The city of Vancouver, British Columbia is trying to make its city as environmentally friendly for the 2010 Winter Olympics by heating the athletes’ village through sewers. Officials have decided to use the heat from the sewers to heat the buildings. This sewer-heat system is very similar to that of geothermal energy. Somewhat like a geothermal energy system, a sewer-heat system uses exchangers to extract waste heat from the sewage. Don’t worry about the odours, air filters will be installed to remove odour.

Example of a Geothermal Energy Plant in the Philippines

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

Currently, there are two other similar sewage-heat systems in operation in Norway and Japan. Vancouver is said to be the first one in North America and is predicted to be completed in 2009. When completed the sewer-heat system will heat the neighboring area which includes athletes village. The construction is said to cost a whopping C$20 million. The conversion to dollars would be:

1.13 Canadian = 1 dollar

20 million Canadian = 17.7 million dollars

I think that it’s a great idea that Vancouver is heating the Winter Olympic games through sewers. It’s a great way to help out the environment, even though on exceptionally cold days natural gas will be used. This idea when completed will not only benefit the athletes village, but also the neighboring area. It’s a great way to save resources and make the most of what already is given to us.

Sources:

http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/story.html?id=80f80713-d6ee-48b0-b174-9a546f1a63db

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=12605

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_energy