Engineering The Future
Engineering The Future is the official podcast for the member and advocacy body that serves Ontario’s engineering community, known as the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers (OSPE). Hosted by OSPE Board member and engineer Jerome James, P.Eng., Engineering The Future offers a wealth of information to engineers at all levels of their career. Episodes will delve into issues impacting the profession through discussions with industry, government, and academic changemakers. The podcast is recorded in Ontario, Canada and will be an invaluable resource for any engineer or professional tied to the STEM industry.
Engineering The Future
Episode 47: SPOTLIGHT - OSPE's Energy Task Force
At OSPE, advocacy is our cornerstone, driving us to create change and progress within the engineering community. To fulfill this commitment, we've established five task forces, each focused on conducting research and providing policy recommendations in areas critical to engineers in Ontario.
In part five of our series, we spotlight the work being done by OSPE's Energy Task Force. Host Jerome James speaks with task force chair Stephen Pepper, P.Eng. about the crucial role professional engineers play in developing clean and sustainable energy solutions and stresses the significance of their active participation in policy-making at all levels of government.
ENGINEERNG THE FUTURE EP. 47
SPOTLIGHT: OSPE's Energy Taskforce
JEROME JAMES: 00:00 - 00:23
This episode of Engineering the Future has been brought to you by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization. NWMO is the national organization responsible for safely managing Canada's used nuclear fuel, a critical component of Canada's long-term sustainable energy strategy. Want to learn more about NWMO's plans for the future? Visit nwmo.ca.
FEMALE NARRATOR: 00:29 - 00:43
This podcast is brought to you by OSPE, the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers, the advocacy body for professional engineers in the engineering community in Ontario.
JEROME JAMES:
00:43 - 01:40 Welcome to Engineering the Future, a podcast brought to you by the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers. I am your host, Jerome James. At OSPE, advocacy is our cornerstone, driving us to create change and progress within the engineering community. To fulfill this commitment, we've established five task forces, each focused on conducting research and providing policy recommendations in the areas critical to engineers in Ontario. With us today to help shine a spotlight on the work being done by OSPE's Energy Task Force is Energy Task Force Chair, Steve Pepper, a professional engineer and Chief Financial Officer at S2E Technologies Group. Steve, welcome to Engineering the Future.
STEVEN PEPPER
Thank you very much, Jerome. Excited to be here.
JEROME JAMES
Excellent. So let's jump right into it. Can you provide an overview of OSPE's Energy Task Force and its objectives?
STEVEN PEPPER: 01:41 - 02:22
Sure. OSPEs, as we all know, we're in the midst of an energy transition happening in society, and energy is foundational to the quality of modern life and our ability to do what we need to do. So our view is, is that professional engineers were so involved in engineering the solution. We need to be involved at the policy setting and only too often where we miss, we're, we're not involved in the policy setting and we're just at, and so we need to be involved if we're going to be effective in bringing solutions. We can't leave it to others to decide policy.
JEROME JAMES: 02:23 - 02:29
Well said. And what motivated you to take on the role of chair of the task force?
STEVEN PEPPER: 02:29 - 03:13
Well, um, I'm very passionate about the voice of engineers in society. And like a lot of engineers, you, you look at some of the things that are decided and you don't quite understand the basis of that. And so you, I feel you need to get involved. in, in order to have your voice heard and create change and influence things. Um, a lot, a lot of, a lot of individuals and groups are out there and they provide opinions, but they're not informed opinions. And surprisingly, you, you get the same voice, uh, as, as engineers, if we don't speak our mind.
JEROME JAMES: 03:13 - 03:24
Well, that makes a lot of sense. Let's talk about the current energy landscape. What are the most pressing energy related challenges facing Ontario today?
STEVEN PEPPER: 03:24 - 04:02
Well, there is a, it's a very active file. And as we've seen multiple elections where energy and energy prices were foundational to the political discourse. So what that means is, is that adequacy and reliability of energy supply in a way that's affordable for the consumer and industry at large and is, uh, environmentally as benign as possible. So three really challenging goals to, to hit at the same time.
JEROME JAMES: 04:02 - 04:12
Do you see this as a political football that's going to be punted from person to person, from government to government?
STEVEN PEPPER: 04:13 - 04:58
Well, one of the beauties, beautiful things about being with the Energy Task Force and OSPE is we have benefited from direct access to the minister and his staff and key policy makers, so we have a good sense as to what the issues that they're struggling with. From my perspective, it is not a football issue. It's that people are kicking. People respect the need for coherent, smart policy. It's just very difficult. And there are a lot of different voices at the table, all that have their own opinions, informed or otherwise, as to what society should do. And they're doing their best they can.
JEROME JAMES: 05:00 - 05:11
Well, I'm glad that's the case. How do you see the energy sector evolving over the next, say, five to 10 years, both in Ontario and globally?
STEVEN PEPPER: 05:12 - 06:19
Well, that's a great question because we all know about the government's goal about net zero and carbon emission and of all forms of greenhouse gas emission abatement. And we're seeing the consequences of climate change. And that is, so there's a lot of discussion about what is the solution of that? Is the solution of electrifying the energy system and basically converting everything to run on electricity? Is it things like hydrogen or renewable natural gas? Or is it about carbon sequestration and capturing? So there's a lot of different approaches and the solving that is the issue today, whether it's, you know, nuclear power, fission, whether we're using fusion, whether we're, it's, there's so much technology that's, it's so much brain power that's being solved, thrown at solving this foundational problem for society.
JEROME JAMES: 06:21 - 06:30
And do you see a certain direction that the current Ontario government is moving in versus maybe previous governments?
STEVEN PEPPER: 06:31 - 07:20
Well, uh, we have seen a, a very dramatic and, and I would say bold and, and somewhat courageous, uh, step about, uh, really reinvesting in, uh, nuclear energy, which is a form of very reliable emission free electricity generation. And, and to do it in such a way to bring innovation to the sector, whether it's, uh, advanced new nuclear technologies, refurbishment, of various reactors or small modular reactors and in a way that if engineers in Ontario can bring that technology to bear, it provides export opportunities and employment opportunities for the province at large.
JEROME JAMES: 07:20 - 07:36
Nicely put. We'll have to see how that bores out in the near future. Let's switch gears to talk about the task forces. Can you discuss some of the key initiatives and projects that the Energy Task Force is currently working on?
STEVEN PEPPER: 07:37 - 09:27
Sure, there's a lot to talk about so I could spend the rest of this time talking about that, but I'll mention a few things. One of which right now is we are really doing a deep dive into heat pumps and how heat pump adoption impacts the grid. We know that Heat pump is a cold weather heat pumps. There's a lot of discussion about it. There's a lot of momentum to use heat pumps. But at the same time, there's a lot of concern about, well, can the grid support heat pumps? You know, the grid amount of energy that is delivered through the system. And what I mean, not just the electricity grid, but also the natural gas grid and the fossil fuel system is, is three times the amount of electricity. So if we switched over to heat pump, you know, does that, can the grid even support that in, in anything close to 2020, 2050? So is that a solution, and is it a solution anywhere? And if it's not, or if it is, how do you adopt that in such a way? So at the individual level, electricity is infinite. You know, I flip on my switch in my home residence and I expect my lights to be on and I don't expect to have to worry about, you know, saving energy beyond my electricity bill. But when you're looking at a grid perspective and you're looking at the minister is, the government has said we want to build a million and a half homes in Ontario. If all of those were heat pump homes, well, that's a large nuclear reactor the size of Bruce. If, if that was all fresh electricity, well, that's, that's not an easy thing to solve.
JEROME JAMES: 09:27 - 09:53
I've heard different statistics over the last little while about the rate at which our energy consumption is going to double, whether that be from electrification, AI model crunching, all the different energy uses that are coming online to help curb GSG emissions and support decarbonization efforts. Are we ready for this in Ontario?
STEVEN PEPPER: 09:53 - 11:05
Well, there's a lot of planning going on into this. And of course, what's remarkable is that we've just come through probably 10 to 15 years where we've converted incandescent light bulbs and fluorescent tubes to LED. which dramatically reduced electricity consumption. Prior to that, lighting was a very significant demand for electricity. Now it's much less so. So that gave us a lot of breathing room. But you're 100% right. Crypto, AI are two very fast-growing, rapidly increasing sources of electricity demand, which didn't exist three, four or five years ago in any significance. And, uh, that that's as well as electric vehicles, electrification of, of, of industry industry needs to, you know, reduce its, its greenhouse gas emissions, like steel, if it has a chance to export to foreign markets, which are legislating away carbon, uh, embodied carbon in the products. So all this is happening at the same time.
JEROME JAMES: 11:06 - 11:48
I want to ask you a little bit of a wonky question. We can cut it out if we don't have time, but you know, not all of these items will be turned on at the same time, so to speak. Our peak during the day and the peak for the year is constantly changing. Do you see this being something that we take in more to consideration on how we can shift energy usage, maybe charge your car overnight, maybe offset and shift the time that you turn on your air conditioning. Is that something that could help buy us more time as we scale up these electrification initiatives?
STEVEN PEPPER: 11:51 - 12:59
You're 100% correct. Not only does it by us time, it's energy management is part of the new toolkit. In the past, we haven't really needed to manage the demand of electricity when you had so much available capacity. But as that capacity gets constrained, and it's not just generation capacity, that we automatically think about. It's your transmission capacity and your distribution capacity. Those transformers around the end of the street that you have that powers your whole neighborhood, they do not and were never designed and scaled to have two electric vehicles in every house. and electric water heaters and electric heat pumps. So the distribution system itself needs to be upgraded. The conductors need to be looked at and sized. Even the transmission lines have all constraints. They all have physical constraints that all have to be overcome beyond the generation side.
JEROME JAMES: 12:59 - 13:17
That's an excellent point, actually, that I think a lot of people are overlooking right now. How does the Energy Task Force collaborate with industry stakeholders, government agencies, and other organizations to address these energy challenges?
STEVEN PEPPER: 13:18 - 15:28
One of the unique things about OSPE's voice at the table is that we are really politically indifferent agnostic. We're not approaching things with a political agenda. We're not even approaching things with a technical agenda, other than we want smart technology decisions and data-based policy decisions. And why is that? Well, we have engineers in every facet of the sector. So I can't come out and we can't take a view that, hey, you need to stop using a particular technology, unless that technology is like smoking. I mean, it's inherently problematic from a health point of view. And there are readily available options that are easily utilized. So we have to come up with a balanced view and a holistic view and provide good, solid information. If I am, for instance, a not-for-profit that is solely focused on eliminating greenhouse gases, I'm not worried about other things like does the grid satisfy NERC's reliability requirement in order to maintain interconnections with other grids. That's not my problem. I'm just singularly focusing on something. Or if I'm a representative for a particular technology, I don't care that there may be better substitutes that are available or alternatives because I'm not being paid to represent those. So, you know, the minister and the staff, they're non-technical at their core. But they have a huge, uh, kind of responsibility to make policy decisions that, that balance all of these competing interests in a way that, that society will accept. And so we have to be at the table to provide balance, uh, from, from an engineer's perspective.
JEROME JAMES: 15:28 - 15:52
Well, that's very interesting. And, uh, well, why don't we get into the current Ontario energy mix from an agnostic point of view? What role does renewable energy sources play in our current energy use and is there potential for their future? What is the potential for renewables in Ontario?
STEVEN PEPPER: 15:53 - 18:35
Well, we've gone through a long period of time from the creation of the Green Energy Act and the FIT programs to where we are today. Renewable energy performance is improving and costs are decreasing constantly. Society is saying we need to increase and ultimately reduce, eliminate our greenhouse gas emissions, otherwise it won't matter because we won't be able to sustain life as we know it. So failure is not an option. So where is Ontario? Well, Ontario is challenged in the sense that we are not like Alberta, or I should say we're not like British Columbia or Quebec, where we have an abundant amount of natural landscape that gives us the opportunity to generate enormous amounts of hydroelectric energy, the hydroelectric energy that is mostly available, we have used already. Those were some of the first hydro generation facilities we've taken advantage of. We're going to continue to improve them from upgrades to refurbishments and replacements with better quality turbines and stuff like that. But that's not going to solve the problem. That's going to help, but there's not enough capacity there. So Nuclear is a big thing because we have a pretty flat landscape. So we have more than half of our grid is based on nuclear. So what does that mean for solar and wind? Well, unfortunately, we have long periods of time where we don't have sun. So we're not like California. So we have a challenge with respect to relying exclusively on solar. And wind tends to operate all at the same time. Similarly, there's windy seasons and then there is not so windy seasons. So the mix for Ontario tends to be to incorporate renewables into the grid, into our existing mix. And I haven't talked about renewable natural gas, which is something that we're talking about, but there's nowhere near enough supply for renewable natural gas. And we're not even sure where the raw materials will come from in order to supply enough renewable natural gas given our energy needs. So a mix where it's going to be an all of the above solution, quite frankly.
FEMALE NARRATOR: 18:35 - 18:47
We hope you're enjoying this episode so far. At OSPE, we're here for you, making sure government, media, and the public are listening to the voice of engineers. You can learn more at ospi.on.ca.
JEROME JAMES: 18:49 - 19:17
And with that all of the above solution, is there still room for it to lead within the environmental stewardship of the province? I know the McGuinty government kicked us off of the coal habit, coal energy, about 10, 15 years ago. What is that next stage for environmental stewardship in the energy sector?
STEVEN PEPPER: 19:18 - 21:10
Yeah, that was a pretty gutsy move to kick us off coal. And, uh, I remember in those days we had smog days. If you remember, those were a common occurrence. Uh, I can't remember the last time we had a smog day. So, um, if you think about it, so that's a direct by-product of, of that. And, and it improves human health because I remember don't go outside if you're asthmatic or, you've got health issues. So those days we haven't seen too many anymore, at least not in Ontario. So from that perspective, it's great. In terms of our ability to lead in Ontario, the world is adopting, recognizing that nuclear is going to be part of the mix. And so there is a refurbishment and an investment in nuclear generation to complement and to enable more renewables. They're not mutually exclusive because, you know, your nuclear fleet can support your higher degree of penetration of renewables, as an example. It's part of the discussion we've had with gas peaking plants. Well, if you're it would be great to be able to not have any gas plants that emit natural gas, but if you didn't have natural gas plants, you wouldn't be able to have as many solar panels and wind panels to the grid, because the natural gas's ability to backstop and support those during their normal invariability means you can deploy more of them. So it's, it's, uh, it's a bit of counterintuitive that, you know, your gas plants actually enable, uh, more renewable energy projects and therefore less use of gas plants.
JEROME JAMES: 21:10 - 21:36
That's great insight. And, uh, I really want the listeners to have that last point sink in about, um, smog days. That's, that was pretty impactful. Our, our next topic to chat about is innovation and technology. How has the Energy Task Force leveraged innovation and technology to drive advancements in the energy industry?
STEVEN PEPPER: 21:37 - 24:36
One of the, if, if OSPE has a bias and I I'm very upfront with that when we meet with the minister and staff, cause every advocacy group has their own bias. We have a bias, two biases. One, we, we really strongly believe in the value of engineers voices at the table beyond simply doing engineering. I mean, the people who understand the technology innately can add an enormous amount in terms of policy decisions and crafting and helping people understand the implications of the various policy trade-offs. So that's the one bias. The other bias is we're pro-innovation. We do believe that we have to innovate our way out of this. Energy demand is not going away. Efficiency, we've been working on improving energy efficiency for so long and we made huge strides to reduce our energy consumption per unit of GNP, but the GNP is growing and overall demand is increasing. So where has innovation come from that? The means for innovation is really creating new solutions that are going to help us to get to where we're trying to get to. And I'll give you some examples of that. There's engineers out there working on thermal networks. And what we're talking about is heat energy. We've been blessed in Ontario with so much energy, we've wasted more than we actually use. And to give you an example, heat is a recyclable form of energy. We don't look at it that way, we don't really respect it, but we can save it, we can pipe it, and you can distribute it just like a thermal network. We used to call it district heating, but it's well beyond that. You can tie it into heat pumps and geothermal, and therefore you can share, you can extract energy, say from a ice hockey arena, and use that heat to heat a home or an office building. And same thing, you can extract heat from a data center, and therefore improve your environmental impact of your crypto and your AI facilities. And you can use that to heat homes and office buildings. And therefore, that displaces the need for things like electricity. I don't need to generate electricity if I'm just using heat that we're otherwise wasting. And similarly in the cooling. So, so this, this is a really exciting place. That's going to have a big impact for dense cities that, that we already see, even in Toronto, we see the, the geo, the, the, the cooling network in, in Toronto. And we see it in Markham and Ottawa. So we're seeing this start to show up in, in Ontario in a major way.
JEROME JAMES: 24:36 - 24:53
Developers are are integrating those into their innovative projects, the district heating and beyond. That's right. Is there specific innovative technologies that the task force is working on, like within a project?
STEVEN PEPPER: 24:54 - 25:46
Well, there's an individual in our group and he has a very interesting innovation on lithium ion batteries that can extend the life of lithium ion batteries, this number of cycle by as many as three times. And can even reverse dendrite formation. So at a very innovative approach. So he brings that experience to the Energy Task Force and energy storage is going to be a real big important thing as we're trying to balance all these energy supplies and all these various sources of energy. And, and he's right here in Ontario. He's got LOIs from everything from the major airlines to, uh, to OEMs around the world. So he's, he's really a, an innovator.
JEROME JAMES: 25:46 - 25:53
This goes beyond just a policy paper. This is technology in motion.
STEVEN PEPPER: 25:54 - 28:17
I look at the energy system and we talk, again, we always think of energy, we think of the big nuclear plant or the peaking plants or something, but we should not underestimate and disrespect the importance and the role of our distribution networks. In the past, they have been what we call relatively dumb networks in terms of unidimensional flow, almost like old cable TV technology. You know, you used to get a TV guide and you, you know, you wanted to watch a show. You had to make sure your butt was in front of the TV at a particular time because that's when the show was on and you got a select number of TV shows you could choose from. and it was all centrally programmed and it was distributed out to you. So you were a passive distributed consumer of media content. Well, we now know that the internet has completely upended that. People are uploading videos and sharing videos and creating as much as they're consuming. So the whole thing is completely different and that business model has kind of gone away. The energy sector is very similar to that. Historically, we would generate all the energy in big, huge, massive power plants, distribute it through a transmission system and a distribution system, and you would just be a consumer. Technology is now here where we're now going to be a prosumer. You're going to generate electricity. You're going to upload it into the grid. You might share it with your neighbor. You may share it in different forms, thermal energy and electrical energy, and substitute it and swap it back and forth. You may store some and you may contribute to the grid if the grid is asking for it because it's a little short. So the grid, electrical grid of the future is going to look much like the internet of today. uh, with, with energy, different forms of energy and all that technology and the control systems and the ability to monetize that is going to look like a lot like crypto because you're going to get paid for your contribution to the grid and you're going to pay for the, the, the use of the grid. So, um, it, it provides a really fascinating business and technical opportunity for engineers across the spectrum.
JEROME JAMES: 28:18 - 28:35
That makes a lot of sense. I'm looking forward to that future. And now let's switch to policy and advocacy. What policy changes or initiatives is the task force advocating for to support growth of the energy sector in Ontario?
STEVEN PEPPER: 28:36 - 30:08
Yeah, here's, here's one advocacy that we've been, we petitioned for and we saw and we're continuing to work to improve. The task force has identified that because of a very inflexible source of energy demand and an inflexible source of energy production, we pay for an enormous amount of electricity, almost a billion dollars a year that we just simply waste. We discharge or we dispatch. We either take or pay. So we pay for it even though we don't use it under fixed supply contracts. And we've been doing that for decades. And so one of the things that we've advocated for is: Rather than using electricity and dumping it to jurisdictions, neighboring jurisdictions, in some cases even paying to take our electricity, you should make that electricity available at that marginal ultra low cost to Ontario consumers. makes a lot of sense. And so it's taken a while because of a whole bunch of reasons. But last year, the Ontario government brought out what they referred to as an ultra low overnight energy contract, which is administered and mandated by all all LDCs by the Ontario Energy Board. And it allows you to pull electricity during the evenings as low as 2.8 cents a kilowatt hour.
JEROME JAMES: 30:09 - 30:26
Can you talk about this a little bit more? I understand that this is an actual energy task force policy win, making the circle through engagement of government advocacy and actually seeing policy come out of it.
STEVEN PEPPER: 30:27 - 32:24
Absolutely, absolutely. And part of the challenge that I mentioned is because so much of the policy makers are non-technical. And so they take a different prism to the potential impact of a policy. I'll give you an example, electricity pricing. We have a lot of accounting folks and a lot of legal folks involved in the regulation of energy pricing. And part of it is this view of if somebody gets a savings, the system needs a certain amount of money. So if you save money, I need to get that revenue from somebody else. And is it fair now that, you know, you should essentially pay the cost that this person would otherwise pay to the grid? And so there's this big debate that happens, which makes it very difficult to bring in innovative energy pricing policies, because what people don't really think about is that it's not a zero-sum game. We're already wasting a billion dollars a year in surplus electricity. And on top of that, we're spending more money to regulate and manage all that surplus electricity and adding more like battery facilities and stuff like that. Well, if we just used it and allow people to take advantage of it and shift, their demand by adopting new technology, which gives opportunities for engineers to design that technology and sell it and manufacture it and jobs. Well, maybe we don't need to spend as much on battery farms or all of these peaking plants because we have a much more flexible supply and that saving stays in Ontario We're not paying people or exporting at ultra low rates to businesses that are in turn coming to compete against Ontario businesses.
JEROME JAMES: 32:24 - 32:35
Excellent. And just for the people that aren't in the know, how does OSPE engage with policymakers and government officials to influence energy policy decisions?
STEVEN PEPPER: 32:36 - 33:24
We meet with them generally, regularly, or if we have an innovative idea or something that is really bothering us, we'll seek audience with them. And we do it in a non-partisan manner, as I said. So we will meet with the government and the ministers, we will meet with opposition parties and energy critics, and we will lay out the information. Our approach is not opinions, uh, but we, we bring everything to the table with facts. We support the facts and we take an approach which says, let, let me help you understand from a fact and analytics perspective, what we're saying and why we're saying it and what we're advocating for and why it makes sense to do that.
JEROME JAMES: 33:24 - 33:40 Let's talk about engaging engineers. What opportunities do you see for engineers to contribute to the energy sector, particularly in areas such as renewable energy, energy efficiency, and grid modernization?
STEVEN PEPPER: 33:41 - 34:37
Well, the Energy Task Force is engaged directly on all of those topics. We are asked by the Ontario Energy Board to participate directly in Ontario Energy Board-led consultations on all of these topics. And the utilities will be there. The other advocacy groups will be there. And they're all there in force providing their views to try and influence policy. And it's how we influence policy. It's how policy is made in Ontario. That's what these consultations are for. And it's particularly the case with energy because it's a very complex interaction with all the different forms of energy and the technologies. And the consequence of getting it wrong is potentially really problematic.
JEROME JAMES: 34:37 - 34:46
So basically you're saying that you should just get involved with the Energy Task Force and you have an opportunity to affect real energy policy in Ontario.
STEVEN PEPPER: 34:47 - 35:19
Absolutely. If you're an engineer and you want to get involved in advocacy and you have a passionate interest about energy and you have some great ideas about energy, absolutely reach out to us, get involved with us. There's room there. We're looking and we're, we welcome people with all sorts of different perspectives. And we, you know, some of the biggest debates that we have is internal debates where ideas will be, and we'll throw darts at them and challenge them before we go public with them, because we are representing all engineers.
JEROME JAMES: 35:19 - 35:29
It's time for our final topic, future outlook. What are your hopes and goals for the Energy Task Force in the coming years?
STEVEN PEPPER: 35:29 - 36:08
The Energy Task Force, the need for our view and our experience and our, it couldn't, is only growing. So we need to be more involved, more engaged, not less. I've had more than I could count on or would want to talk about here would have the time to talk about comments from stakeholders at all levels saying we wish we had more comments, more participation from engineers. That would be huge win for, for society and for regulators at large.
JEROME JAMES: 36:08 - 36:26
That's great. And how do you envision the energy landscape in Ontario evolving in the long term? I know we talked about potential futures, but what do you see as the most probable and what role do you see OSPE playing in shaping that future?
STEVEN PEPPER: 36:28 - 37:41
Well there's no question that there's a big momentum towards electrification of our energy system and so we need to be there. It involves and touches upon a lot of engineers throughout society and it'll have a major impact. We need to be there as well to make sure that in the excitement of and the potential for electrifying things that we don't overlook other really awesome potential solutions like thermal networks, you know, does hydrogen, does even other technologies like methanol and ammonia as other potential forms of energy, and of course, improvements to nuclear technologies, whether using thorium reactors, whether you're using some of our small modular reactors that we're bringing online, Or even fusion in the bigger picture, nevermind all and to keep all of the innovation and the, the development of, of renewables with wind and solar and some of the other technologies. We don't have a lot of tidal resources here in Ontario, but we need to be aware of it because it's part of the bigger mix.
JEROME JAMES: 37:41 - 37:50
Wow. We've discussed so much today. Are there, is there anything else that we've left out? How would you like to leave your listeners today?
STEVEN PEPPER: 37:51 - 39:02
I would leave our listeners to say there's a lot of cynicism that we see floating around in society and in the media. What I can say is from what I have seen in my experience as the chair of Energy Task Force meeting with policymakers, is that there is a real, genuine, serious interest in dealing with the problem of how we're going to solve our energy crisis, how are we going to solve our energy needs in the future in a way that, again, balances affordability, reliability and quality, and environmental performance. And that solution is not clear yet. And anybody who has ideas and solutions and wants to put your thoughts and hats in the ring, the world wants you. Get it, get it, put it in. And we'll be happy, OSPE will be happy to use you. You can use that as a platform to get your ideas to prominence if you're struggling or don't know how to get there. We have a staff in OSPE of folks that help us to get these meetings and position us well.
JEROME JAMES: 39:04 - 39:42
Thank you, Steve, for joining us today and highlighting the crucial work that the Energy Task Force is doing. We've learned so much, but especially how essential it is to integrate engineering principles into energy policies for Ontario's economic well-being. It's been an eye-opening conversation. And as always, thank you to our audience. We really appreciate your support. And whether you're listening to us on YouTube or your favorite podcast app, don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. We love hearing from you. Thank you so much, Steve.
STEVEN PEPPER: 39:42 - 39:49
Thank you. Uh, we're doing this for the future and for our kids and grandkids. So please get involved.
JEROME JAMES: 39:49 - 39:56
And that's it for our episode. I'm your host, Jerome James. You've been listening to Engineering the Future, and we'll see you next time.
FEMALE NARRATOR: 40:00 - 40:09
From all of us at OSPE, the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers, thanks for listening. Please be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode.