Natural Resources committee  Sure. The Alberta market is extremely competitive, but you would also find that industry works together very well to find answers to significant issues. I would say that if properly constructed and an intertie that fundamentally makes a tremendous amount of sense, then we could certainly find a way to make sure it works within the market structure.

Natural Resources committee  As a rough measure, today we're about half thermal and half renewables, from a capacity perspective. We are decreasing our intensity around our coal facilities by moving down to natural gas, but of course that's still thermal. In terms of what we're doing from a renewables perspective, we have participated in the Alberta RFP for the 400 megawatts, and we'll see if we're successful or not.

Natural Resources committee  I think, just from the highest level and a principle perspective, probably any answer to what is done with the energy mix would suggest that you need some diversity. You can't be all hydro. You can't be all nuclear. The wisest thing to do is to have some diversity around that. Each region in Canada has its own resource base.

Natural Resources committee  Yes.

Natural Resources committee  That is correct.

Natural Resources committee  We in Alberta have a tremendous amount of coal resource. It actually dwarfs all other hydrocarbons.

Natural Resources committee  In Alberta, and to be clear, the agreements that our organizations reached with the Alberta government were that post-2030 there would be no coal emissions from the coal plants. We can reuse them. We can convert them to natural gas. We can build new gas on the site. There are a number of things that we can do.

Natural Resources committee  That's a very difficult question to answer in isolation. One of the things about interties is that if you take British Columbia, it's in a position, particularly if Site C does go forward, of having a slight oversupply. Saskatchewan is reasonably well supplied and has steps to maintain its supply profile.

Natural Resources committee  With regard to coal, the variable cost—at this point in time, that's the more reasonable measure—to produce a megawatt of coal power generation is in the order of about $15, so it's very inexpensive. If you move to natural gas and a fairly efficient natural gas plant, that's more in the order of $45 a megawatt.

Natural Resources committee  Good afternoon, Chair, ladies and gentlemen, and honourable members of the Standing Committee on Natural Resources. My name is Brian Vaasjo. I am president and chief executive officer of Capital Power, headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta. Capital Power is a developer, owner, and operator of generating facilities across Canada and in the United States.

Natural Resources committee  I would concur with those observations. What you hear around the world is that there is a significant amount of effort being put in by industry, governments, and equipment providers to look at various technologies for carbon capture and storage. What is needed, and what they're looking for, is to have these technologies taken from the workbench and applied in meaningful ways so that you can actually achieve some carbon capture and storage and actually advance technologies.

Natural Resources committee  I'll be first to respond. What industry is looking for is an environment in which government and industry are working together in a cooperative way to look at both environmental policies and environmental restrictions. Certainly costing of carbon is beneficial for the advancement of technology and for filling the gap in circumstances when that isn't sufficient.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you. Good morning to committee members and staff. I am pleased to be here with you today to provide my perspective on recent efforts by Capital Power on our front end engineering and design study related to integrated gasification combined cycle and carbon capture and storage project.