Turning roads into solar collectors
Curious story from the BBC News about a project in the U.K. to line a parking lot — and eventually roads and tarmacs — with water-filled pipes that asborb heat as the sun pounds down. It’s hoped that such a system could be used in the future to provide hot water and heating to nearby homes. The company behind the project is called Invisible Heating Systems Ltd., but unfortunately the BBC doesn’t provide a lot of detail about how the technology works.
I’ve heard of tubing under roads before. Niagara Fallsview casino relies on such a system in the winter to prevent ice buildup on sidewalks and in the parking lot. The result is no use of road salt and fewer potential lawsuits from angry, drunken gamblers who slip on the ice and break something. But I believe the Niagara system is heated by natural gas, whereas the one in the U.K. is capturing its heat from the sun and, possibly (I’m guessing), some kind of geothermal setup. Anyway, cool project to follow.
Tyler Hamilton is editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and a business columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the clean technology and green energy market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper.
