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82 www.resourceworld.com F E B R U A R Y / M A R C H 2 0 1 7 Developments in Green Technology by Jane Bratun GREEN TECHNOLOGIES FORT ST. JOHN'S PASSIVE HOUSE PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS ENERGY CONSERVATION Engineers in the city of Fort St. John, British Columbia have built the first detached passive energy house in British Columbia. It uses a fraction of energy compared to conventional houses. The passive house serves as an example of the important role that municipalities can play in introducing new ways of building and new technologies that highlight energy conservation. A passive house is almost air tight, gets most of its heating from the sun and has an insulated building enclosure (floor, walls, roof, windows, and doors) that requires a small amount of energy to heat and cool. The Fort St. John passive house has a heat recovery system that consumes 90% less heating and cooling energy, achieves a 99% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, has extreme air tightness, has net-zero energy readiness, has air conditioning, has a uniform temperature throughout, has metal roofing, has a solar electric array, has high efficiency win - dows, has a hybrid electric heat pump water tank, and has energy monitoring equipment. The St. John's passive energy house achieved the third R-2000 certification given in Canada for a single-family pas - sive house. The Canadian R-2000 program is a voluntary standard to exceed building code requirements for energy efficiency, indoor air quality, and environmental responsibility. And, the passive house has achieved a 91 EnerGuide rating. The EnerGuide rating is a standard measure of a home's energy performance. An average home has a rating of 65-72. The Fort St. John house and garage construction, at a cost of $276 per square foot, compares favourably with other aver - age homes in Fort St. John. The monthly savings for utilities makes a passive home comparatively inexpensive. TEST PLANT TO PRODUCE RENEWABLE FUEL FROM SOLAR POWER Finland's Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) and the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd. are build- ing a unique demonstration plant to produce renewable fuel with solar power. Sun, water, and carbon dioxide extracted from the air will act as the raw materi- als for this power. The production plant comprising container-sized units assem- bled on the LUT campus is scheduled for completion in 2017 and will convert solar power-produced electricity into gas or liq- uid fuels. The research plant, SOLETAIR, has three components: VTT will design the equipment to extract carbon dioxide from air and store it and develop a synthesis device to produce methane or liquid fuel from carbon dioxide or hydrogen. For the third component, LUT will build a device to produce hydrogen through water elec - trolysis using electricity. The team plans to demonstrate processes can be combined to use renewable electricity to produce methane, fuels, and chemicals. The dem- onstration plant could also function as a fueling station for vehicles that run on hydrogen or natural gas. "This research is the first of its kind in Finland in this type of combination of pro - cesses," states LUT Professor Jero Ahola, who is responsible for the research. "The The passive energy house in Fort St. John, northern British Columbia. Photo courtesy City of Fort St. John.