GreenLab: Bringing the Danish Energy Park to Canada

by Bob Montgomery

Representatives of a company in Denmark presented a proposal for a Danish Energy Park to Central Huron Council on Monday night.

Central Huron Mayor Jim Ginn says the company, Greenlab would locate their Energy Park on part of the former Bluewater Youth Centre. Ginn says it's part of the circular economy that brings in different types of industry that basically uses one industry's waste product for a feed source for the next industry. “They've been successful with this in Denmark and developed some clean technologies that are quite interesting and they want to export those ideas around the world.”

Ginn says they've spoken with about seven sites in the United States. There are currently none in Canada. The former Bluewater Youth Centre would be their preferred site, and they're also looking at a site in Saskatchewan. Ginn says they would use some agricultural products, as well as other products, and the end result is a renewable natural gas. They would have anaerobic digesters, for instance, and a renewable energy production facility. That’s what they currently have in Denmark. What they would propose here is a little uncertain at this point, but they have the expertise to bring different types of industries together to use each other’s end product as a feed source for the next one.

There are farms that are using anaerobic digesters now, mostly the larger farms, but as the technology evolves and becomes more efficient the size of the farm that would be required to run it gets smaller. Living in an agricultural area like Huron County, we would be able to bring in a fair amount of feed source, and then you add stuff like straw or corn stalks, which increases the output of methane, which is then put into the natural gas lines and used to heat homes without creating a further carbon source.

No decisions have been made yet but Ginn says it is one more very interesting possibility for the former Bluewater Youth Centre.