was already an environmental awareness at that time which still doesn't exist here, even in 2006. There was already talk of setting national objectives in Austria.

Natural Resources committee  That's a good question. We're truly privileged in Canada. We're blessed in Canada. Compared to the bigger countries currently using solar heating, Canada is the best place in the world for solar heating. In Germany, for example, they can generate approximately 400 kilowatt hours per square meter per year to heat a house.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you for your question, Mr. Cardin. I want to note one point with regard to renewable energies. What is interesting is that many problems specific to wind energy that were raised by Mr. Hornung also apply to solar energy problems. Renewable energies aren't competing energies.