A well-known Saint John clean air activist told an all-party committee of MLAs studying climate change that Saint John is throwing away free energy.

"I've driven along Grandview Avenue and seen the heat waves actually coming off the pipes and the infrastructure," said Gordon Dalzell of the Saint John Citizens Coalition for Clean Air.

"So with all this waste heat it seems to make sense to me that that could be redeveloped, or remobilized and could be sent to the community to heat other buildings."

Dalzell says he admits there may be a heavy cost to building such a system to convert the heat energy into a transportable medium — such as hot water or steam.

"But it's free energy just leaving into the air," said Dalzell.

"There's many business nearby that could benefit. And schools, you could use the heat to heat our schools, there's places that do ths in other parts of the world."

The Select Committee on Climate Change spent its first of two days in Saint John on Tuesday. It heard from a variety of businesses, citizens and groups.

Donald Killorn, a member of the group Eastern Charlotte Waterways, told the committee of MLAs that "no water in the world [is] warming faster than the water just off southwestern New Brunswick."

Green Party Leader David Coon said he found Killorn's presentation concerning.

Moving energy

Moving heat energy long distances to warm several buildings is not a rare concept, according to the Saint John clean air activist.

The University of New Brunswick uses such a system.

Dalzell says it's not a novel concept of his own either.

"It is a model that was actually considered here in Saint John with the Irving Pulp and Paper mill," says Dalzell.

"But it's a system we don't have and should."