Thompson Rivers University is looking at ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with how they heat buildings on campus being first on the priority list.

TRU director of environmental sustainability Jim Gudjonson says they are working with BC Hydro to determine which buildings on campus can be switched from natural gas to electric or biomass heating.

Gudjonson says with about 30 buildings, only a dozen or so are likely candidates.

“The new trades building for example, we put in an electric boiler there. We put in a boiler big enough to feed the old trades building so we could take the natural gas boilers offline there,” he says.

“What that means is that we have increased the campus by roughly five or six per cent but we have a net reduction in greenhouse gases by approximately 10 per cent. That is the strategy with electrification.”

Gudjonson says unlike other universities with centralized heating systems, TRU heats each building separately.

Editors Note: Angelo Iacobucci passed away December 14th. While we work through our tremendous loss he continues to be a big part of Radio NL as he always will be. We have found a folder of almost 30 stories he had prepared for the holiday season. This is one of them.