B.C.’s Kwantlen University College will build a new greenhouse to study the potential of geothermal to heat commercial operations.
The Lower Mainland school’s Institute for Sustainable Horticulture has picked up $2.2 million in provincial funding to build a 500-square metre greenhouse and an attached 450-square metre lab at KUC’s Langley campus.
“Commercial greenhouses are, not surprisingly, a significant source of greenhouse gases,” said provincial Advanced Education Minister Murray Coell in a release Tuesday. The greenhouse unit will look at geothermal heat as a practical energy source for such operations, to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The attached lab will be used to develop natural pest control methods for both indoor and outdoor use, with an eye toward cutting “the use of harmful pesticides in agriculture,” the province said in a release.
