In this episode, we talk to Julie Lemieux, CEO of Triple Point Resources, about their hydrogen storage project in Newfoundland and Labrador. Triple Point has the mineral rights to a salt dome on the West Coast of Newfoundland, which is a unique geological feature that can be used to store hydrogen.
00:00:00.000Hi, we're here with Julie Lemieux, CEO of Triple Point Resources, who's got a very interesting hydrogen play going on in Newfoundland.
00:00:11.680Yes, so Triple Point has the mineral right of a salt dome.
00:00:16.520Salt domes are a very unique geological feature, and there's no salt dome right now that are proven to store hydrogen,
00:00:23.660but we do have one out there, and there's a lot of wind farms that are coming on the island.
00:00:30.280And they will need storage, so having this asset will really help all the proponents to be more efficient,
00:00:38.560to ship hydrogen to Europe, and really make a Canadian of a reality.
00:00:46.420That's really interesting, because there's different ways of generating hydrogen, and one of the ways is electrolysis through seawater, right?
00:00:54.580Compared to, say, here in Alberta, where we are taking it from ammonia and natural gas.
00:01:01.280So, what are the timelines for your project, and when do you think it will be coming on stream?
00:01:07.780Well, with this type of project in the hydrogen sector, in Newfoundland, there's not a lot of rules and regulations for underground storage.
00:01:18.500So, right now, we're working with the government to make sure that we'll be able to permit the project.
00:01:23.840We believe, if everything was to go well, between three and five years, we can be operational, but it will take, you know, the time it takes to go through the environmental assessment.
00:01:33.720We believe we will have the funding in place very soon.
00:01:37.540But, yeah, I would say three to five years.
00:01:39.040So, is the South Dome offshore or onshore?
00:01:43.220The South Dome is onshore, so it's perfectly located 10 kilometers from shore, right beside the Trans-Canada Highway.
00:01:51.520The power line is crossing the property as well, and the GH2, one of the big projects that is there for wind, they are roughly 30 kilometers away,
00:02:01.980and they have one of their faces adjacent to the Dome as well, and there's four other proponents that are pushing through multi-billion dollar wind farms, wind project in Newfoundland.
00:04:23.220So, what has the response been here at the show to some of the things that you're doing?
00:04:28.520Obviously, Alberta is moving along with its own hydrogen plans.
00:04:32.640The premier is just upstairs talking about it at lunch today.
00:04:35.780So, how do you think it all fits in in a national framework?
00:04:40.140I think on the national side, like, to have a salt dome on the west coast of not just Canada, but North America, it's something that's very unique.
00:04:50.100There's no other salt deposits that are that size in Canada or in the United States.
00:04:58.120So, at one point in the ecosystem that we need to develop the hydrogen sector, this asset will be developed for more and more storage.
00:05:06.920It will be a multi-generational asset for the hydrogen sector.
00:05:13.420And we were happy that for us, when we took over this asset, they didn't decide to mine it for a road salt or do anything else.
00:05:21.760It's like, it's a dome that's never been developed, so it's going to be prime for clean energy.
00:05:27.260So, compressed air and hydrogen is something we really want to do and will help us, help the country really to have a bigger export capacity and really match our engagement with Germany, as an example,
00:05:44.980where we, you know, we promised them we're going to ship a lot of hydrogen, how we're going to do that.
00:05:50.140Without storage, it's going to be very difficult to happen, even if there's a lot of wind in Atlantic Canada and all the provinces.
00:05:57.620Listeners in Alberta might know, but maybe not in the rest of the country, salt oils are normally associated with oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico.
00:06:08.560You know, the oil and gas is normally under the planks, right?
00:06:19.740I think it's really where the renewable industry will really close the gap with the oil and gas industry.
00:06:28.420Like the oil and gas industry have developed fantastic, exceptional assets to manage the oil and gas network.
00:06:41.100Salt caverns is something that is very well known, it's been used for more than 60 years in the oil and gas.
00:06:46.640Hydrogen caverns have been there since the early 70s as well.
00:06:51.120It's not just something that we were pushing through.
00:06:54.400But now I think with the renewable picking up speed, they will need the same type of storage that the oil and gas have created for now, like decades.
00:07:05.680So, it's just one of the tools that the oil and gas will bring to the hydrogen sector.
00:07:10.880So, I think it's a great way to bridge the gap and bring people over from the oil and gas industry into the hydrogen sector.
00:07:19.060It's a very, very similar way of managing the potential of the hydrogen.
00:08:24.360You know, the energy sector is in Calgary.
00:08:28.900And because it's so close to the oil and gas industry, salt cavern experts are here in Calgary or in Houston or closer to the oil and gas.
00:08:39.460So, it was easier for us to be here, try to recruit as many Newfoundlanders as possible that are in the oil and gas industry, that are from Newfoundland.
00:09:32.280So, having a salt dome is something very unique that will allow you to build way bigger caverns, like four, five, five, six, seven times the size of the cavern we have here, just with one cavern.
00:09:44.560So, there's a lot of people that want to be part of this project that is very unique.