New jobs are coming to Ontario after a renewable natural gas plant was approved by the province. 

The Niagara Falls Renewable Natural Gas plant will be the largest  facility of its kind in Ontario, coming in at a cost of$42 million.The plant will use landfill waste to generate clean, renewable energy.

The plant comes as a partnership between Enbridge, Comcor Environmental and Walker Industries and is what officials call a “great example” of movement toward a circular economy — where decomposing waste creates organic gas, which can be collected for bio gas. 

“You’ve decarbonized your natural gas grid,” says Scott Dodd, director of business development for Enbridge. “You’ve effectively kept a system [in place] that’s been around for 170 years [and] made it useful for the next generation.”

Dodd says his team has spent a lot of time talking with  Comcor and Walker Industries and deciding how they could best work together.

“To be able to come to an agreement and have a great partner like Enbridge, as we have, it’s been awesome,” says Walter Graziani, engineer and president of Comcor. “The projects environmentally are great, and that’s a large part of it why people want to get involved. There’s a lot of barriers to entry to get them running and going. But once they do get up and running, they’re fantastic.”

Some of the barriers Graziani says they face involve negotiations between all the partners, including the provincial government. With this new addition, Enbridge has also launched a Voluntary Renewable Natural Gas (RNG) pilot program, which the Ontario Energy Board approved.

Renewable natural gas is the gas products leftover from the decomposing of organic matter which has been processed and purified. It can be used for many things like fuel for transportation. The benefit is that there are fewer greenhouse gas emissions.