At 73, John MacDonald is one of Canada's technology heroes, an engineer who co-founded West Coast space technology champion MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. So what does the builder of a Canadian tech icon do when he retires? He helps form another technology hopeful, Day4 Energy Inc., a maker of solar energy modules . Why Day4? The Bible's Book of Genesis says that on day four, God created light.
You come to the environmental issue from a space satellite perspective, as someone who has seen the Earth change from afar.
That's correct. I spent 30 years of my life leading the development of technology to process images from space. I spent those 30 years watching the planet change. You see what was happening - you see the ice decreasing, you see desertification happening, you see the vegetation changing and you see the cities expanding.
So after I had quote-unquote retired, and the opportunity came along to work in renewable energy, I decided to do it.
You've said this is the energy century.
It is. The energy business and the technology behind it will be the major thing that happens in human civilization in the 21st century. We will change our energy system. We will be forced to change it. It will be kind of like the automotive industry was to the 20th century - the major industry in the world. Energy is already a major industry, but it is going to undergo a fundamental change.
What is that change?
We're going to have to start extracting energy from our surroundings, rather than harvesting fossil fuel from all sorts of places in the world. It is getting more and more difficult and expensive all the time, and we must start using renewables as the core of our energy system.
Many people don't grasp the change in the infrastructure that will be required to make that all work. While the problems are quite solvable, the change is major - it is going to take time, it is going to take money. But by the middle of this century, I think our energy system will be dominated by renewables.
What percentage will be solar?
It depends on who you believe. Solar is the ultimate renewable energy. The German advisory council on climate change holds the view that by 2100, solar will be about 70 per cent of the energy supply. Today, it is minuscule.
At this point, the capital costs of solar systems, while coming down, are still quite expensive compared with current energy sources. This is where the auto industry was at the latter part of the 19th century.
Has anyone said that in making these statements, you are just promoting your company's stock?
That's not the way I look at it. Maybe I am and maybe I'm not. That's not something I think about. What I am doing is painting a picture of a vision I believe will come to pass. I went into renewable energy at an age when most people are retired because I thought it was something important to do.
Isn't this Russian technology?
My co-founder at Day4 is Leonid Rubin, who was professor of physics at Moscow State University, the top science and technology university in Russia. Leonid solved the problem of doing a direct connection to a photovoltaic cell with a system of wires. This is something many people tried but had never solved. Leonid figured out how to solve it.
