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Salmon Arm potential home to new renewable energy source

The Shuswap region may be home to British Columbia’s first energy project that would see biogas recovered from a regional landfill site.

"We are committed to exploring recovery projects such as this one, as they help Terasen Gas and potential suppliers of raw biogas, including wastewater treatment plants, landfills, and farms, develop future biogas upgrading projects that can provide British Columbians with a source of renewable alternative energy," said Doug Stout, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development for Terasen Gas today in a press release.

The facility would capture waste methane from regional landfill of the Columbia Shuswap Regional District, in Salmon Arm, and upgrade it to pipeline-quality natural gas.

The project is one of nine proposals Terasen Gas announced this spring in response to a call for expressions of interest in developing clean, renewable energy sources. It would cost an estimated $2 million to implement the necessary facilities, and would supply a maximum of 300 homes with heat and hot water.

According to Kirsten Walker, Communications Specialist for Terasen Gas, however, the small scale of the facility is intented to serve as a trial run for such projects. As the facility would be the first of its kind it BC, it will allow Terasen to moniter the quality of the gas being produced and determine if more similar projects should be implemented.

“We can apply things we learn from this project to future biogas projects,” she said.

A study into the feasibility of the project will determine whether or not it goes forward, but Terasen is hoping to begin development as early as next spring.

Any gas produced at the facility will be used within the community surrounding the landfill, and will not be exported out of the area.

Christine McLaren reports for The Tyee.

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