Tonight on The Brian Crombie Hour, Brian welcomes Greg Vezina, President of Hydrofuel Inc. and one of Canada’s boldest clean-tech innovators. They explore breakthrough technologies that could transform the global energy landscape from micro-ammonia production to photochemical reactors that convert methane into clean hydrogen and valuable carbon products… all powered by light. Greg breaks down why ammonia may be the missing link in hydrogen adoption, why pipelines often outperform power lines, and why Canada needs a return to basic math and science thinking if it hopes to lead the next energy revolution.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
SAGA nine sixty Am or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Believe me, never want to welcome to the Brank Prombi
Radio wire. I've got Greg Vesna, the president of Hydrifuel, Inca,
with us set tonight because I think that it's interesting that,
you know, climate change and alternative energy and where the
world is going is sort of completely out of favor
right now, given what Donald Trump is saying about climate
(00:38):
change being a hoax. But yet what's happening is that
the whole world, other than the United States and maybe
at times Canada, seems to be still thinking about these
issues and thinking about about lowering carbon emissions, et cetera.
And so I thought it would be great to check
in with a gentleman who I know who's who's really
(01:00):
focused on this and frankly has opinions on both sides
of this issue at different times in regards to hydrocarbons
and the use of them and how we deal with
climate change, et cetera. And Greg Vesna is doing this
because he's CEO of a company in this area. Greg Vesna,
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Oh yeah, thank you, thank you for having me on, Brian.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
My pleasure. So tell me where is hydrofuel today. You've
got some really positive news recently, is that correct?
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Yes, we have two technologies. One technology we developed is
called microommonia production system. It replaces the Haber synthesis method
for making ammonia for combining hydrogen and nitrogen users about
a half the energy. That's very big because ammonia is
(01:52):
very very important as a fertilizer. But now we're starting
to realize that ammonia is a really good care for hydrogen.
So on the one hand, we have a great technology
that helps us produce fertilizer and will allow us to
store and transport huge amounts of hydrogen that it appears
(02:13):
are going to be available from underground. It's called white hydrogen,
and it's basically low carbon, very very low carbon gas,
and it appears there are thousands of years worth of
that hydrogen on Earth, and they're drilling for it and
they're finding it. And if they don't have a factory
you can use it where the pipe comes out of
(02:35):
the ground. Then they've got to store it. And the
math in science is real simple. You lose forty percent
of the energy and hydrogen storing it just compressing your
liquifying it and storing it and then you've got to
transport it, etc. Is better if you convert it to ammonia.
You can do it for a net as little as
(02:56):
twenty percent, and you can crack it for another ten
so and you can transport ammonia in existing natural gas
pipelines and carry twice as much hydrogen in ammonia as
you can in natural gas. So one side of our
business is the technology of developing low cost ammonia for
(03:16):
hydrogen storage, and we do that based on a pat
now the Georgia tech Relcense for micro ammonia production system
electrochemically and you can use renewable electricity to do it,
so it's totally green. It's also interruptible, so you can
only run it, you know, when the sun is shining,
if you have to. So that's a very important business.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
So let's let's let's take a step back for a
second because this sounds rightly kind of interesting. But let's
please explain to me and to everyone else what we're
talking about. So why the benefit of hydrogen and ammonia.
I read a book about I think it was called
the hydrogen future at one point in time, and you know,
lots of people have heard about Ballad Systems and other
(03:56):
companies that are trying to create hydrogen cars. I understand end,
and please correct me if I'm wrong. The reason why
hydrogen and ammonia are potential attractive technologies to work on
is they don't have hydrocarbons in them, and so therefore
there aren't carbon emissions. Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Yes, But the discussion is not limited to that, and
we'll get into it more later. But that's really part
of the problem. Problem is as we're focusing on little
parts of the chain and we're not looking at the
whole chain. But you are correct. Hydrogen hydrocarbons are hydrogen
in carbon, and when you burn the hydrogen in carbon,
(04:35):
you use the energy and the hydrogen and emit the carbon.
So the notion of having hydrogen without carbon is simple science.
The problem is you get into what's called physics. While
the physics of hydrogen are very very difficult, compared to
the physics of ammonia, it's much easier to store and
(04:56):
transport hydrogen in ammonia.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
So you said that you lose forty percent of the
energy and hydrogen when you transport it wine.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
No, you can press and liquefy it. It takes not
much energy. It's minus three two ninety c okay, or
it's ten thousand psi. To take it to that state,
it takes a massive amount of energy, Whereas to convert
it your ammonia, it takes half. And it's just again
(05:25):
simple physics.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
So you can convert hydrogen into ammonia for twenty percent
of the energy, half of the energy it takes to
compress hydrogen, and then you can transport ammonia.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Yes, there are thousands, tens of thousands of miles of
ammonia pipelines on this earth, all through Russia to Europe
and one out right up the middle of the United States.
And ammonia, although it's caustic, it's actually technically not toxic.
Water's toxic. You drink enough of it. Commonia's caussic, it'll
(06:01):
cause a chemical burn, but it's not classified as a
flammable gas. And ammonia has an envyble safety record. Yes
people have died and yes people have been injured, but
nowhere near to the percentage per ton mile of fuel
that you move with ammonia as compared to a hydrocarbon.
(06:23):
So I mean, as I said earlier, you can move
more hydrogen in ammonia in a natural gas pipeline than
you can hydrogen in natural gas.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
I thought I heard about, you know, plants and Texas
blowing up with ammonia.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
No, you heard about a plant that blew up with
ammonium nitrate which was stored improperly. That is a combination
of nitrogen and hydrogen like tnt okay and carbon. However, No,
the two large ammonia tanks that were in the middle
of that plant, two fifty thousand gallon tanks, boiled for
(07:05):
three days, never exploded. It's not the ammonia that did that.
It's the ammonia nitrate. And they were charged and convicted,
went to jail for illegal storage and handling.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
Ammonia is the safest gas chemical gas manufactured gas in
the world. It's also the second largest manufactured chemical in
the world. So you know, we produced two hundred million
tons a year right now and we use about eighty
maybe ninety percent of it for fertilizer. There's no storage,
(07:40):
in handling and transportation issues with ammonia compared to any
other fuel, which you've got to look at, as I
said earlier, as look at.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
The big picture. So the big picture is, for example,
until Donald Trump killed it a few weeks ago, the
whole global marine industry was going to get off bunker
roil and by twenty thirty go to ammonia blends or
one hundred percent ammonia. They're building ammonia ships, actual ships,
hundreds of millions of dollars powered by ammonia to transport
(08:11):
ocean freight. Now that is going to continue regardless of
what happened in the United States. The other places where
they're looking at using ammonia around the world is in
co firing with coal to substantial reduce the emissions from
hydro carbons because you can use the ammonia as an
assist pre combustion and post combustion to lower your emissions.
(08:34):
Now these are places where you're talking about very very
very big mission numbers. Ten you know, you're talking a
big hit on the global emissions. Converting the family car
to ammonia probably not going to happen first. There's lots
of other places we could use it.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
You could convert a family car to ammonia seriously, So
you know, I think lots of us have seen, you know,
these white tanks at farms that to store ammonia for fertilizer.
But what you're saying is ammonia, what is it burnt
like natural gas or is it burnt like oil?
Speaker 3 (09:07):
It's fuel. So I converted a car in nineteen eighty
one and drove it across Canada and arrived on Parliament
Hill on Constitution Day with the Governor General showing an
ammonia car, and it's on our website n H three
fuel dot com. He look when Granta says we can
get off oil by twenty fifty. I converted a car
to round ammonia forty five years ago, and that years
(09:32):
will have ships running on.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
It, and that fifty years, and that ammonia doesn't have
any hydrocarbons in it.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
No, that's the beauty of it. It is the key
chemical advantage of hydrogen ammonia as they are what's called
an energy currency. An energy currency is something that is
made from electricity and can be converted back into electricity.
Can't do that with nuclear, can't do that with oil,
(10:00):
you can't do that with renewables, but you can with ammonia.
So ammonia essentially is liquid electricity. And again people lobbyists
express their point of view, and then there's those of
us that sit in the middle with both sides and
go ah and get to the facts.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
But you said that the facts.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
And the utilization of of pipelines versus electricity lines, then
the whole notion of building a power grid across Canada
is economic suicide. You can move nine times as much
energy in a pipeline as gas let alone as oil,
(10:42):
then you can in a transmission line. A pipeline is
buried below ground that has less maintenance, a transmission line
is above ground, and we'd have to build ten times
as many transmission lines across Canada to move the same
energy from pipelines. Again, hydrogen is the key, but utilizing
(11:04):
hydrogen is a problem because hydrogen itself lights to be snowflakes.
It's the least dense gas known demand. Whereas ammonia. You
can store more hydrogen and ammonia than you can in
any other way except hydrocarbons.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
I think this is interesting that you're commenting that power
lines are one tenth as efficient in transferring energy as
ammonia pipelines would be. I've also understood that pipelines, sorry,
transmission towers lose energy over distance, which is something I
didn't understand before. Is that correct that they actually lose
(11:42):
energy as you as you ship it over distance?
Speaker 3 (11:44):
There are two types of laws. There's actually three types
of losses. Okay, there's transportation losses in the line. Depending
on how far you go, they get big or small.
There's distribution losses because you have to fill up this
giant grid and have electricity available all the time. But
(12:06):
there's currency losses. You can't transport AC power hundreds of miles,
you lose eighty percent of it. You have to convert
it to DC power. So here's your losses AC dced
AC ten percent, transportation two to five percent, distribution two
(12:29):
to five percent. At best case, you're blowing fifteen percent
of the energy just that way. Now, wait a minute,
we're not done. What's the efficiency of the electricity generated
at the power plant at the beginning or the end.
It's exactly the same. So if you can generate the
power at the end with less losses, then you absolutely should.
(12:53):
You're not creating or increasing emissions using a pipeline. All
you're doing is tran for the net weight or the
life cycle costs to where they belong, which is the
lowest point.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
This is fascinating, Greg. This is going to sound like
a stupid question, but I really wonder if you're losing
electricity over distance on a power line, where does the
electricity go just into the air.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Actually, yes, it's heat that's lost on the hydro lines.
And as they get heavier, you'll see you'll see the
reason the hydro lines bowl like this is the weight
of the heat, the electricity, the molecules being released. It's very,
very interesting. Look, hydro and electricity is a very good
(13:44):
technology in many places, and that's also a very bad
technology in many places. As with anything, Brian, there's trade offs,
there's good and bad, and the idea is to sort
of balance things out. My argument for the last forty
five years is, can we please have some Grade nine
(14:06):
math and science students do the numbers because they're not conflicted.
They will say that so much pollution is created in
a barrel of oil from drilling and use life cycle.
They will say so much pollution is created by a
windmill from beginning to use. They'll also look at the
(14:27):
tactic economics and say, but we have one thousand years
of hydrogen in the ground. So the pollution we're getting
from it is refining and utilization upstream, midstream, downstream. Okay,
when renewables they last fifteen years, and if we want
to replace baseload, we need three to one. So now
(14:48):
it's a five year build. Every five years we have
to replace the total energy capacity of fossil fuels. Well,
wait a minute, there's some math involved here. Ninety percent
of the world's energy is provided by thirteen countries. Eighty
three percent of that is fossil How are you going
(15:09):
to replace that with power lines and windmills? You cannot.
It is mathematically and physically impossible unless we take about
thirty percent of the GDP and we spend it doing
that alone and nothing else. Okay, And the global GDP
(15:30):
is one hundred trillion a year, and energy and chemicals
are ten trillion, And we've spent oh god, two hundred
trillion dollars in the last one hundred and fifty years
building the oil and gas infrastructure, in particular the midstream.
If we can improve production, clean it up, and we
can clean up and use, we've eliminated ninety five percent
(15:53):
of emissions and now we're in the area talking about
the second technology we've developed.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Okay, well let's not go there yet.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Let's take a break for.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Some messages and come back with Greg Vesna, the CEO
of a Canadian company, Hydrofuel, that's got some interesting technology
on converting hydrogen into ammonia, which he says is a
is an energy currency. Sounds fascinate. We're gonna take a
break back in.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Two minutes.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Stream us live at SAGA nine sixty am dot CA.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
We'll come back everyone to the burn primby radio wire.
I've got Greg Vesna with us tonight. He is the
CEO of a Canadian company called hydro Fuel, which he
says has got two interesting technologies, one that we've just
chatted about, which is a technology to convert hydrogen into ammonia.
And he says that hydrogen and ammonia are energy currencies,
but ammonia is a far better energy currency because it
(16:57):
takes forty percent of the energy and hydrogen to convert
it into something that is liquefied such that you can
ship it through a pipeline. I liked his analogy. He
said hydrogen wants to be a snowflake. It wants to
just sort of fly away, but it takes twenty percent
of the energy and hydrogen to convert it into ammonia.
(17:18):
And then you can transport a lot more ammonia by
way of a natural gas pipeline to produce energy in
the end, and you can use electricity to convert it
at the beginning of the cycle, and you can convert
it back to electricity at the end of the cycle.
So it sounds fascinating. I gotta ask you one question
before we go on to the second technology, Greg, if
(17:39):
I could you said that there's a thousand years of
hydrogen in the Earth. So is hydrogen a naturally occurring
something or other? Is ammonia a naturally occurring element or
do we have to actually create ammonia from hydrogen.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
They're both naturally occurring. But yes, you have to create
ammonia from hydrogen. Uh. And yes. In the last really,
in the last five years, we've really confirmed this. We
found out that there are massive supplies of hydrogen but
deep in the ground that are actually that are created
(18:22):
from leeching out of rock and water and it creates hydrogen.
And we're talking, I mean, there's a found there's a
find alone in Europe. Somewhere in France, I think announced
the last month that is equivalent that one find alone
to the total global energy demand, So there there is one.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
How does one mine or or or get hydrogen out
of the earth.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
The oil and gas boys are all over this because
it's essentially the same deep drilling technology theory used in
the oil and gas it's it. It's interesting because they
really do I mean, there's and they're confirming they're drilling
for these fines. When they start pulling these things up.
(19:11):
You're talking about about a massive change in the supply
of energy. And it appears that this stuff is available
all over the world. We're not going to have to
worry about buying it from twelve or thirteen countries. But
as with any any energy transition, it is going to
take time. Okay, and and and people understand how big
(19:35):
the energy industry is. It will probably take twenty years
for this technology to get any any substantial market share
because of the investment of time. However, we're going to
keep burning or using fossil fuels at least for the
(19:58):
next fifty years and probably longer. And the reason is
simply the economics. It's cheaper to use those than it
is to replace them. That's just the bath. Now, as
soon as it becomes cheaper not to use those, that'll happen.
Except what happens when someone comes up with the technology
(20:20):
to crack the carbon out of hydrocarbons, or to eliminate
burning hydrocarbons to create heat and electricity for refining and
use light to get carbon as a commodity that's worth money,
and hydrogen is a byproduct. And then in end use,
you got a photoreactor in your truck and the hydrocarbon
(20:41):
comes in and it turns into pure hydrogen and the
engine runs on hydrogen. And they're building hydrogen compatible engines
all over the world today. JCB has got them in
every piece of industrial and construction equipment they produce. They're certified,
and they're selling them in Europe and so on. So
now all of a sudden, your your hydrocarbon that you
(21:02):
were used to burn, you're not You're burning your hydrogen.
You're creating a carbon powder. Now, the interesting thing is, so.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
You're talking about in a car, you don't burn the
hydro carbon, you burn the hydrogen out of the hydro carbon,
and what you end up with a carbon powder left
over yep.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
And then when you go fill up your car, instead
of paying them for death blue for an aftermarket ammonia.
You know, your rea based technology to reduce your nitrous
oxide emissions. All of a sudden, they're gonna pay you
for that carbon you made in your vehicle because you
made it cheaper than they can make it in a
(21:42):
factory in China and ship it over here.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
What do we use that? What do we use that
carbon for?
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Oh? Carbon is used for everything in manufacturing. The carbon
market is absolutely massive.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
So the problem isn't the creation of carbon. It's the
burning of carbon and putting it into the climate, into
the air.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Well, it's it's it's the combustion of hydrocarbon for upstream
for refining and production of chemicals where you need heater, electricity,
And it's the burning of hydrocarbon and utilization applications and engines,
generators and factories. And that's the green Say that midstream,
(22:26):
which is your distribution, is about seven percent of global emissions.
The industry says it's three. Let's say it's five. We
can eliminate ninety five percent of the carbon emissions that
come from refining and manufacturing and end use with sunlight. Now,
(22:48):
how is a wind generator going to compete with that
cant And this is again part of the problem we
have with the seventeen year chain to go from a
lab when you invent something to a marketplace while your
government subsidizes your competitors to keep you out of business.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Okay, so sorry, you've lost me. So what's sunlight got
to do this? Are you talking about your second technology
or something that stolar or what.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
The photochemical technology we developed with University of Toronto just
won the Royal Society of Chemistry Horizon Award for New Inventions.
We've created a brand new science. We've created the science
of using light in particular LEDs so we can run
twenty four to seven. We don't have to just run
(23:38):
in the daytime to split hydrogen, ammonia, ammonia, hydrogen hydrocarbons
into small molecules into their original constituents. Depending on the
feedstock you use, it determines what you get out. For example,
(23:59):
the award was based on the technology we developed to
take methane, turn it to athane, turn it to ethane,
turn it to athylene. We now use light to make
plastic zero missions dirtiest chemical in the world. Biggest polluter
(24:21):
in the world, plastic, So we can eliminate the emissions
from the production of plastic. That's five hundred billion dollar
a year business. Ammonias five hundred billion dollars a year
around twenty thirty. So there's a trillion dollar a year
market right there. But that's just in photochemistry. That's just plastics.
(24:45):
What about refining petrick chemicals. That's a four trillion dollar
year business, sorry, a one trillion dollar year.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
So explain, explain to me if you could. How do
you use sunlight to break hydrocarbons or your gener ammonia
into its component pieces.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
You create a photoreactor. This is something that holds your
input feedstock and holds a catalyst which causes a chemical change.
The light shines on the catalyst. You have an input feedstock.
The feedstock is broken apart out of it comes a
(25:28):
different chemical depending on your feedstock. There are feedstocks you
can use. For example, where you get hydrogen and carbon
nanotubes carbon nano cells for six thousand dollars a kilo.
We did a techno economic analysis with the carbos car
and the carbon nano only selling for two dollars two
(25:49):
thousand dollars a kilo. The hydrogen cost as a byprod
of that industrial process is nine cents a kilo. Retail
pride though will sell price manufacturing price in North America
is nine dollars akilo. So you're telling me.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
That you can create hydrogen for nine cents a kilo
when it sells for nine dollars akilo.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
Yes, yes, And this is proven by the Royal Society
and Nature. This is a proven technology.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
That's that's a ninety nine percent reduction. That's that's your
one percent of the prior cost.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Uh no, one one thousand, nine dollars. Sorry, you're right,
nine dollars nine cents one one correct. That's incredible. Yep,
it sure is.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
So like what's the future for this technology and for hydrofuel?
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Well, as I said, you know, the challenge is to
go through that seventeen year window from I've invented something
in the lab until you can pull up your gas
station and get it right. There's a very long road there.
So what happens is is business is business right, and
industry will go where the biggest profits are. So industry
(27:11):
will develop this technology where they can get the biggest subsidies,
same as every other thing we need. No, you don't,
but their competitors are getting subsidized. So you're competing with ethanol,
which gets a subsidy, which only contains seventy five percent
of the energy in it that was in the diesel
(27:33):
fuel and fertilizer to make it. And you're replacing a
hydrocarbon with a hydrocarbon, and our politicians say this is
green and this is helping us. You want to cut
carbon emissions by twenty five percent outlaw ethanol, make it illegal,
pay your farmers to make food instead of fuel. The
(27:54):
same thing as renewable natural gas. What are they doing.
They're stripping the natural gas off garbage, They're leaving everything else,
all the by mass everything, and they're saying, oh, this
is greed, give me a subsidy, and our good politicians
are right there handing out our money as fast as
we can. What is Canada going to do with this whatever?
(28:18):
What are they called it? Forget what they called? You know,
our are our moonshot projects for Canada. They're not doing
a technological economic analysis, they're not doing a life cycle analysis.
They're not looking at the ten fifteen, twenty twenty five
thirty year impact of this stuff.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Okay, so hold it. I don't understand what's wrong with
taking natural gas out of garbage. I understand that that
garbage and a garbage dump creates either natural gas or
methane naturally, and and you got to do something with it,
and and and and so therefore creating natural gas out
of it makes a ton of sense.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Yeah, if you don't, if you ignore basic math and science,
it does. Sure it does if you watch bloomberg yat
that's and read the Globe mill. So why is it not?
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Tell me why? Like what's less?
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Here are some facts. Let's give you a fact. It
gives a nice fact about garbage. Okay. Washington, DC, six
years ago built the first waste to fertilizer garbage plant
in North America. They took one hundred and thirty million
dollar negative cost and turn it into a thirty million
dollar a year profit. It was so successful that the
(29:26):
five states around DC bought licenses to the technology to
build five more of these things around Washington. Washington will
have taken one hundred and thirty million dollar negative cost
and turned it into one hundred and eighty million dollar profit.
Now that's the first this time this technology ever hit
(29:48):
in North America. Brian. But there are a hundred of
these plants. They've been built all over Europe and all
around the world for thirty years. See, in North America,
we don't look at cost. Everything is a waste, and
then we don't care about the waste. That's somebody else's problem.
In most economies, you actually have to look at all
(30:12):
the costs. And what's happening to us is we're getting
the bills. We're starting to wake up.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
We understand, Greg. They turned one hundred and thirty million
negative cost into this huge profit. That was a smart
thing for them to do.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
Yeah, So why haven't we done this in Canon? Why
whren't we doing it for the last forty years. Well,
everybody else was doing it. I know, you can tell
me why we didn't subsidize it. We didn't let them
get their snout into the feedbag. Okay, so that industry
get their snout into the feedbag. They'll do stuff. Brian,
look off topic, and this is a classic example three
(30:50):
P partnerships. You and I have a fundamental mathematic disagreement
on this. There's not been a three P in the
last fifty years. Ever anywhere in the world, well where
working with the private sector didn't cost twice as much
over the life of the project. The reason is very simple.
Governments borrow money at two percent, private sector twall percent.
(31:10):
Government doesn't need a profit. Private sector needs a tall
percent profit over thirty years. It's double the cost of
the project. It's exactly the same thing and energy. If
you're going to pay need to do it, I'm gonna
do it. And if you're not gonna pay me to
do it, I'm not gonna do it because you're paying
somebody else. I've said for for for forty years. We
(31:30):
need a real price on all pollution, not just carbon.
We need the life cycle price of what we do
in it. And then we need the government to go
back like this and give away trophies not money. Okay,
we need to let free enterprise do what free enterprise
will do, which is solve problems and make money, not
(31:57):
create problems to make money. And fundamentally, what's happening around
the world and Canada right now is in a very
dangerous position because we're no longer going to get technology
from the United States free, and we've been getting technology
out out of the US military for nothing for years.
(32:18):
All of US NASA and all the rest of it.
That's gone. But here's the most important point. The new
oil is science. Major paper just came out a few
weeks ago on all the greatest achievements in science are
coming from where university students and post docs in those
(32:40):
four or five six years they're in a university from
the day they go in the door, and they don't
know nothing until their second year as a post dog.
After graduating, you know, they invent ninety percent of the
new inventions. Why because they hadn't been told you can't
do that yet. And this is true. And so here
we have a huge brain drain from the United States.
(33:03):
The universities are empty, the professors and the brightest and
the brightest, and they're running as fast as they can
for the exits. And we stop immigration, Stop foreign students.
Are you nuts? We should invite them all in, all
of them, bring a million of them in. You know
why because they will give us the knowledge base, the
(33:26):
technology that we will sell to the world to replace
existing technologies. They will give us the technology to use
light to replace heat and electricity. They'll give us the
technologies to use ammonia for hydrogen and storage. They'll give
us the technologies for decarbonizing our entire global industry because
(33:49):
they don't know they can't do it yet. And all
of the scientific research and experience over the last hundreds
and hundreds of years show the new ideas come from
the brightest mind with the youngest or the youngest and
the cleanest minds. So what are we doing in this country.
We should be going after that. We should double our
scientific research tax credits, but not for companies spending one
(34:10):
hundred million dollars. For the little guys. The fastest growing
industry is in knowledge. Are startups run by one person
and three years later their companies what oh, they did
a first round, an ABC round, They got a fifty
million market cap. Three years later they got a billion
dollar market cap. Again, we don't encourage nimble knowledge. We
(34:37):
encourage sustaining the status quo in this country. And that's,
in my opinion, the biggest mistake, and that has been
the greatest lesson in the greatest benefit We've learned doing
research in Georgia Tech, doing research at Colorado State, doing
research at the University of Florida. Same time we do
university research at Oshawa and the University of Toronto because
(35:02):
the great inventions are going to come from there, and
that seventeen year window that it used to take to
get from the lab to the marketplace is down to
seven years.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
The chatting with Greg Vestant, CEO of hydro Fuel, about
great ideas, new ideas come from young people, fascinating say
this said one back.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
Into the.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
No Radio, No Problem stream is live on SAGA ninety
sixty am dot col.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Welcome back everyone to the bran Pionbee Radio our fasting
conversation with Greg Vesna tonight. He's talked about his company
that he's CEO of Hydrofuel, two technologies that they've got,
one that can convert hydrogen into ammonia and another one
that can convert hydrocarbons into their component pieces hydrogen, ammonia, carbon,
et cetera. And he's also really said some intriguing things
(36:06):
in regards to where new ideas come from young people
at university in their post docs, and that we should
be bringing them to Canada to take contribute to our society.
So I gotta you know, just in our last couple
of minutes, Greg ask you to take a big step
back you know Mark Carney, a new Preme Minister, has
said he wants us to be an energy superpower. We've
talked a little bit about transmission lines across the country
(36:28):
and you don't think that's a good idea. Daniel Smith,
the Premium Alberta is demanding that we create pipelines to
the West coast the liquefied natural gas, maybe pipelines to Churchill.
What do you think we need to do in Canada
to be an energy superpower?
Speaker 3 (36:45):
Oh? Great question, Thank you, Brian. I think we need
to adopt an all of the above strategy, and I
mean all of the above. And we've got us stop
deciding who the winners and losers are based on Paul
politics entirely. Okay. Different regions in different parts of this
country have different assets that are more valuable value added
(37:11):
within their own economy than they are shipped across the
country or out of Canada to be turned into a
more value ad product. The notion of building Churchill not Churchill,
but it's another examples. The idea of building site CNBC,
(37:33):
the Peace River hydro dam so that we have electricity
to liquifinancial gas for export instead of just burning the
damn natural gas and not building this giant transmission line.
I mean, what is the math on that. Well, the
math is you've got a natural gas line to where
(37:57):
you can generate electricity, and natural gas is very efficient
and Canadian natural gas is the lowest carbon gass in
the world, so we would produce the lowest gas generated
electricity on the planet Earth. But no, we're going to
take the site see electricity, So we're gonna build two
energy corridors to get the job done.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
So ship natural gas bi pipeline and burn it closer
to where it's burn it and converted to electricity closer
to where it's needed. And you still get the same
amount of carbon into the atmosphere, but you save energy
through that transportation process.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
Well, actually you get less carbon in the atmosphere because
you didn't build those transmission lines. Remember we're talking about
life cycle. You need steel, well, you need okay, bulldozers
to clear the land. Okay, So again a single utilization
to end use. We utilize the infrastructure we have as
much as possible to get to end use, and then
(38:59):
its use we do our improvements. So you try to
do pre combustion, and we're talking about combustion right now,
you do pre combustion mitigation and you do post combustion mitigation.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Look, so what about a pipeline to the West coast
and a liquified natural gas plant to ship liquified natural
gas to Asia?
Speaker 3 (39:20):
Yeah, tomorrow, we have the lowest content gas in the world.
Why why wouldn't we ship Canadian natural gas instead to
let the ship Venezuelan bunker oil or coal? I mean,
it's math. Do the free math.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
So Daniel Smith is right, we need a pipeline to
the West coast. What about a pipeline to the East coast.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
We need one there too. Absolutely, Why are we importing
oil from Saudi Arabia for the refinery refineries in the
East Coast and we're shipping our ours to Texas at
a twenty discount price? Like, I'm sorry, do the math?
Get some grade five math and science students in point
(40:00):
them as the Minister of Energy and Environment.
Speaker 5 (40:02):
For okay, what about these people that say, you know,
we're at peak energy, peak use of hydrocarbons, you know,
putting all this money into these massive pipelines just doesn't
make economic sense.
Speaker 3 (40:13):
Well, okay, first two answers the IEA come out last
week and said we're not going to reach peak oil
till at least twenty fifty with data centered demand and
heating and air conditioning demand. One trillion tear wats. Whatever
fossil energy invested in last year, doubling amount invested in renewables,
(40:35):
renewables still haven't taken a chunk, any larger chunk out
of a total energy supply because demand is growing faster
than we can build renewables. It's math. And again, every
time you use a renewable, you build a gas plant.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
What every time you use it renewable you build a gas.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
Plant, you cannot You cannot replace baseload power with renewable
energy unless you build three times as much and massive
battery storage or a gas plant. Look, we're paying a
fortune for newle By energy in Ontario. We're hiding billions
of dollars of cost from our monthly bill because industry
(41:17):
will scream if they have to pay the real cost
of electricity. Has this happened in another jurisdiction and then
paying billions more to store it for four hours in
these battery plants for four hours?
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Greig Vesna really appreciate you joining us tonight so to
become an energy superpower, we got to think about life
cycle cost. We got to get government out of the
way of picking winners and losers and open up to
free enterprise. We got to stop subsidizing old technologies and
allow the new technologies to be competitive. We got to
(41:54):
build pipelines to the East coast and the West coast
and liquefied natural gas plants, Build big long transmission quarterors
is that crack.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
And build and build renewable where it works. Those wind
farms in Atlantic Canada, et cetera, et cetera. You can
create massive amounts of energy. The thing is use them there,
don't try and ship them across the country.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
Use it where you make Greg Veson, thanks for joining us.
Really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
Thank you, Brian.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
We're gonna take a break, and I'm gonna come back
after a break with a couple of my own comments
on this topic.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
Stay with us, everybody, stream us live at SAGA nine
six am dot C.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
Welcome back everyone to the burn Crimby Radio or tonight.
I want to talk as I close about innovation, not
a buzzword, not a government slogan, but a real engine
of growth for Canada, for prosperity and for national identity.
Because from my recent conversations tonight with Greg Vesna, and
I've got two next week that I'm going to be
having with Neil Seaman, an adjunct professor at the University
(43:08):
of Toronto and Professor Peter Singer, a retired professor meritus
at UFT, one theme has emerged that is impossible to ignore.
Canada is brilliant at creating ideas, but we're terrible at
turning those ideas into industries. And unless we finally confront
that gap, we risk watching the next Industrial Revolution happen
(43:32):
everywhere else in the world except here in Canada. I
have six points I want to make. Number One, innovation
isn't just technology, it's culture. Peter Singer said something remarkable
to me. He said, Canada has one of the strongest
science systems in the world, but the weakest link between
discovery and economic impact. We created the lipid nanoparticles that
(43:53):
enabled our M and RNA vaccines, a trillion dollar technology,
but the wealth ended up in Germany and the United States.
We contributed foundational discoveries behind GLP one weight loss drugs,
now reshaping global health, and again the economic upside went south.
Why Because innovation isn't only labs and scientists.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
It's a culture.
Speaker 2 (44:15):
It's a culture of entrepreneurship. It's a willingness to take risk,
to scale, to commercialize right here at home in Canada.
As Neil put it, As Neil Seman put it, real
innovation happens in conversations, in collaborations, in vulnerability, not on
glossy conference stages. It happens when people stop posturing and
actually share ideas, failures, pivots and messy trial ed error.
(44:39):
Innovation is conversation. Innovation is community. Innovation is the power
of co connection, collaboration and collisions. And Canada has not
built the ecosystems that reward these things. Number two, Greg
Lesna talked about a window into what we could lead on.
Greg Veza talked about generally innovative thickers in Canada's energy sector.
(45:02):
He's talking about incremental improvements, but more than that, paradigm shifts.
Ammonia is the carrier that finally makes hydrogen viable. Micro
ammonium production systems decentralized in fuel and fertilizer. Fertilizer a
photochemical reactor that turns methane into hydrogen and ethylene only
using light hydrogen and nine cents a kilo, not nine dollars,
(45:24):
zero carbon petrochemicals and a full transformation of the global
energy math. Greig Vez is talking about Canadian science developed
here at UFT and in Durham and in Mississauga, Canadian engineering,
Canadian talent. But Greg also said something that should alarm
every policy maker. Can needs someone to lead to pull
(45:44):
together the capital of the company's the universities, or we
will lose this to China, Europe and the US. We
are at risk of repeating the same historical mistake invent
the breakthroughs here, commercialize it elsewhere, and import to finish
product back later on at a premium number three. The
real issue is we just don't scale our genius. Neil
(46:05):
Seemen captured this perfectly, he said. Innovation isn't a heroic
solo act. It's not the myth of the lone genius
in the garage. It's a messy, collaborative process, shaped by
arguments and coffee shops, debates around campfires, diverse teams, conflicting ideas,
chance encounters, serendipity. Innovation requires ecosystems, clusters, and Canada keeps
(46:26):
sending its entrepreneurs to those ecosystems in Silicon Valley in California. Meanwhile,
Peter Singer emphasized the structural problem Canada. We just don't
have those anchor companies anymore. The large domestic firms that
mentor startups, acquire spin offs and keep intellectual property here.
Israel has them, the startup nation, Germany has them, Korea
(46:48):
has them, and the US certainly has them. The military
industrial complex.
Speaker 3 (46:52):
We do not.
Speaker 2 (46:53):
So we get brilliant science, but the economic values leave before.
The global race is changing and Canada must.
Speaker 3 (47:02):
Change with it.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
Look at what greg business work shows US. China is
launching a Petro a photochemistry Manhattan Project. Europe is investing
billions in hydrogen and ammonia. The US has the IRA,
the Chips Act, and the near zero taxes for clean
tech manufacturing. Meanwhile Canada is writing strategy documents. We can't
strategize our way into prosperity. We have to build, we
(47:23):
have to scale to, we have to act. We have
to We have the talent, we have the science. We
even have a tax environment surprisingly that makes advanced research
more cost efficient three hundred percent more cost efficient in
the United States, what we lack I believe is urgency,
ambition and a willingness to bet on ourselves. Five So
(47:47):
what should Canada do? Across all the three interviews, a
simple roadmap emerged. One invest in basic science massively and consistently.
Breakthroughs come from curiosity driven research. Two convert discoveries into equity,
not just grants. If taxpayers fund innovation, taxpayers should share
the upside. Three build anchor companies. Help Canadian firms grow
(48:10):
to global scale. Northern Telecom, BlackBerry were examples. Today Bombardia
others can be the recruit entrepreneurial science scientists, not just
researchers builders. Five. Create ecosystems of collaboration, the power of collisions, connections, conversations.
(48:31):
Six commercialize the tech We invent ammonia systems, photochemistry, AI,
clean materials, all of it. Seven keep intellectual property here
in Canada. Don't export our crown jewels for pennies. This
isn't nationalism, this is common sense. As Greg Beza said,
if the math doesn't work at a grade nine level,
it won't work in an energy system. Well, here's another
piece of grade nine math. Innovation is equal to science
(48:54):
times entrepreneurship Times, Capital Times Culture. Canada has the science,
we need to multiply the other three.
Speaker 3 (49:03):
That's six.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
A closing message to you all. We're not missing the talent,
we're missing the moment. Every one of my guests recently
has said some version of the same thing. Canada is
just not short of ideas, We're short of boldness. The
next decade will define the winners of the twenty first
century economy. Those who scale innovation will thrive. Those who
hesitate will fall behind. The opportunity is here, the technology
(49:26):
is here, the talent is here. The only question is
whether Canada finally will choose to leave, choose to lead.
Innovation is equal to Science Times, Entrepreneurship times, Capital Times Culture.
That's the formula. That's our show for tonight. Thank you
everyone for joining us. I'm on every Monday through Friday
at six o'clock on nine to sixty am. You can
(49:47):
stream me online at Triple W Saga ninety sixty am
dot CA. You can you get all my podcasts videocasts
on Briancrombie dot com, on YouTube, on Facebook and Instagram,
and on Audible podcasts, on Apple p casts and on Speakeasy.
Thank you check me out, good night, everybody, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (50:08):
Stream us live at Saga nine sixty am dot c
a
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
SAGA nine sixty Am or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Believe me, never want to welcome to the Brank Prombi
Radio wire. I've got Greg Vesna, the president of Hydrifuel, Inca,
with us set tonight because I think that it's interesting that,
you know, climate change and alternative energy and where the
world is going is sort of completely out of favor
right now, given what Donald Trump is saying about climate
(00:38):
change being a hoax. But yet what's happening is that
the whole world, other than the United States and maybe
at times Canada, seems to be still thinking about these
issues and thinking about about lowering carbon emissions, et cetera.
And so I thought it would be great to check
in with a gentleman who I know who's who's really
(01:00):
focused on this and frankly has opinions on both sides
of this issue at different times in regards to hydrocarbons
and the use of them and how we deal with
climate change, et cetera. And Greg Vesna is doing this
because he's CEO of a company in this area. Greg Vesna,
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Oh yeah, thank you, thank you for having me on, Brian.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
My pleasure. So tell me where is hydrofuel today. You've
got some really positive news recently, is that correct?
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Yes, we have two technologies. One technology we developed is
called microommonia production system. It replaces the Haber synthesis method
for making ammonia for combining hydrogen and nitrogen users about
a half the energy. That's very big because ammonia is
(01:52):
very very important as a fertilizer. But now we're starting
to realize that ammonia is a really good care for hydrogen.
So on the one hand, we have a great technology
that helps us produce fertilizer and will allow us to
store and transport huge amounts of hydrogen that it appears
(02:13):
are going to be available from underground. It's called white hydrogen,
and it's basically low carbon, very very low carbon gas,
and it appears there are thousands of years worth of
that hydrogen on Earth, and they're drilling for it and
they're finding it. And if they don't have a factory
you can use it where the pipe comes out of
(02:35):
the ground. Then they've got to store it. And the
math in science is real simple. You lose forty percent
of the energy and hydrogen storing it just compressing your
liquifying it and storing it and then you've got to
transport it, etc. Is better if you convert it to ammonia.
You can do it for a net as little as
(02:56):
twenty percent, and you can crack it for another ten
so and you can transport ammonia in existing natural gas
pipelines and carry twice as much hydrogen in ammonia as
you can in natural gas. So one side of our
business is the technology of developing low cost ammonia for
(03:16):
hydrogen storage, and we do that based on a pat
now the Georgia tech Relcense for micro ammonia production system
electrochemically and you can use renewable electricity to do it,
so it's totally green. It's also interruptible, so you can
only run it, you know, when the sun is shining,
if you have to. So that's a very important business.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
So let's let's let's take a step back for a
second because this sounds rightly kind of interesting. But let's
please explain to me and to everyone else what we're
talking about. So why the benefit of hydrogen and ammonia.
I read a book about I think it was called
the hydrogen future at one point in time, and you know,
lots of people have heard about Ballad Systems and other
(03:56):
companies that are trying to create hydrogen cars. I understand end,
and please correct me if I'm wrong. The reason why
hydrogen and ammonia are potential attractive technologies to work on
is they don't have hydrocarbons in them, and so therefore
there aren't carbon emissions. Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Yes, But the discussion is not limited to that, and
we'll get into it more later. But that's really part
of the problem. Problem is as we're focusing on little
parts of the chain and we're not looking at the
whole chain. But you are correct. Hydrogen hydrocarbons are hydrogen
in carbon, and when you burn the hydrogen in carbon,
(04:35):
you use the energy and the hydrogen and emit the carbon.
So the notion of having hydrogen without carbon is simple science.
The problem is you get into what's called physics. While
the physics of hydrogen are very very difficult, compared to
the physics of ammonia, it's much easier to store and
(04:56):
transport hydrogen in ammonia.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
So you said that you lose forty percent of the
energy and hydrogen when you transport it wine.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
No, you can press and liquefy it. It takes not
much energy. It's minus three two ninety c okay, or
it's ten thousand psi. To take it to that state,
it takes a massive amount of energy, Whereas to convert
it your ammonia, it takes half. And it's just again
(05:25):
simple physics.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
So you can convert hydrogen into ammonia for twenty percent
of the energy, half of the energy it takes to
compress hydrogen, and then you can transport ammonia.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Yes, there are thousands, tens of thousands of miles of
ammonia pipelines on this earth, all through Russia to Europe
and one out right up the middle of the United States.
And ammonia, although it's caustic, it's actually technically not toxic.
Water's toxic. You drink enough of it. Commonia's caussic, it'll
(06:01):
cause a chemical burn, but it's not classified as a
flammable gas. And ammonia has an envyble safety record. Yes
people have died and yes people have been injured, but
nowhere near to the percentage per ton mile of fuel
that you move with ammonia as compared to a hydrocarbon.
(06:23):
So I mean, as I said earlier, you can move
more hydrogen in ammonia in a natural gas pipeline than
you can hydrogen in natural gas.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
I thought I heard about, you know, plants and Texas
blowing up with ammonia.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
No, you heard about a plant that blew up with
ammonium nitrate which was stored improperly. That is a combination
of nitrogen and hydrogen like tnt okay and carbon. However, No,
the two large ammonia tanks that were in the middle
of that plant, two fifty thousand gallon tanks, boiled for
(07:05):
three days, never exploded. It's not the ammonia that did that.
It's the ammonia nitrate. And they were charged and convicted,
went to jail for illegal storage and handling.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
Ammonia is the safest gas chemical gas manufactured gas in
the world. It's also the second largest manufactured chemical in
the world. So you know, we produced two hundred million
tons a year right now and we use about eighty
maybe ninety percent of it for fertilizer. There's no storage,
(07:40):
in handling and transportation issues with ammonia compared to any
other fuel, which you've got to look at, as I
said earlier, as look at.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
The big picture. So the big picture is, for example,
until Donald Trump killed it a few weeks ago, the
whole global marine industry was going to get off bunker
roil and by twenty thirty go to ammonia blends or
one hundred percent ammonia. They're building ammonia ships, actual ships,
hundreds of millions of dollars powered by ammonia to transport
(08:11):
ocean freight. Now that is going to continue regardless of
what happened in the United States. The other places where
they're looking at using ammonia around the world is in
co firing with coal to substantial reduce the emissions from
hydro carbons because you can use the ammonia as an
assist pre combustion and post combustion to lower your emissions.
(08:34):
Now these are places where you're talking about very very
very big mission numbers. Ten you know, you're talking a
big hit on the global emissions. Converting the family car
to ammonia probably not going to happen first. There's lots
of other places we could use it.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
You could convert a family car to ammonia seriously, So
you know, I think lots of us have seen, you know,
these white tanks at farms that to store ammonia for fertilizer.
But what you're saying is ammonia, what is it burnt
like natural gas or is it burnt like oil?
Speaker 3 (09:07):
It's fuel. So I converted a car in nineteen eighty
one and drove it across Canada and arrived on Parliament
Hill on Constitution Day with the Governor General showing an
ammonia car, and it's on our website n H three
fuel dot com. He look when Granta says we can
get off oil by twenty fifty. I converted a car
to round ammonia forty five years ago, and that years
(09:32):
will have ships running on.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
It, and that fifty years, and that ammonia doesn't have
any hydrocarbons in it.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
No, that's the beauty of it. It is the key
chemical advantage of hydrogen ammonia as they are what's called
an energy currency. An energy currency is something that is
made from electricity and can be converted back into electricity.
Can't do that with nuclear, can't do that with oil,
(10:00):
you can't do that with renewables, but you can with ammonia.
So ammonia essentially is liquid electricity. And again people lobbyists
express their point of view, and then there's those of
us that sit in the middle with both sides and
go ah and get to the facts.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
But you said that the facts.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
And the utilization of of pipelines versus electricity lines, then
the whole notion of building a power grid across Canada
is economic suicide. You can move nine times as much
energy in a pipeline as gas let alone as oil,
(10:42):
then you can in a transmission line. A pipeline is
buried below ground that has less maintenance, a transmission line
is above ground, and we'd have to build ten times
as many transmission lines across Canada to move the same
energy from pipelines. Again, hydrogen is the key, but utilizing
(11:04):
hydrogen is a problem because hydrogen itself lights to be snowflakes.
It's the least dense gas known demand. Whereas ammonia. You
can store more hydrogen and ammonia than you can in
any other way except hydrocarbons.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
I think this is interesting that you're commenting that power
lines are one tenth as efficient in transferring energy as
ammonia pipelines would be. I've also understood that pipelines, sorry,
transmission towers lose energy over distance, which is something I
didn't understand before. Is that correct that they actually lose
(11:42):
energy as you as you ship it over distance?
Speaker 3 (11:44):
There are two types of laws. There's actually three types
of losses. Okay, there's transportation losses in the line. Depending
on how far you go, they get big or small.
There's distribution losses because you have to fill up this
giant grid and have electricity available all the time. But
(12:06):
there's currency losses. You can't transport AC power hundreds of miles,
you lose eighty percent of it. You have to convert
it to DC power. So here's your losses AC dced
AC ten percent, transportation two to five percent, distribution two
(12:29):
to five percent. At best case, you're blowing fifteen percent
of the energy just that way. Now, wait a minute,
we're not done. What's the efficiency of the electricity generated
at the power plant at the beginning or the end.
It's exactly the same. So if you can generate the
power at the end with less losses, then you absolutely should.
(12:53):
You're not creating or increasing emissions using a pipeline. All
you're doing is tran for the net weight or the
life cycle costs to where they belong, which is the
lowest point.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
This is fascinating, Greg. This is going to sound like
a stupid question, but I really wonder if you're losing
electricity over distance on a power line, where does the
electricity go just into the air.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Actually, yes, it's heat that's lost on the hydro lines.
And as they get heavier, you'll see you'll see the
reason the hydro lines bowl like this is the weight
of the heat, the electricity, the molecules being released. It's very,
very interesting. Look, hydro and electricity is a very good
(13:44):
technology in many places, and that's also a very bad
technology in many places. As with anything, Brian, there's trade offs,
there's good and bad, and the idea is to sort
of balance things out. My argument for the last forty
five years is, can we please have some Grade nine
(14:06):
math and science students do the numbers because they're not conflicted.
They will say that so much pollution is created in
a barrel of oil from drilling and use life cycle.
They will say so much pollution is created by a
windmill from beginning to use. They'll also look at the
(14:27):
tactic economics and say, but we have one thousand years
of hydrogen in the ground. So the pollution we're getting
from it is refining and utilization upstream, midstream, downstream. Okay,
when renewables they last fifteen years, and if we want
to replace baseload, we need three to one. So now
(14:48):
it's a five year build. Every five years we have
to replace the total energy capacity of fossil fuels. Well,
wait a minute, there's some math involved here. Ninety percent
of the world's energy is provided by thirteen countries. Eighty
three percent of that is fossil How are you going
(15:09):
to replace that with power lines and windmills? You cannot.
It is mathematically and physically impossible unless we take about
thirty percent of the GDP and we spend it doing
that alone and nothing else. Okay, And the global GDP
(15:30):
is one hundred trillion a year, and energy and chemicals
are ten trillion, And we've spent oh god, two hundred
trillion dollars in the last one hundred and fifty years
building the oil and gas infrastructure, in particular the midstream.
If we can improve production, clean it up, and we
can clean up and use, we've eliminated ninety five percent
(15:53):
of emissions and now we're in the area talking about
the second technology we've developed.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Okay, well let's not go there yet.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Let's take a break for.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Some messages and come back with Greg Vesna, the CEO
of a Canadian company, Hydrofuel, that's got some interesting technology
on converting hydrogen into ammonia, which he says is a
is an energy currency. Sounds fascinate. We're gonna take a
break back in.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Two minutes.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Stream us live at SAGA nine sixty am dot CA.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
We'll come back everyone to the burn primby radio wire.
I've got Greg Vesna with us tonight. He is the
CEO of a Canadian company called hydro Fuel, which he
says has got two interesting technologies, one that we've just
chatted about, which is a technology to convert hydrogen into ammonia.
And he says that hydrogen and ammonia are energy currencies,
but ammonia is a far better energy currency because it
(16:57):
takes forty percent of the energy and hydrogen to convert
it into something that is liquefied such that you can
ship it through a pipeline. I liked his analogy. He
said hydrogen wants to be a snowflake. It wants to
just sort of fly away, but it takes twenty percent
of the energy and hydrogen to convert it into ammonia.
(17:18):
And then you can transport a lot more ammonia by
way of a natural gas pipeline to produce energy in
the end, and you can use electricity to convert it
at the beginning of the cycle, and you can convert
it back to electricity at the end of the cycle.
So it sounds fascinating. I gotta ask you one question
before we go on to the second technology, Greg, if
(17:39):
I could you said that there's a thousand years of
hydrogen in the Earth. So is hydrogen a naturally occurring
something or other? Is ammonia a naturally occurring element or
do we have to actually create ammonia from hydrogen.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
They're both naturally occurring. But yes, you have to create
ammonia from hydrogen. Uh. And yes. In the last really,
in the last five years, we've really confirmed this. We
found out that there are massive supplies of hydrogen but
deep in the ground that are actually that are created
(18:22):
from leeching out of rock and water and it creates hydrogen.
And we're talking, I mean, there's a found there's a
find alone in Europe. Somewhere in France, I think announced
the last month that is equivalent that one find alone
to the total global energy demand, So there there is one.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
How does one mine or or or get hydrogen out
of the earth.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
The oil and gas boys are all over this because
it's essentially the same deep drilling technology theory used in
the oil and gas it's it. It's interesting because they
really do I mean, there's and they're confirming they're drilling
for these fines. When they start pulling these things up.
(19:11):
You're talking about about a massive change in the supply
of energy. And it appears that this stuff is available
all over the world. We're not going to have to
worry about buying it from twelve or thirteen countries. But
as with any any energy transition, it is going to
take time. Okay, and and and people understand how big
(19:35):
the energy industry is. It will probably take twenty years
for this technology to get any any substantial market share
because of the investment of time. However, we're going to
keep burning or using fossil fuels at least for the
(19:58):
next fifty years and probably longer. And the reason is
simply the economics. It's cheaper to use those than it
is to replace them. That's just the bath. Now, as
soon as it becomes cheaper not to use those, that'll happen.
Except what happens when someone comes up with the technology
(20:20):
to crack the carbon out of hydrocarbons, or to eliminate
burning hydrocarbons to create heat and electricity for refining and
use light to get carbon as a commodity that's worth money,
and hydrogen is a byproduct. And then in end use,
you got a photoreactor in your truck and the hydrocarbon
(20:41):
comes in and it turns into pure hydrogen and the
engine runs on hydrogen. And they're building hydrogen compatible engines
all over the world today. JCB has got them in
every piece of industrial and construction equipment they produce. They're certified,
and they're selling them in Europe and so on. So
now all of a sudden, your your hydrocarbon that you
(21:02):
were used to burn, you're not You're burning your hydrogen.
You're creating a carbon powder. Now, the interesting thing is, so.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
You're talking about in a car, you don't burn the
hydro carbon, you burn the hydrogen out of the hydro carbon,
and what you end up with a carbon powder left
over yep.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
And then when you go fill up your car, instead
of paying them for death blue for an aftermarket ammonia.
You know, your rea based technology to reduce your nitrous
oxide emissions. All of a sudden, they're gonna pay you
for that carbon you made in your vehicle because you
made it cheaper than they can make it in a
(21:42):
factory in China and ship it over here.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
What do we use that? What do we use that
carbon for?
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Oh? Carbon is used for everything in manufacturing. The carbon
market is absolutely massive.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
So the problem isn't the creation of carbon. It's the
burning of carbon and putting it into the climate, into
the air.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Well, it's it's it's the combustion of hydrocarbon for upstream
for refining and production of chemicals where you need heater, electricity,
And it's the burning of hydrocarbon and utilization applications and engines,
generators and factories. And that's the green Say that midstream,
(22:26):
which is your distribution, is about seven percent of global emissions.
The industry says it's three. Let's say it's five. We
can eliminate ninety five percent of the carbon emissions that
come from refining and manufacturing and end use with sunlight. Now,
(22:48):
how is a wind generator going to compete with that
cant And this is again part of the problem we
have with the seventeen year chain to go from a
lab when you invent something to a marketplace while your
government subsidizes your competitors to keep you out of business.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Okay, so sorry, you've lost me. So what's sunlight got
to do this? Are you talking about your second technology
or something that stolar or what.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
The photochemical technology we developed with University of Toronto just
won the Royal Society of Chemistry Horizon Award for New Inventions.
We've created a brand new science. We've created the science
of using light in particular LEDs so we can run
twenty four to seven. We don't have to just run
(23:38):
in the daytime to split hydrogen, ammonia, ammonia, hydrogen hydrocarbons
into small molecules into their original constituents. Depending on the
feedstock you use, it determines what you get out. For example,
(23:59):
the award was based on the technology we developed to
take methane, turn it to athane, turn it to ethane,
turn it to athylene. We now use light to make
plastic zero missions dirtiest chemical in the world. Biggest polluter
(24:21):
in the world, plastic, So we can eliminate the emissions
from the production of plastic. That's five hundred billion dollar
a year business. Ammonias five hundred billion dollars a year
around twenty thirty. So there's a trillion dollar a year
market right there. But that's just in photochemistry. That's just plastics.
(24:45):
What about refining petrick chemicals. That's a four trillion dollar
year business, sorry, a one trillion dollar year.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
So explain, explain to me if you could. How do
you use sunlight to break hydrocarbons or your gener ammonia
into its component pieces.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
You create a photoreactor. This is something that holds your
input feedstock and holds a catalyst which causes a chemical change.
The light shines on the catalyst. You have an input feedstock.
The feedstock is broken apart out of it comes a
(25:28):
different chemical depending on your feedstock. There are feedstocks you
can use. For example, where you get hydrogen and carbon
nanotubes carbon nano cells for six thousand dollars a kilo.
We did a techno economic analysis with the carbos car
and the carbon nano only selling for two dollars two
(25:49):
thousand dollars a kilo. The hydrogen cost as a byprod
of that industrial process is nine cents a kilo. Retail
pride though will sell price manufacturing price in North America
is nine dollars akilo. So you're telling me.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
That you can create hydrogen for nine cents a kilo
when it sells for nine dollars akilo.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
Yes, yes, And this is proven by the Royal Society
and Nature. This is a proven technology.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
That's that's a ninety nine percent reduction. That's that's your
one percent of the prior cost.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Uh no, one one thousand, nine dollars. Sorry, you're right,
nine dollars nine cents one one correct. That's incredible. Yep,
it sure is.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
So like what's the future for this technology and for hydrofuel?
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Well, as I said, you know, the challenge is to
go through that seventeen year window from I've invented something
in the lab until you can pull up your gas
station and get it right. There's a very long road there.
So what happens is is business is business right, and
industry will go where the biggest profits are. So industry
(27:11):
will develop this technology where they can get the biggest subsidies,
same as every other thing we need. No, you don't,
but their competitors are getting subsidized. So you're competing with ethanol,
which gets a subsidy, which only contains seventy five percent
of the energy in it that was in the diesel
(27:33):
fuel and fertilizer to make it. And you're replacing a
hydrocarbon with a hydrocarbon, and our politicians say this is
green and this is helping us. You want to cut
carbon emissions by twenty five percent outlaw ethanol, make it illegal,
pay your farmers to make food instead of fuel. The
(27:54):
same thing as renewable natural gas. What are they doing.
They're stripping the natural gas off garbage, They're leaving everything else,
all the by mass everything, and they're saying, oh, this
is greed, give me a subsidy, and our good politicians
are right there handing out our money as fast as
we can. What is Canada going to do with this whatever?
(28:18):
What are they called it? Forget what they called? You know,
our are our moonshot projects for Canada. They're not doing
a technological economic analysis, they're not doing a life cycle analysis.
They're not looking at the ten fifteen, twenty twenty five
thirty year impact of this stuff.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Okay, so hold it. I don't understand what's wrong with
taking natural gas out of garbage. I understand that that
garbage and a garbage dump creates either natural gas or
methane naturally, and and you got to do something with it,
and and and and so therefore creating natural gas out
of it makes a ton of sense.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Yeah, if you don't, if you ignore basic math and science,
it does. Sure it does if you watch bloomberg yat
that's and read the Globe mill. So why is it not?
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Tell me why? Like what's less?
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Here are some facts. Let's give you a fact. It
gives a nice fact about garbage. Okay. Washington, DC, six
years ago built the first waste to fertilizer garbage plant
in North America. They took one hundred and thirty million
dollar negative cost and turn it into a thirty million
dollar a year profit. It was so successful that the
(29:26):
five states around DC bought licenses to the technology to
build five more of these things around Washington. Washington will
have taken one hundred and thirty million dollar negative cost
and turned it into one hundred and eighty million dollar profit.
Now that's the first this time this technology ever hit
(29:48):
in North America. Brian. But there are a hundred of
these plants. They've been built all over Europe and all
around the world for thirty years. See, in North America,
we don't look at cost. Everything is a waste, and
then we don't care about the waste. That's somebody else's problem.
In most economies, you actually have to look at all
(30:12):
the costs. And what's happening to us is we're getting
the bills. We're starting to wake up.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
We understand, Greg. They turned one hundred and thirty million
negative cost into this huge profit. That was a smart
thing for them to do.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
Yeah, So why haven't we done this in Canon? Why
whren't we doing it for the last forty years. Well,
everybody else was doing it. I know, you can tell
me why we didn't subsidize it. We didn't let them
get their snout into the feedbag. Okay, so that industry
get their snout into the feedbag. They'll do stuff. Brian,
look off topic, and this is a classic example three
(30:50):
P partnerships. You and I have a fundamental mathematic disagreement
on this. There's not been a three P in the
last fifty years. Ever anywhere in the world, well where
working with the private sector didn't cost twice as much
over the life of the project. The reason is very simple.
Governments borrow money at two percent, private sector twall percent.
(31:10):
Government doesn't need a profit. Private sector needs a tall
percent profit over thirty years. It's double the cost of
the project. It's exactly the same thing and energy. If
you're going to pay need to do it, I'm gonna
do it. And if you're not gonna pay me to
do it, I'm not gonna do it because you're paying
somebody else. I've said for for for forty years. We
(31:30):
need a real price on all pollution, not just carbon.
We need the life cycle price of what we do
in it. And then we need the government to go
back like this and give away trophies not money. Okay,
we need to let free enterprise do what free enterprise
will do, which is solve problems and make money, not
(31:57):
create problems to make money. And fundamentally, what's happening around
the world and Canada right now is in a very
dangerous position because we're no longer going to get technology
from the United States free, and we've been getting technology
out out of the US military for nothing for years.
(32:18):
All of US NASA and all the rest of it.
That's gone. But here's the most important point. The new
oil is science. Major paper just came out a few
weeks ago on all the greatest achievements in science are
coming from where university students and post docs in those
(32:40):
four or five six years they're in a university from
the day they go in the door, and they don't
know nothing until their second year as a post dog.
After graduating, you know, they invent ninety percent of the
new inventions. Why because they hadn't been told you can't
do that yet. And this is true. And so here
we have a huge brain drain from the United States.
(33:03):
The universities are empty, the professors and the brightest and
the brightest, and they're running as fast as they can
for the exits. And we stop immigration, Stop foreign students.
Are you nuts? We should invite them all in, all
of them, bring a million of them in. You know
why because they will give us the knowledge base, the
(33:26):
technology that we will sell to the world to replace
existing technologies. They will give us the technology to use
light to replace heat and electricity. They'll give us the
technologies to use ammonia for hydrogen and storage. They'll give
us the technologies for decarbonizing our entire global industry because
(33:49):
they don't know they can't do it yet. And all
of the scientific research and experience over the last hundreds
and hundreds of years show the new ideas come from
the brightest mind with the youngest or the youngest and
the cleanest minds. So what are we doing in this country.
We should be going after that. We should double our
scientific research tax credits, but not for companies spending one
(34:10):
hundred million dollars. For the little guys. The fastest growing
industry is in knowledge. Are startups run by one person
and three years later their companies what oh, they did
a first round, an ABC round, They got a fifty
million market cap. Three years later they got a billion
dollar market cap. Again, we don't encourage nimble knowledge. We
(34:37):
encourage sustaining the status quo in this country. And that's,
in my opinion, the biggest mistake, and that has been
the greatest lesson in the greatest benefit We've learned doing
research in Georgia Tech, doing research at Colorado State, doing
research at the University of Florida. Same time we do
university research at Oshawa and the University of Toronto because
(35:02):
the great inventions are going to come from there, and
that seventeen year window that it used to take to
get from the lab to the marketplace is down to
seven years.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
The chatting with Greg Vestant, CEO of hydro Fuel, about
great ideas, new ideas come from young people, fascinating say
this said one back.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
Into the.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
No Radio, No Problem stream is live on SAGA ninety
sixty am dot col.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Welcome back everyone to the bran Pionbee Radio our fasting
conversation with Greg Vesna tonight. He's talked about his company
that he's CEO of Hydrofuel, two technologies that they've got,
one that can convert hydrogen into ammonia and another one
that can convert hydrocarbons into their component pieces hydrogen, ammonia, carbon,
et cetera. And he's also really said some intriguing things
(36:06):
in regards to where new ideas come from young people
at university in their post docs, and that we should
be bringing them to Canada to take contribute to our society.
So I gotta you know, just in our last couple
of minutes, Greg ask you to take a big step
back you know Mark Carney, a new Preme Minister, has
said he wants us to be an energy superpower. We've
talked a little bit about transmission lines across the country
(36:28):
and you don't think that's a good idea. Daniel Smith,
the Premium Alberta is demanding that we create pipelines to
the West coast the liquefied natural gas, maybe pipelines to Churchill.
What do you think we need to do in Canada
to be an energy superpower?
Speaker 3 (36:45):
Oh? Great question, Thank you, Brian. I think we need
to adopt an all of the above strategy, and I
mean all of the above. And we've got us stop
deciding who the winners and losers are based on Paul
politics entirely. Okay. Different regions in different parts of this
country have different assets that are more valuable value added
(37:11):
within their own economy than they are shipped across the
country or out of Canada to be turned into a
more value ad product. The notion of building Churchill not Churchill,
but it's another examples. The idea of building site CNBC,
(37:33):
the Peace River hydro dam so that we have electricity
to liquifinancial gas for export instead of just burning the
damn natural gas and not building this giant transmission line.
I mean, what is the math on that. Well, the
math is you've got a natural gas line to where
(37:57):
you can generate electricity, and natural gas is very efficient
and Canadian natural gas is the lowest carbon gass in
the world, so we would produce the lowest gas generated
electricity on the planet Earth. But no, we're going to
take the site see electricity, So we're gonna build two
energy corridors to get the job done.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
So ship natural gas bi pipeline and burn it closer
to where it's burn it and converted to electricity closer
to where it's needed. And you still get the same
amount of carbon into the atmosphere, but you save energy
through that transportation process.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
Well, actually you get less carbon in the atmosphere because
you didn't build those transmission lines. Remember we're talking about
life cycle. You need steel, well, you need okay, bulldozers
to clear the land. Okay, So again a single utilization
to end use. We utilize the infrastructure we have as
much as possible to get to end use, and then
(38:59):
its use we do our improvements. So you try to
do pre combustion, and we're talking about combustion right now,
you do pre combustion mitigation and you do post combustion mitigation.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Look, so what about a pipeline to the West coast
and a liquified natural gas plant to ship liquified natural
gas to Asia?
Speaker 3 (39:20):
Yeah, tomorrow, we have the lowest content gas in the world.
Why why wouldn't we ship Canadian natural gas instead to
let the ship Venezuelan bunker oil or coal? I mean,
it's math. Do the free math.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
So Daniel Smith is right, we need a pipeline to
the West coast. What about a pipeline to the East coast.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
We need one there too. Absolutely, Why are we importing
oil from Saudi Arabia for the refinery refineries in the
East Coast and we're shipping our ours to Texas at
a twenty discount price? Like, I'm sorry, do the math?
Get some grade five math and science students in point
(40:00):
them as the Minister of Energy and Environment.
Speaker 5 (40:02):
For okay, what about these people that say, you know,
we're at peak energy, peak use of hydrocarbons, you know,
putting all this money into these massive pipelines just doesn't
make economic sense.
Speaker 3 (40:13):
Well, okay, first two answers the IEA come out last
week and said we're not going to reach peak oil
till at least twenty fifty with data centered demand and
heating and air conditioning demand. One trillion tear wats. Whatever
fossil energy invested in last year, doubling amount invested in renewables,
(40:35):
renewables still haven't taken a chunk, any larger chunk out
of a total energy supply because demand is growing faster
than we can build renewables. It's math. And again, every
time you use a renewable, you build a gas plant.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
What every time you use it renewable you build a gas.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
Plant, you cannot You cannot replace baseload power with renewable
energy unless you build three times as much and massive
battery storage or a gas plant. Look, we're paying a
fortune for newle By energy in Ontario. We're hiding billions
of dollars of cost from our monthly bill because industry
(41:17):
will scream if they have to pay the real cost
of electricity. Has this happened in another jurisdiction and then
paying billions more to store it for four hours in
these battery plants for four hours?
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Greig Vesna really appreciate you joining us tonight so to
become an energy superpower, we got to think about life
cycle cost. We got to get government out of the
way of picking winners and losers and open up to
free enterprise. We got to stop subsidizing old technologies and
allow the new technologies to be competitive. We got to
(41:54):
build pipelines to the East coast and the West coast
and liquefied natural gas plants, Build big long transmission quarterors
is that crack.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
And build and build renewable where it works. Those wind
farms in Atlantic Canada, et cetera, et cetera. You can
create massive amounts of energy. The thing is use them there,
don't try and ship them across the country.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
Use it where you make Greg Veson, thanks for joining us.
Really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
Thank you, Brian.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
We're gonna take a break, and I'm gonna come back
after a break with a couple of my own comments
on this topic.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
Stay with us, everybody, stream us live at SAGA nine
six am dot C.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
Welcome back everyone to the burn Crimby Radio or tonight.
I want to talk as I close about innovation, not
a buzzword, not a government slogan, but a real engine
of growth for Canada, for prosperity and for national identity.
Because from my recent conversations tonight with Greg Vesna, and
I've got two next week that I'm going to be
having with Neil Seaman, an adjunct professor at the University
(43:08):
of Toronto and Professor Peter Singer, a retired professor meritus
at UFT, one theme has emerged that is impossible to ignore.
Canada is brilliant at creating ideas, but we're terrible at
turning those ideas into industries. And unless we finally confront
that gap, we risk watching the next Industrial Revolution happen
(43:32):
everywhere else in the world except here in Canada. I
have six points I want to make. Number One, innovation
isn't just technology, it's culture. Peter Singer said something remarkable
to me. He said, Canada has one of the strongest
science systems in the world, but the weakest link between
discovery and economic impact. We created the lipid nanoparticles that
(43:53):
enabled our M and RNA vaccines, a trillion dollar technology,
but the wealth ended up in Germany and the United States.
We contributed foundational discoveries behind GLP one weight loss drugs,
now reshaping global health, and again the economic upside went south.
Why Because innovation isn't only labs and scientists.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
It's a culture.
Speaker 2 (44:15):
It's a culture of entrepreneurship. It's a willingness to take risk,
to scale, to commercialize right here at home in Canada.
As Neil put it, As Neil Seman put it, real
innovation happens in conversations, in collaborations, in vulnerability, not on
glossy conference stages. It happens when people stop posturing and
actually share ideas, failures, pivots and messy trial ed error.
(44:39):
Innovation is conversation. Innovation is community. Innovation is the power
of co connection, collaboration and collisions. And Canada has not
built the ecosystems that reward these things. Number two, Greg
Lesna talked about a window into what we could lead on.
Greg Veza talked about generally innovative thickers in Canada's energy sector.
(45:02):
He's talking about incremental improvements, but more than that, paradigm shifts.
Ammonia is the carrier that finally makes hydrogen viable. Micro
ammonium production systems decentralized in fuel and fertilizer. Fertilizer a
photochemical reactor that turns methane into hydrogen and ethylene only
using light hydrogen and nine cents a kilo, not nine dollars,
(45:24):
zero carbon petrochemicals and a full transformation of the global
energy math. Greig Vez is talking about Canadian science developed
here at UFT and in Durham and in Mississauga, Canadian engineering,
Canadian talent. But Greg also said something that should alarm
every policy maker. Can needs someone to lead to pull
(45:44):
together the capital of the company's the universities, or we
will lose this to China, Europe and the US. We
are at risk of repeating the same historical mistake invent
the breakthroughs here, commercialize it elsewhere, and import to finish
product back later on at a premium number three. The
real issue is we just don't scale our genius. Neil
(46:05):
Seemen captured this perfectly, he said. Innovation isn't a heroic
solo act. It's not the myth of the lone genius
in the garage. It's a messy, collaborative process, shaped by
arguments and coffee shops, debates around campfires, diverse teams, conflicting ideas,
chance encounters, serendipity. Innovation requires ecosystems, clusters, and Canada keeps
(46:26):
sending its entrepreneurs to those ecosystems in Silicon Valley in California. Meanwhile,
Peter Singer emphasized the structural problem Canada. We just don't
have those anchor companies anymore. The large domestic firms that
mentor startups, acquire spin offs and keep intellectual property here.
Israel has them, the startup nation, Germany has them, Korea
(46:48):
has them, and the US certainly has them. The military
industrial complex.
Speaker 3 (46:52):
We do not.
Speaker 2 (46:53):
So we get brilliant science, but the economic values leave before.
The global race is changing and Canada must.
Speaker 3 (47:02):
Change with it.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
Look at what greg business work shows US. China is
launching a Petro a photochemistry Manhattan Project. Europe is investing
billions in hydrogen and ammonia. The US has the IRA,
the Chips Act, and the near zero taxes for clean
tech manufacturing. Meanwhile Canada is writing strategy documents. We can't
strategize our way into prosperity. We have to build, we
(47:23):
have to scale to, we have to act. We have
to We have the talent, we have the science. We
even have a tax environment surprisingly that makes advanced research
more cost efficient three hundred percent more cost efficient in
the United States, what we lack I believe is urgency,
ambition and a willingness to bet on ourselves. Five So
(47:47):
what should Canada do? Across all the three interviews, a
simple roadmap emerged. One invest in basic science massively and consistently.
Breakthroughs come from curiosity driven research. Two convert discoveries into equity,
not just grants. If taxpayers fund innovation, taxpayers should share
the upside. Three build anchor companies. Help Canadian firms grow
(48:10):
to global scale. Northern Telecom, BlackBerry were examples. Today Bombardia
others can be the recruit entrepreneurial science scientists, not just
researchers builders. Five. Create ecosystems of collaboration, the power of collisions, connections, conversations.
(48:31):
Six commercialize the tech We invent ammonia systems, photochemistry, AI,
clean materials, all of it. Seven keep intellectual property here
in Canada. Don't export our crown jewels for pennies. This
isn't nationalism, this is common sense. As Greg Beza said,
if the math doesn't work at a grade nine level,
it won't work in an energy system. Well, here's another
piece of grade nine math. Innovation is equal to science
(48:54):
times entrepreneurship Times, Capital Times Culture. Canada has the science,
we need to multiply the other three.
Speaker 3 (49:03):
That's six.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
A closing message to you all. We're not missing the talent,
we're missing the moment. Every one of my guests recently
has said some version of the same thing. Canada is
just not short of ideas, We're short of boldness. The
next decade will define the winners of the twenty first
century economy. Those who scale innovation will thrive. Those who
hesitate will fall behind. The opportunity is here, the technology
(49:26):
is here, the talent is here. The only question is
whether Canada finally will choose to leave, choose to lead.
Innovation is equal to Science Times, Entrepreneurship times, Capital Times Culture.
That's the formula. That's our show for tonight. Thank you
everyone for joining us. I'm on every Monday through Friday
at six o'clock on nine to sixty am. You can
(49:47):
stream me online at Triple W Saga ninety sixty am
dot CA. You can you get all my podcasts videocasts
on Briancrombie dot com, on YouTube, on Facebook and Instagram,
and on Audible podcasts, on Apple p casts and on Speakeasy.
Thank you check me out, good night, everybody, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (50:08):
Stream us live at Saga nine sixty am dot c
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Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Are You A Charlotte?
In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.
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