The Foothills landfill could become a source of fuel for FortisBC.
The natural gas provider is working to reach a provincially-mandated goal of securing 15 per cent of its supply from renewable sources by 2030, Doug Stout, the company's vice president of market development and external relations, said this week.
The landfill's methane gas could become one of those sources, Stout said, although he later said tapping into that source will be at least a couple of years away if all works out.
"It's in early stages of right now of development," he said and added similar efforts are up and running in Salmon Arm and Kelowna.
The Fraser-Fort George Regional District is in discussions with FortisBC on the possibility, FFGRD
spokeswoman Renee McCloskey confirmed, "but at this point that's all that it is...further information will be coming out through our board."
Methane gas at the landfill is currently flared off and how to make better use of it has been an ongoing question at the FFGRD. Using it to heat greenhouses was considered at one point but the venture fell through.
FFGRD board of directors chair Art Kaehn expressed some optimism regarding the FortisBC proposal.
"We've looked at a number of things to get some beneficial use out of the landfill gas and this seems promising," he said. We're burning it off right now and we'd like to stop doing that."
Stout raised one other possibility when addressing city council on Monday night - harnessing wind power to make hydrogen. Common in Europe, wind-power turbines are used to generate the electricity needed to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.
