Manure digesting plant has been approved by 'The City of Abbotsford'. Catalyst Power is building the $6-million plant that will ferment 36,500 tonnes per year of mainly livestock manure to produce a biogas, which will be purified and piped to natural gas lines through Terasen's.

Metro board chair, Lois Jackson says the anaerobic digestion technology Catalyst uses is a form of waste to produce energy and also, Metro has laid out in its proposed waste management plan. Unlike a new Metro waste incinerator, Catalyst's digester wouldn't burn anything itself - the resulting biogas would be burned by other users, where emissions will be created.

It's the overturn of Metro's district heating scheme, where steam from a new incinerator would be piped to other buildings, which then wouldn't need to burn fuel. "It's completely different than what Metro Vancouver is proposing," said Ross, who chairs the Fraser Valley Regional District board.

Burning something akin to natural gas is quite different from Emissions of burning garbage. Anaerobic digestion is also used to create biofuel in Surrey at a new organic waste processing plant Metro plans to build. In addition to it, Metro's draft plan would also allow gasification/pyrolysis and the industrial use of refuse-derived fuel under the heading of waste-to-energy.