False Creek residents prefer geothermal heat to city's sewer plan

By Cheryl Rossi-Staff writer

Although fiery opposition from False Creek South residents has cooled with the city's decision not to use biomass energy to provide heat and hot water for the Olympic Village, the city's decision to use sewer heat recovery continues to spark debate.

"We didn't think [biomass] was appropriate," said Arthur Brock, a commercial realtor, strata council president and board member of the False Creek South Neighbourhood Association.

But Brock and other residents don't want heat generated from the sewer system either. Instead, they want the city, or Millennium Water, the developer of the Olympic Village, to provide geothermal energy.

"We worried about the possibility that raw sewage could get into the boiler systems. I know everyone tells us that it's very, very unlikely, but as we all know, unlikely things happen," Brock said.

Brock said a geothermal system wouldn't release carbon dioxide. He said a sewer heat recovery system needs natural gas boilers, that would release carbon dioxide, and a steam stack to be built under or near the Cambie Bridge.

But Chris Baber, the city's neighbourhood energy utility project manager, said a geothermal system would also need a steam stack and natural gas boilers as a backup and that the carbon dioxide emissions released by geothermal would be greater than that with a sewer-based heating system. He added a geothermal system would cost several million dollars more than a sewer heat recovery system.

"[The] efficiency for sewer heat recovery is much higher than geothermal," he said.

Sewer heat recovery captures waste heat directly from the city sewer system through a system of heat exchangers and electric heat pumps. The heat pumps use roughly one-third the amount of electricity needed to produce a unit of heat than electric baseboard heating, according to the city. Sewage temperatures average 12 to 20 degrees Celsius. Geothermal systems recover heat from underground wells.

Sewer heat recovery will be the primary heat source for Southeast False Creek with natural gas boilers providing backup energy for only the coldest days of the year.

Baber said no sewage would leak into the boilers. "The sewage heat recovery uses a heat pump which takes heat from the sewage and transfers it to the neighbourhood energy utility piping system. And similarly, a boiler also takes heat from natural gas and transfers it to the same piping system. However, there's separation between the two and [seepage] physically cannot happen," he said.

Baber wasn't sure why Brock would suggest that Millennium Water run the new energy utility. He said the city aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from new developments.

"And the city sees that ownership of the utility would help it ensure that those longterm greenhouse gas emissions would be achieved, whereas if we were to sell it to someone else, we would lose control of that and profit could become the primary concern," he said.

While nearby residents wait to hear from the city about the plant's architectural design, they continue to organize. Brock said residents from towers on the north side of False Creek will attend his association's next meeting May 9 at 7:15 p.m. at 1869 Spyglass Place.

published on 05/02/2007