CAPTURING HEAT FROM INDUSTRY’S ENERGY
The pressure, heat, speed and chemical reactions required to transform resources and materials into products requires
enormous sums of energy. The energy intensity of these industrial facilities dwarfs that of even the tallest skyscrapers.
A by-product, and in most cases also an input, of these industries is heat. The white plumes that billow out of factory
smokestacks are in fact water vapor, whose heat reacts with the cool air to form clouds. A common reaction might
be to think, “Hey, look at all that smoke”, although the more appropriate reaction would be to think, “Hey, look
at all that heat!”
Summing all the recoverable energy from major industrial facilities in Metro Vancouver suggests that approximately 1.3
million GJ of energy could be reused a year. It is important to note however that this assumes industries are not already
recovering heat. Furthermore, it does not provide an indication of where excess heat could be shared across property
lines, as part of a district energy system for example.
Concrete plants, like the one located in Granville Island, are a logical choice for heat recovery. They are located
close to centres and produce large quantities of carbon emissions.