Another Sunday article worth reading is Neil Peirce’s most recent column, in which he touts the virtues of cogeneration as a technology for district heating. He writes:
The setup in Copenhagen, created by a regional accord of five mayors in 1984, captures heated water from electricity production that would normally be pumped into the sea, and channels it back into homes and businesses for heating through a 1,300-kilometer system of underground pipes.
The result: 97 percent of the region now gets clean and affordable heating with sharply reduced carbon emissions. The system’s steadily switched from coal to natural gas and biofuels such as straw and wood pellets. Plus, it taps waste heat from incineration plants.
The result: Copenhagen’s individual homeowners save close to $2,000 in yearly utility costs. And the system reduces carbon emissions by hundreds of thousands of tons each year.
There is nothing new about cogeneration heating — many American cities employed it once upon a time. I believe that Richmond has a complex of old district heating ducts in the Capitol area. The trick is to adapt cogeneration to modern times. The challenge isn’t technology or economics, it is institutional inertia and the increased complexity of our society that makes it difficult to execute any kind of communal enterprise.
Perhaps the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals & Energy could survey Virginia cities to see where cogeneration could be readily applied. Or maybe some enterprising developer could design a real estate/power project near — dare I suggest it — a municipal dump where it could tap the biofuels.