Newest heating source: Human bodies?
This ultra green, almost chartreuse, body-heat design works especially well in Sweden, a land of soaring fuel costs, legendary hard winters, and ecologically minded citizens. First, the station’s ventilation system captures the commuters’ body heat, which it uses to warm water in underground tanks. From there, the hot water is pumped to Kungsbrohuset’s heating pipes, which ends up saving about 25 percent on energy bills…
Part of the appeal of heating buildings with body heat is the delicious simplicity of finding a new way to use old technology (just pipes, pumps and water). Hands down, it’s my favorite form of renewable energy.
What could be cozier than keeping friends and strangers warm? Or knowing that by walking briskly or mousing around the shops, you’re stoking a furnace to heat someone’s chilly kitchen?
How about the reciprocity of a whole society, everyone keeping each other warm?
Blowback
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It’s the Matrix!
The Rogue Tomato on December 30, 2012 at 10:22 PM
Why did this make me think of Soylent Green?
obladioblada on December 30, 2012 at 10:28 PM
I choose Kate Upton for my human heating source.
Lostmotherland, you get Rosie O’Donnell.
Bishop on December 30, 2012 at 10:29 PM
Well, that’s the magic of Swedish women.
sharrukin on December 30, 2012 at 10:31 PM
Agenda21
Schadenfreude on December 30, 2012 at 10:40 PM
What the hell is wrong with wood?
txhsmom on December 30, 2012 at 10:41 PM
How on earth could you wish that on ANYONE?
watertown on December 30, 2012 at 10:42 PM
its that co2 thing…
watertown on December 30, 2012 at 10:43 PM
First the Terminators to kill all humans.
Then the Matrix to enslave all humans for a power source.
Then the Borg to assimilate all humans.
But before the computers become self aware some other humans will think that lets use people for fuel source when they become a burden to society or are the wrong type of person and do it with a straight face. All to save the planet from over population and to be green or something.
tjexcite on December 30, 2012 at 10:45 PM
You mean that terrible stuff we all exhale? Ok. Well, they could speed up the warming process by banning meat. Beans, beans the musical fruit…
txhsmom on December 30, 2012 at 10:50 PM
People..
People who heat people…
Are the luckiest people…..
aquaviva on December 30, 2012 at 10:59 PM
I thought this was about burning human bodies for heat. I was going to offer up the MSM for the greater good.
trl on December 30, 2012 at 11:01 PM
No idea, but you beat me to the comment.
ConservativeLA on December 30, 2012 at 11:18 PM
I call spooning with Michael Fassbender.
mjk on December 30, 2012 at 11:22 PM
I am a soulless, black-hearted, psychopath.
Liberals would use the term “conservative”.
Bishop on December 30, 2012 at 11:23 PM
It’s Soylent Steam!
Ugly on December 30, 2012 at 11:27 PM
Beat me to it.
jix on December 31, 2012 at 12:13 AM
LOL!
GWB on December 31, 2012 at 1:17 AM
Whether a plant slowly rots or is quickly consumed by fire, the amount of CO2 given off is equal to the amount of CO2 it has absorbed and processed during its life. It doesn’t add any CO2 to the atmosphere.
Plants do not process the CO2 it takes in and turn it into oxygen. The oxygen a plant gives off is from the water it takes up. The burning of plants does not pollute the environment.
Burning leaves in the fall (or anytime) does not pollute the environment. The ash that becomes airborne may be an irritant to some, but when the ash finally settles it is no more harmful than if the leaves had been left to decay. And the burning of leaves does not add CO2 to the atmosphere.
Oxygen comes from the ocean. If we completely shave the whole earth of all vegetation, we would starve to death, but we would not suffocate.
davidk on December 31, 2012 at 4:32 AM
So…the Swedes finally catch up with the Mall of America. (Of course, some would say that Minnesota is just the westernmost part of Scandinavia.)
(Just fyi re an above discussion, plants use H2O and CO2 to generate O2 via photosynthesis, CO2 is an air-borne – albeit, thankfully for plant’s sake, a heavier-than-air one at STP – by-product of combustion, and the ocean contributes about half of the earth’s oxygen.)
Knott Buyinit on December 31, 2012 at 10:34 AM