Natural Resources committee  Hydrogen is certainly not pie in the sky. It's already a very major industry. I understand that there is a debate on what source of power we get it from. However, hydrogen complements them all. If you're making nuclear, you can try to produce power, heat and hydrogen. If you're talking renewables and wind and solar, you can use the hydrogen to help smooth the band and provide additional value to them.

Natural Resources committee  We can start making hydrogen now. We are making hydrogen. We're one of the largest clean hydrogen producers in the world. It is not as far advanced as battery technology; there's no question about that. We need to be smart about how we deploy that and start putting this into the hubs I mentioned.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you. Good afternoon, honourable members, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Mark Kirby, president and CEO of the Canadian Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association. We're based in Vancouver, the traditional and unceded territory of the Coast Salish people, but I'm joining you today from Halifax, located in Mi'kma'ki, the ancestral and traditional lands of the Mi'kmaq people.

Natural Resources committee  I will phrase it by saying that 75% of our energy today is derived from fossil fuels without any carbon management. It is a huge challenge to start moving that to clean alternatives. We need them all. We need renewable natural gas. We need hydrogen. We need clean power. If you look at the studies that say how much it is going to take of each of those, there are going to be debates about whether it's going to be this much for that one or that much for that one.

Natural Resources committee  To Germany I would add Japan and Korea, which are also very significant markets. We're well positioned to service them from B.C., as we're well positioned to serve the European market out of Quebec and the Atlantic provinces. It's an enormous opportunity. We are already exporting.

Natural Resources committee  We've been out talking, and we would agree that hubs will attract economic investment. That's based on what we're seeing internationally. Hydrogen valleys are called clusters, but generally what we're talking about is two or more companies getting together and sharing a common production facility.

Natural Resources committee  You're going to see hydrogen projects moving forward, for example, the NRCan project in Bécancour. That includes an 88 megawatt hydrogen generation system. That's great, and it's going to be that scale that is going to produce cost-effective hydrogen, but in and of itself, it's not supporting other applications and other types of growth of the hydrogen.

Natural Resources committee  Sorry.

Natural Resources committee  They also agree that we need hydrogen from all sources.

Natural Resources committee  Again, I do not promote grey hydrogen. We're talking about clean hydrogen. Clean hydrogen includes what is sometimes referred to as blue hydrogen. We think all those are very viable. There should be competition. We're going to need all of them. In fact, using the resources, as was mentioned by the gas industry, to build out infrastructure such as pipelines....

Natural Resources committee  Yes, thank you. Definitely, without a question, the cost to produce clean hydrogen today—and I'll use the term “clean hydrogen”—is higher than the cost to produce grey hydrogen. However, that is in the control of government. That's what policies such as the price on carbon and the low-carbon fuel standard are closing, because they're starting to put a price on carbon emissions.

Natural Resources committee  I'm not an expert on—

Natural Resources committee  I'm sorry?

Natural Resources committee  There are technical challenges, but they are all addressable. I think the utilities are determined to work through those.

Natural Resources committee  Grey hydrogen, just so everybody is aware of it, is hydrogen typically made from natural gas where there is nothing done to manage the CO2 that is emitted in that process. That's the way most hydrogen is produced today. That is not what we are about in the CHFCA. We recognize that's a key tool, but what we are promoting and what we are focused on is CO2 produced without GHG emissions.