City could reach its green goals with emerging biofuel technologies

Vancouver city councillors passed a strict green building policy on Tuesday that requires developments built after May 1, 2017, to produce at least 50 per cent less greenhouse gas emissions through tightened building practices and reduced use of conventional natural gas for heating.

It’s part of the city’s shift away from fossil fuels and toward reliance on electricity, district energy and renewable natural gas, a carbon neutral product also called biomethane. But that shift raises the question of whether there will be enough renewable natural gas to support future demand in Vancouver, much less the rest of the province.

A Canadian Gas Association report on the future of renewable natural gas described the fuel as “a significant and largely untapped opportunity for GHG emission-free energy,” but noted policy supports are needed to advance the industry.

B.C. has a potential renewable natural gas resource base of 300 billion cubic feet a year — the most of any province and more than the province’s conventional natural gas demand of 210 billion cubic feet a year, according to the report.

However, the association estimates the gas industry can only add 10 billion cubic feet a year in the province by 2030, based on existing technology.

Part of the reason the industry can only bring a small amount of the fuel on stream by that date is because most of B.C.’s renewable natural gas resource potential is in the form of wood and wood waste biomass.

Technology is not yet available to turn biomass into a replacement for the conventional natural gas that companies such as FortisBC deliver to customers.

But that technology could be emerging. B.C. company G4 Insights and Gaz Metro announced in July they had developed a technologically viable process to convert wood waste into renewable natural gas. The company is testing the technology in a large pilot project.