61–70 of 106 posts
I wonder why they used tap water instead of seawater
Sibling comments are on to this too, but I think an important detail here is that the water in lakes, river and ground in the nordics is so clean that the extra cleaning needed to make it "tap water" isn't really as big of a deal as it might be in other parts of the world.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a cool project, and I'm sure it has many benefits beyond just carbon savings. But 21,000 tonnes per year is surprisingly little in the scheme of things. Equivalent of about 150 or so long-haul 777 flights?
If I’m reading this report correctly: https://julkaisut.hel.fi/en/reports/environmental-report-202... It looks like the emissions for the Helsinki area are 2,345 kt per year, so I guess 21 kt is only a small part of that. Of course, no one project should be expected to solve everything! But it is depressing to see the scale of the problem.
Heating emissions for a city at 60° North are a big challenge to reduce, and combined heat and power is a huge efficiency gain - the heat is otherwise wasted, and thermal emissions are an environmental issue in their own right.
The emissions could be reduced much further if they decrease the 55% of their generation that comes from fossil fuel fired CHP plants[1], and increased their nuclear capacity from current 27% (unfortunately they had to cancel a plan to build another reactor because their partner was rosatom[2])
[1] https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Finland#React...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That tells you how pointless all the at-home energy savings are when everyone and their dog flies to a weekend getaway every month
I know people who attend sit-in protests at Chase Bank locations over fossil fuel divestment who also fly internationally 3-4 times per year for pleasure. The cognitive dissonance and lack of engineering intuition among the general populace is staggering.
Got to wonder if this kind of thing wouldn't be possible here in Canada on the Canadian Shield (half-a-continent-sized slab o' granite), especially in places in Northern Ontario where there's old nickel mines, etc. Bonus points if one uses the waste heat from e.g. industrial plants to help heat up the water.
The municipal heating network consists of both cooling and warming networks. Excess heat from, for example, data centers will be used to heat the water. Newer apartments are cooled using cold water from the network in the summer and heated using hot water in the winter. There are also joint power-and-heat plants connected to the heating network which are quite efficient: first the generated heat is used to drive a ge…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That tells you how pointless all the at-home energy savings are when everyone and their dog flies to a weekend getaway every month
I know people who attend sit-in protests at Chase Bank locations over fossil fuel divestment who also fly internationally 3-4 times per year for pleasure. The cognitive dissonance and lack of engineering intuition among the general populace is staggering.
Moaning about individual "cognitive dissonance" is absolute nonsense when talking about global scale problems that require policy solutions. The activists' intuitions are more correct than yours, I'd wager. Climate change is not an engineering problem.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I’m reading this report correctly: https://julkaisut.hel.fi/en/reports/environmental-report-202... It looks like the emissions for the Helsinki area are 2,345 kt per year, so I guess 21 kt is only a small part of that. Of course, no one project should be expected to solve everything! But it is depressing to see the scale of the problem.
1% reduction from one project seems pretty decent to me. Especially when it's just from reusing pre-existing caverns from oil storage to decrease the district heat emissions. Heating emissions for a city at 60° North are a big challenge to reduce, and combined heat and power is a huge efficiency gain - the heat is otherwise wasted, and thermal emissions are an environmental issue in their own right. The emissions cou…
Helsinki shut down one coal plant used for district heating this spring and is shutting down the last remaining one next spring, well ahead of schedule.
https://www.hel.fi/en/news/helen-phases-out-coal-more-than-f...
I personally am bullish on deep geothermal - there was a pilot project near Helsinki which was unfortunately unsuccessful, but with cheaper new drilling tech (plasma etc) I think this can work out in the future. https://www.st1.com/st1s-otaniemi-geothermal-pilot-projects-...
There are also some startups looking to build small modular nuclear reactors for district heating - https://www.steadyenergy.com/
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know people who attend sit-in protests at Chase Bank locations over fossil fuel divestment who also fly internationally 3-4 times per year for pleasure. The cognitive dissonance and lack of engineering intuition among the general populace is staggering.
If there were less investment in fossil fuel exploration, prices for fossil fuels could rise and airfare might be priced more appropriately. They would fly less because it cost more, or trains and boats might become more competitive. Moaning about individual "cognitive dissonance" is absolute nonsense when talking about global scale problems that require policy solutions. The activists' intuitions are more correct th…
If they were protesting the government to massively increase oil taxes then you might have a point. Alas, they don’t have any economic intuition.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mustikamaa in Estonian :)
I've heard people joke that if a Finnish person just spends enough time in Estonia they start to understand it :)