N.B. city explores an overlooked heat source: its own industries
CBC
The city of Saint John is exploring how to use waste energy from some of its largest industrial businesses to heat buildings in the uptown core.
Councillors voted on Monday night to ask Natural Resources Canada to fund a feasibility study by TorchLight Bioresources Inc., a consulting and research company.
Mayor Donna Reardon is excited by the idea of recycling energy.
She said it's "very frustrating" to see heat released as a waste product by industry when it could potentially be used to heat buildings — and help the city reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the process.
"It's waste heat. But why waste it?" she said.
Jamie Stephen, TorchLight's managing director, told councillors that the study will look at how much energy is given off as a by-product of industry in the city.
He said district energy systems essentially use a central source of heat or cooling, then distribute that energy through hot or cold water pipes to nearby buildings.
Given Saint John's climate, the study is only looking at delivering hot water, Stephen said in an interview with CBC News on Tuesday.
"Instead of every building having its own furnace or boiler, there's a central boiler that supplies multiple buildings and distributes that energy just as we do with water," Stephen told councillors during Monday night's council meeting.
In fact, he said, such systems are a lot easier to operate than delivering water and collecting wastewater from homes and businesses.
Such systems are a lot more common in Europe than in Canada.
Stephen says there are approximately 180 in Canada, including many in the downtown core of some of the country's largest cities.
If the city of Saint John is serious about meeting its greenhouse gas emissions targets, it has to invest in a project like this, said Samir Yammine, the city's manager of asset and energy management.
The city has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 30 per cent by 2025, and to being carbon neutral by 2040.
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