Sweden to Harness Body Heat of Commuters
It was only last year that I began to fully appreciate the concept of incidental heat gains within buildings - heat gained indirectly via a window facing the sun, the heat generated from electrical appliances and rather surprisingly, the heat generated from our own bodies.
I thought the latter would be insignificant. Not a bit of it.
In fact, whilst sitting down, we provide the same amount of heat as a 60 watt light bulb. This can increase to 250 watts depending on the type of exercise we are doing.
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Which is why I’m so pleased to have come across this recent story that wings its way over from Stockholm, Sweden where planners have decided to harness the body heat of commuters passing through the city’s railway station. (See photo above.)
According to Reuters:
The body heat of 250,000 commuters passing through the central train station in Stockholm every day is to be channelled into a new office block, where it will supply 15 per cent of the heating.
Karl Sundholm, of the property administration company Jernhuset, said in The Local: “So many people go through the Central Station. We want to harness some of the warmth they produce to help heat the new building.”
He added that it was in fact quite difficult to get rid of the heat generated by the passengers and that, rather than opening windows to allow the heat to escape, why not capture the heat and put it to good use?
Reading through the reports on this story, this stands out as exceptionally positive because old technology is being put to a new use. All that is required are pipes, water and pumps, yet, according to Mr Sundholm, they have never before been used in this way.
Couple this with the fact that the whole project is predicted to cost around $31,000 - incredibly cheap considering - and one realises what an exciting technological breakthrough this could prove to be.
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This isn’t anything new. The Mall of America near Minneapolis, Minnesota is heated on the very same principle.
Topher, thanks for that. Mr Sundholm in The Local is quoted as saying:
“This is old technology, but used in a new way. It’s just pipes, water and pumps, but we haven’t heard of anyone else using this technology in this way before.”
A quick search revealed the following on Wikipedia regarding the Mall of America:
Heat is produced by lighting fixtures, other electric devices and also by employees and guests of the mall in sufficient amounts to keep it comfortable.
An enlightening comment and I stand corrected.
We need more stories such as this Stockholm one and as you rightly say, the Mall of America one. Such a clever, yet simple, use of incidental heat gain.
The novelty is actually piping that heat to use elsewhere.
Many malls use the same concept for heating but that is simply trapping the heat in the same place. So I do think the Swedish application is quite new.
Highest Efficiency, low power consumption heat exchange devices, combined with super-insulations, can make a better world for all! Survivalist designs replacing the extravaganzas of the past will also reign in power consumption, stop wasting. and eventually if we are diligent we will arrive closer to sustainablity than ever before! Corporatist interests fight against this in dishonest fashion, every one must see the movie “Who Killed The Electric Car” to realize how really corrupt Corporatist forces are! ( Google it Free on net!) Then see the movie “Chernobyl” to understand how gullible we are, then look to welcoming change, immense paradigm shifts driven by the Asian Fact, and our dying economy, falling dollar, rising price of oil, even Gold is at world wide all time highs and rising daily! Something is afoot! Sweden, Norway even bio-gas their sewage, as does San Antonio Texas, the one inspiration and hopeful light in America, The world is going through a belt-tightening exercise in anticipation of the Great Crash occurring in controlled fashion in America today. Time now, for Americans to take hold and get sustainable on a very personal level while they can! Don’t you dare buy that great V-8 engined SUV! gas promises, with Asian competition for it, to go up not down! Get off the high meat diet, get used to more veggies! Soon,when the Factory Farms face Capital flight to greener fields in Asia and higher oil costs cutting into ROI, meat will get much more expensive if at all available! The countries industries are closing down, lacking Capital to continue, and we are broke! Too broke to survive very long at our high consumption levels! We need all buildings in America to be sustainable, heated and cooled by skill rather than brute force HIVAC systems as we now have! The Swedes got this one right!