Why a city in Sweden filled these caves with almost boiling water

[@dm5rkt]

I used to live in Västerås and another advantage of the district heating sytem is that the return water, once it has given up its heat to the houses, is routed under the pavements in the city centre. The return pipes are only a few cm below the pavement, so in the winter all the snow just melts and the pedestrian area in the town is more or less free of snow and ice. Also, in the Spring, you can see a line of flowers that bloom early in the warmer ground directly above the hot water pipes where they pass under the road verges.

[@NextBachelor2025]

I guess the cold water is pumped back in one of the other chambers and reheated later? Or is it used otherwise?

[@alouisschafer7212]

So they deliberately use the return water to de-ice?

[@Scapestoat]

@@NextBachelor2025 It is most likely a cooling loop. So like your radiator at home, it has its own water supply. Like how in the video, they used a heat-exchanger to transfer heat from the cave water to the power-plant water. The cave water never leaves the cave/exchanger area. :)

[@McSlobo]

There's multiple closed loops in the system, heat exchangers in between: one in each building, one at each powerplant, likely at the storage too. Pipeline water contains chemicals. Water in the system must be hot or homes are at risk of having legionella in pipes, therefore not all heat is usable. A powerplant generates electricity at the same time which benefits from cold water in its condenser. That's why snow melting is done - you have unusable heat that must be thrown away.

[@savagesarethebest7251]

Uppsala has a few spots with heated pavement, but my question is why they never put that under the bus station just on the other side of the road..?

[@StanleyJohnny]

Honestly 15.5 mil euro for such a system sounds like nothing. I guess the fact that they already had the cave ready and "only" had to clean it up helped a lot.

[@xDevoneyx]

I learned that the Golliath rollercoaster in Walibi Flevoland in the Netherlands costed roughly 2/3 of that. Which is something just for fun. So to me this amount of money for such undertaking seems insignificant to me too.

[@DaveyCrockett1]

It would cost 20 billion in America and be called racist the whole time.

[@McSlobo]

If you don't have caves you can build a big thermos bottle on the ground. Common in Finland. These help a lot in case the thermal power plant runs into trouble. You can also store heat in sand battery but it's better to heat them to higher temperature. It's a great way to store extra electrical power in cold places. This technology is cheap, efficient and tested for decades in northern cities so if your country is having heating problems and pollution, there's affordable solutions available.

[@StanleyJohnny]

@@McSlobo yeah tell that to Śląsk province in Poland. They still mainly have single house heating and air quality is absolute garbage. People burning whatever trash they have just to save a few pennies on fuel.

[@stormstereo]

@@StanleyJohnny Aah, the Śląsk province, where doctors recommend people to start smoking because it's the only time they are breathing through a filter.

[@bingoberra18]

Västerås is actually importing waste from other countries just to burn it for heat and electricity in this plant. And it has a big building only for capturing and minimizing harmful particles and gases created during the burning process. It´s incredibly clean.

[@antioch4019]

Not only Västerås, Sweden in general imports waste for this purpose.

[@JxH]

Does Greta approve the incineration of waste to make power ? What about imported waste ?

[@bingoberra18]

@@JxH Why would she not? It´s the cleanest and best way to get rid of it after not producing it in the first place.

[@LongusDongus03]

Why would it matter if Greta approves?​@@JxH

[@Allexstrasza]

@@JxH Greta only cares about what makes the big headlines. She has no actual idea what clean energy is and what we can do to improve on our world's conditions. The only thing she does is parrot popular ideas

[@randomstuff6332]

9:02 15.5 MILLION ONLY?! I was prepared with a big ole a few hundred million dollars or a billion, but that's nothing. That figure is thrown around way too nonchalantly, I don't care about anything else, but the fact they effectively increased energy efficiency with just 15.5 MILLION DOLLARS is insanely efficient.

[@oskich]

Well, the cave was already paid off since it was built in the 1950's

[@randomstuff6332]

@@oskich That's still crazy tho, for reference I am living in the state of California in the US. Our state has poured billions of dollars every year just on roads, but roads haven't really ever gotten better. In fact there's even a Wikipedia page called "List of unconstructed state highways in California". If we measured the efficiency has impact divided by cost, their cave system is miles above anything I really seen before.

[@PauxloE]

It's also a rather small scale system, which only provides two weeks of full heating for the city ... in a region which has very long winters.

[@Volvary]

@@PauxloE It's 2 weeks *if it's running to give off heat nonstop. That's not going to be the case 100% of the time during winter. On those warmer days where the system isn't outputting heat, any extra heat is likely being sent back in to make sure the temperature doesn't drop too much and they can keep the storage up for the next super cold day. But yes, it's still a limited system nonetheless

[@zerocool6452]

@@PauxloE In case the heaters stops working and the only heat would be from the caverns two weeks should be enough to come up with a solution so the heaters can start working again. I can't say for sure tho.

[@xanokothe]

15.5 mi for this project is really cheap, pretty smart usage of already developed infrastructure

[@mikeb5664]

If we were to estimate this project, your 'existing conditions' are worth the hundreds of millions / billion we were expecting to see.

[@Kenneth_James]

it was already there. They cleaned it

[@Kasposs]

@@mikeb5664 The one that is 3 times bigger (10:00) and is being built from scratch has an estimated cost of 200 million. So not that much. Also as it is purpose built it actually has 7 times more capasity for heat.

[@TheRiiiight]

In America it would be 15.5 billion and never get finished.

[@amyw1850]

Framingham, MA in US just built a networked geothermal system for 24 residences & 5 commercial buildings for 15 million dollars. So, yes, that looks like a smart climate solution and an amazing use of resources - bravo Sweden!

[@the_hate_inside1085]

Last year we had -32 degrees C. in Umeå, and our local heating system was overwhelmed. The water in the system lost its temperature, and froze at some points. My apartment was very cold, for maybe a week. I actually turned my electric oven on, and opened the door. Wish we would have had a bunch of warm water stored in a cave..

[@jamieflame01]

@the_hate_inside1085 okay det var koldt! Om du vil er du velkommen i København, vi er cirka 30⁰ varmere.

[@BasicEndjo]

@@jamieflame01 for menge indvandrer

[@thedave7760]

I was in Umeå about 20 years ago in February it was the coldest I have ever been in my life -20 I think, my face was freezing in about 20 seconds from getting out of the warm car. Was fun driving from the airport the roads had tracks cut into the ice so I didn't have to steer. Wish I could visit again it was a nice place.

[@Frille512]

Nothing a little fire won't fix.

[@Confessor555]

Here is the US, everybody's on their own. You either pay your power bill or dont...

[@joshm3342]

THIS is one of the best ways for human creativity & intelligence to be put to work: For the betterment of society. Well done!

[@who_bob2641]

Only in the Nodic countries. Forget Japan. Nodics are example.of human excellence.

[@BvLee]

@@who_bob2641 why bring up Japan when no one’s mentioned it?

[@who_bob2641]

@@BvLee why not? Did they have to be mentioned?

[@BvLee]

@@who_bob2641 It's weird to single out one country out of everything you could've said, when no one said anything about Japan. It gives off like you have something against them, but that may not be your intent - hence my question.

[@who_bob2641]

@@BvLee i have nothing against Japan, what makes you think that?

[@simtexa]

Where I live we have the borehole method mentioned in this video. It's a form of geothermal heat exchanger which extracts heat from the rock by pumping water through it, and it is remarkably energy-efficient. Even as people around Sweden had to turn their heat down last winter due to more expensive gas and electricity costs, our heating bill remained fairly unchanged because the geothermal boreholes only need power for the pumps and heat exchangers themselves.

[@andersholmstrom3571]

Interresting to see a report like this from my home town. I believe that Västerås was the first town in Sweden to introduce district heating. And now first with this large scale heat storage. But unfortunately I have so far only seen cost increase on my heating bill. Hopefully this investment will pay off in coming years. Also for us consumers.

[@Allexz]

@@perstaffanlundgren smart man i krigstider den där...

[@ellafoxoo]

I moved here to Sweden from the UK, and honestly my heating bill is nothing compared to what I would have paid back there for a gas system inside the home. We're talking 1,2k SEK per month on the coldest days for a 15-20kvm 1 room apartment. Kinda crazy thinking about it

[@hd-bild1513]

@@ellafoxoo tbf the UK has one of the highest costs in europe

[@toysoldiernostalgia]

@@andersholmstrom3571 I highly doubt that we will see a decrease in cost for heating. As Mälarenergi is owned by the city and the Social Demokrats are in constant need of other peoples money. They are allowed to take I believe a 10% payout from the earnings they need the earnings to be as high as possible. Same with Mimer.

[@242turbo]

​@@toysoldiernostalgia district heating network has a great waste of heat the network individual heat pumps are far more energy efficiant in total.

[@ronvandereerden4714]

In Vancouver we have several district heating systems - but no storage. But the DH system nearest me taps into a major sewer line to get 80% of it's heat.

[@JSM-bb80u]

That's what the best thing about district heating system. You can use waste heat from anything. Aluminum smelters and steel makers produce large amount of waste heat. All the electricity consumed by data centers turn into waste heat.

[@lepotdefleur9906]

Here a paper plant has a deal with greenhouses to produce heat in winter, the plant use a lot of water when making paper and it was rejecting that into a river near by before the greenhouses' deal. Now we get cucumber in winter produced locally, there talk to make more kind of veggies, depending on the rentability of the greenhouse long term.

[@eugenetswong]

@@lepotdefleur9906 That's great news. Is that paper plant in Greater Vancouver?

[@eugenetswong]

Yeah, in Surrey, we have at least 1. I don't know where the heat comes from. I worked on the project in a non technical role.

[@lepotdefleur9906]

@@eugenetswong No, it s in the Quebec province

[@berrywin]

Yes, I have district heating where I live because I live in Västerås, and Mälarenergi is my energy supplier for my house! Thank you for this interesting video!

[@keithhigh7773]

Brit here. Very interesting video. In addition to burning much of the city's waste, it was mentioned that they also burn bio-mass. Here in the UK, we have a former coal-fired power station now powered by bio-mass. This biomass is shipped thousands of miles from North America. Originally, it was created from waste timber. Now, it is my understanding, that they are chopping down perfectly healthy trees to create it. I know that trees are renewable in a number of years, dependent on the species. But am l alone in thinking this is a ridiculous release of CO² which would otherwise remain captured in a living tree? Perhaps somebody out there with a greater knowledge of the subject can educate me?

[@hughmarcus1]

Yes. You’re talking about Drax. There’s a documentary the BBC did on it a few years ago. I think it was Panorama, so probably available on iPlayer. Drax eats 900 tonnes of biomass an hour. Yes, most of it is from virgin forest in western Canada. It’s crazy on every level. What’s more Drax claims a public subsidy for this ‘green’ energy. I think somewhere in excess of £2Bn has been paid from the public purse.

[@bsod5608]

What is worse than burning wood is burning coal and oil. We should stop with that first, before considering a stop on burning wood. We treat our forests like our fields. Produce wood for timber, paper and pulp. And biomass fuel for boilers. In general its the worst qualities of wood that go to boilers. It is a natural cycle. The co2 problem will remain in 50 years. The solution is not to stop burn wood, but rather stop using fossile fuel. We should try to reduce wood usage a bit too, for instance using more heatpumps. Saw dust, small branches, bark and partially rotten wood is typically burnt in district heating grid biomass plants. This material will rot away and release co2 quickly. So its better to use is for heat. Its less than 10% of rhe biomass (in my district heating grod) that comes from anything thats close to timber quality.

[@darkgalaxy5548]

Well, carbon from biomass is already in the environment, whereas fossil fuels release sequestered carbon into the environment.

[@shieldphaser]

The thing is, coal in a tree doesn't remain captured forever anyway. If you cut down a tree and burn it, you release co2, yes, but you also free up the space where the tree stood for growing new trees. A tree doesn't take co2 out of the system, it just borrows it, really. If you want to take it out of the system, you need to cut down the tree and, say, bury it underground. Somewhere where the carbon dioxide won't end up back in the cycle. The reason burning coal and oil is a problem is because they're not part of that natural cycle, and so you introduce new carbon into the system. Burning a tree doesn't do that.

[@ЦзинКэ-ы5х]

Nothing stops brits from making biofuel. Yet all the do is complain.

[@Chickeenz]

One factor not mentioned, in case of main boiler maintenance or failure, the stored water will provide a crucial buffer so people don’t freeze while saving fossile fuels.

[@user-zm7jg4hk3v]

As a heating tech, this is wild! Cannot imagine a world without individual heat/hot water systems in every home. What a life it must be to never have to replace a furnace or water heater

[@SirD1]

If this was the USA or UK, this would've cost $150bn and still not completed.

[@popaopol]

Facts

[@brenthud2170]

And people would call it woke the whole time.

[@NoblePineapples]

15.5 million Euro is insanely cheap for a project of this scale. That is so wild, and such a cool piece of infrastructure.

[@pauldarbishire7226]

Fascinating - a smart & relatively simple solution.

[@CandidZulu]

Building underground is all but simple.

[@CuthbertNibbles]

The most impactful infrastructure always seems to be the simplest. Sure, artificial intelligence made possible by teasing the limits of quantum physics to edge a little more performance out of a processor is new and flashy, promising to change the world some day... Until then, heating water remains the premier life-changing technology.

[@pauldarbishire7226]

@@CandidZulu I said "relatively" simple. I spent 45 years working underground on many projects in many countries on 4 continents. In good rock like basalt it is a fairly simple method. I spent most of my working life in soft, water bearing ground - anything but simple but you wouldn't be putting water at 95°c into that type of ground. It's all relative.

[@Joe-ij6of]

If you have surplus electricity (rather than industrial/process waste heat) you can transmit that into a small volume of well insulated sand/gravel/rocks, and use resistive heating to go up to 600 C for a district heating system, really taking advantage of carnot efficiency. Obviously, you can't heat water up that high, there was an opportunity to capture industrial heat, and this town already had the cave system, so the solution shown makes sense.

[@GamesFromSpace]

Also, they don't lose energy converting it back to power or portable heat. Space is basically an unrestricted resource, it's not like they save money by using less volume.

[@rodfreess6019]

Please explain what carnot efficiency has to do with turning high cost electricity into low value heat?

[@Joe-ij6of]

@@rodfreess6019 High cost electricity? What does that mean? This video relies on industrial heat being redirected to a thermal battery. I was referring to systems that pulls electricity off of the grid when there's a SURPLUS: instead of utilities curtailing solar or wind, a thermal battery system buys it cheap. "high cost" is something you made up in your head I guess? Like I said, if a town has both a cave system and industrial heat, the video's solution makes sense. If not, you can take advantage of a system better utilizing carnot efficiency. Electrons can be stepped up to higher voltage for much higher temps. That is efficient because the system can then be much smaller, much closer to customers while still transferring enough heat into a water circulation or steam system.

[@entcraft44]

@@Joe-ij6of You misunderstand Carnot efficiency. It only applies to the conversion of heat into other types of energy. By storing heat for heating you circumvent the Carnot process completely because no energy conversion is necessary. The thing you are talking about is most likely thermal electricity storage. Convert electricity when it is cheap into high temp heat, and when electricity is expensive convert it back at relatively high efficiency. But this is a completely different thing. When the end product is heat going higher in temperature than required leads to higher energy storage density, but also higher losses and thus a lower efficiency.

[@rodfreess6019]

@@Joe-ij6of Carnot efficiency applying to heat storage is the only thing made up. Turning electricity to heat is a given, all energy turns to heat eventually. Heat storage has so many losses it is rarely worthwhile unless the heat has to be disposed of already, as the power plant condensate heat requires.

[@trymotnmark9973]

In practice, they do almost the same at OSL (Oslo Airport Gardermoen). During the summer, they heat up the groundwater to around 70 degrees. by burning bio-waste and garbage. In the winter, they extract the heat via heat exchangers, and heat the buildings around the airport. They also store snow to use in the summer, for cooling the building.

[@XSpImmaLion]

0:37 - Westeros? Are they hiding dragons in there too? xD

[@Skartak]

Haha as a Swede I just realised that Västerås kinda sounds like Westeros 😂

[@maroon2k]

"Väst" actually does mean "west" so...!

[@foo219]

How do you think they *actually* heat the water?

[@clauscinsci5398]

@@foo219 fossil fuels in the end are just dead dragons, so... checks out!

[@TheAllMightyGodofCod]

Yes! But... Don't tell anyone, it's a secret! 🤫

[@michaellehto1697]

I grew up in Västerås. I know the location because it's no secret at all. It's been all over the media..

[@o_-_o]

Can you give GPS location by Google Maps?

[@BooleanDisorder]

It's still against he law to tell.

[@romanhama5377]

Hello comrade! Please share this longitude and latitude, I give whiskey for you, da? Good!

[@cgarzs]

Clearly just trolling. Anyone can find the power plant he went to on google maps. No way you can point to the exact cave entrance though.

[@TobiasLundqvist-ys2xw]

No it's not! I live in Västerås now, and though the powerplant itself is located on Google maps, the caves howeever are not visible anywhere. 😂😅 💙💛💙💛

[@_yonas]

I live in the west of Germany and my home is heated by the waste heat from a nearby coal-fired power station, but the utility provider is working on a new plant to switch to biofuels in the near future as we continue to phase out coal. I don't think they have anything for storing the heat planned at the moment.

[@SixOhFive]

That’s actually from a secret nuclear reaction under your house

[@JSM-bb80u]

The future of home heating would be district heating powered by geothermal and industrial waste heat.

[@TheMcspreader]

Ah! Coal. That's so much cleaner than nuclear. Germanys early dismantling of nuclear power is why cannot afford to heat my house at all. Thanks.

[@jensdecker8864]

biofuels sounds like no plan …

[@fastSPX_90]

« As we continue to phase out coal » … to get more gas ? You’ll need baseload and flexibility anyway and France cannot provide it all with its nuclear fleet

[@alouisschafer7212]

District heating is the way to go since your heat source can be anything. A friend of a friend works at a civil engineering bureau and they are currently engaged in a feasibility study with a city council regarding using massive geothermal heat pumps to expand their district heating network. The citys main heat sources are the garbage incineration plant and multipe natural gas fed power generation sites that produce electricity and heat. They want to expand the district heating and phase out the generator sites long term but the generator sites are currently still needed to pick up peak demand because the city is neither small nor is its electricity demand shrinking. The citys main HV feeder lines and transformer stations are all being expanded currently but that will take until 2035 at least its a huge undertaking.

[@Michael-dq9cs]

One other possible heat source is solar thermal energy (i.e. using solar thermal collectors). If the thermal storage is large enough, it is possible to store the thermal energy from the summer into the winter season. Solar thermal converters have a very high conversion efficiency (much better than photovoltaic or plants/biofuels).

[@lancerbiker5263]

Springhill Nova Scotia Canada is using flooded abandoned coal mine shafts as giant heat exchangers.

[@jrmills2468]

Incorrect. You clearly don't know what a head exchanger is.

[@pro-libertatibus]

@@jrmills2468 Few know what "a *head* exchanger" is. Sounds gruesome, though. s/

[@kirstinmorrell]

​@@jrmills2468It's clearly a typo. He meant "with" rather than "as."

[@YannickTrottier]

As surprising as it is, he's right about using the mine shafts "as" a heat exchanger, not "with" a heat exchanger. My parents live close to there and I'm an HVAC engineer. The region probably has a magma chamber close to the surface, because the mines were unusually warm for their depth. They flooded in a major disaster, and the silver lining is that they can now use the shafts as huge pipes. They just pump warm water out of the flooded mines and use it for district heating.

[@rodfreess6019]

@@YannickTrottier It seems the water is 18C, and used as a heat pump seasonal storage, not a direct heat source for district heating, which inherently requires a temp much closer to boiling, or in this case, lots more water circulated per usable BTU, and probably each consumer to have their own heat pumps.

[@Suburp212]

Such a cool system.

[@paush51]

Hot*

[@eugenetswong]

They were actually very successful and had a lot of heat. Please watch the video first. 😛

[@Teknisk]

Not cool.....😂 95 degrees

[@joshfrench5858]

Aaaaaahhhhhhhh I see what you did there

[@cscjb]

Wish they'd do this in Canada, Alberta specifically. Heating is so ridiculously expensive here and 100+ days of the year has snow and we're constantly hitting -20c or lower. It'd be amazing to have something like this.

[@benzell4]

This is fascinating, although- we are in a rural area in U. S. and it is apparent that this application is truly only beneficial in an urban setting, where the infrastructure is dense, the denser the better.

[@weatherman1978]

You can still use geothermal energy in individual homes. My brother heats his entire hotel like this in a mountainous location in Austria at 1600m above sea level.

[@TheWebstaff]

"Ground source heat pump" This but at your rural property.

[@bingoberra18]

Yes, in rural areas of Sweden, geothermal bore holes are probably the most popular choice now. You drill a hole between 100-200m or 300-600ft deep and run a hose with liquid (basically a type of antifreeze like in a car engine). Then you run that liquid through a heatexchanger in your house and you basically get about 4-5 times the energy you put into it. So total installation cost is about $20k for the hole and the heatexchanger, plus you need the radiators in the house. If you buy 1000w of electricity you get about 5000w of heat into your system like this. (Every private home make their own bore hole and system, independent from others. And bigger apartment buildings make a few of these holes to cover the entire building)

[@MichaelDeHaven]

That's a great price. Where I live in the US it costs almost twice as much. It's one of the reasons we didn't do it. I wonder how much is down to things like our generally larger house sizes? But to be fair we do live in an area with bedrock right beneath the surface.

[@galgathor6817]

The more I learn about other countries the more I completely understand why people hate mine.

[@MikeA15206]

Well said!

[@FJB2020]

India?

[@deege.]

im assuming you mean america, if so try to learn about your own country, like actually learn about it not what America wants you to "learn", then you will see why the world hates out guts, we are genuinely evil. No other words

[@mollyanderson9111]

I like how this comment could work for several countries

[@bast7486]

Here in Jönköping we have alot of "fjärrvärme" as we call it (district heating). And its buried under alot of roads to heat it up so we dont ger ice and snow on these roads.

[@chv2948]

There's also caves like this one in Jönköping so maybe we'll see a similar project in the future.

[@JonnyDee]

Brilliant!

[@Greyalien587]

bor utomlands nu men saknar jönköpings kebabsås varje gång jag äter pizza.. kul att se en annan jönköpingsbo här!

[@jim.pearsall]

Here in Houston, Texas - many downtown buildings are part of district cooling system that produces ice during nighttime, and melts it during the daytime.

[@nian89]

Hey, that's my city! I used to work there. Right in that reception at 2:19 :)

[@set-d6h]

woah

[@mattiasbergman3292]

I was living in an apartment building in Malmö in the south of Sweden. Where we had central heating. But drilled for geothermal energy. (Many drill holes) Then got the cost down to a third of what it was before.

[@bige8549]

Thank for this video!

[@rhino_force7679]

don't thank, best way to support the channel it's buying their products like t-shirts.

[@urbanstrencan]

Amazing solution for heating, great work Sweden 😍😍🤟 That's what more cities should do. Great video keep it up 😍

[@GeographRick]

The entire center (downtown area) of Indianapolis, Indiana, US has district heating. It started over 100 years ago.

[@dalecranmer844]

That's awesome 😎

[@shaungordon9737]

OK....

[@ronblack7870]

many cities do that . i know ny city and also downtown toronto have it

[@1TechCritic420]

​@@ronblack7870 Not in the US. 99% of all places in the US don't use this system. Or anything like it. Each home has individual heating.

[@Smarterthandumber]

I think the heating storage was the main topic of the video tho .. 😅

[@johnpekkala6941]

Been living here almost my entire life. Västerås is indeed a pioneer when it comes to cogeneration and district heating solutions!

[@Sshodan]

I grew up thinking district heating was the norm, and what everyone was doing - it actually surprised me that a lot of countries, even in Europe are still heating individual houses, especially in big cities? That is so inefficient.

[@Dudenier]

Get off your high horse, individual house heating could in theory be more energy efficient. More pipes in district heating creates more ways for heat to escape

[@RoughNeckDelta]

@@Dudenier "in theory" How about you get out of fantasy land and live in the real world.

[@priestesslucy]

​@@RoughNeckDelta transmission losses are a thing, and they're often worse with heat than electricity.

[@呵呵呵呵-l6i]

District heating can be a bigger problem if not run in a reasonable way, such as not making the full use out of it, providing heating only when it gets too cold, or not billed correctly to the exact usage. In China, many colder cities have district heating, but its only used for heating, and start to heat very very late, while stops very early, leave every household have either electric or gas boiler for hot water and a few reversible air-conditioners for the transaction season. Meanwhile its not billed or run correctly as its only billed depending how big the space is, not how much energy you have taken from the network, and you can't control the temperature, thus most people are either too hot and wasting heat or too cold that use gas or electricity to warm up at the same time. In this case, individual gas or electric heat will save more energy and provide more comfort. Also, nearly all district heat in China are provide by 100% fossil fuel, and a few provide by electricity such as heat pump which uses electricity mainly produced by fossil fuels.

[@Runefrag]

Nope. The most efficient way of heating & cooling these days are with heat pumps installed on individual houses. Big systems like these are AWFUL for efficiency because there's just miles upon miles upon miles of pipe that dumps a huge amount of it's heat traveling said pipes. It's extremely expensive to maintain, install and buy.

[@MikaelSegerstrom]

I lived in Västerås for more than 50 years. The bills from that energy company made me move to the country side. Every year they increase energy prices with 5-10% .

Of course they did. And they came to your house and beat up your kids and stole your car as well, right?

[@rainers.2080]

I live in a 123 square meter house in Härryda outside of Göteborg and have Mälarenergi as my energy supplier. I think my bill from Mälarenergi for August of this year was something like 170 kronor. Of course to the power grid owner Vattenfall I had to pay about 900 kronor for the same month.

[@Wuuz]

if the distance to surface was slightly less, they probably could do big greenhouses on top of them in the north for tropical stuff to leech all the radiating heat :D

[@cassiopeiasfire6457]

That would be cool, but if it radiated substantial heat, it wouldn't be very good for storage.

[@a0flj0]

Not if they want to keep the location secret.

[@mluiga]

​@@a0flj0This fascility is probably high security because of other issues than the water storage. In my town of Borås, Sweden we store excessive heat in a big accumulator tank in the middle of the city. It's even lit up with lights so it looks pretty. 😂

[@Wacked]

Many cities in Sweden may have connected their housing to district heating, but very few have maintained their systems and even less have options like this to be smart about saving energy. Prices are rising everywhere because of the now huge cost of fixing issues that earlier intervention could prevented.

[@toysoldiernostalgia]

My hometown Västerås is actually quit good when it comes to preparedness. We have a huge storage of food rations as well. Also we just did an inventory of all bomb shelters in buildings and lots of them were reinstated as such. We also have a huge shelter in the center of town that can hold 10 000 people.

[@mattiasbergman3292]

Mustn't forget that this is the city where Sweden's atomic development is or was...

[@toysoldiernostalgia]

@@mattiasbergman3292 I´ve worked at Westinghouse. :)

[@bengtericson2597]

Mariaberget? Not so much anymore...

[@toysoldiernostalgia]

@@bengtericson2597 Finns ju kvar och kan återställas vid behov.

[@Sur-Ron]

Calling wood a biofuel is nuts

[@HayGurHayyy]

Maybe look it up. It's literally what it is.

[@DrewNorthup]

Nomenclature quirk note from a native English speaker & Caver: The word "cave" is typically reserved for karst formations & similar natural landforms (lava tubes, natural tunnels through glaciers, natural openings through talus, voids in packed sand & clay, etc) while "cavern" can refer to any underground void (old mines, military installations, caves modified by humans for commercial use, catacombs, etc). Knowing a little about how much more strict environmental protection standards tend to be in Europe I found the title hard to believe. Understanding that they're actually using custom-built (for a different purpose) caverns however makes it all make much more sense.

[@Confessor555]

Don't overthink this, bro...

[@Tascountrygirl]

​@@Confessor555 Pls lay off. I found this intensely interesting.

[@teresamexico309]

Thank you for the info because the tittle was a bit strange so i did look at the comments before watching the video.

[@boxsterman77]

@@Confessor555allergies to learning?

[@Nono-hk3is]

I've never heard of this distinction. I'm not disagreeing with it, just pointing out it is not necessarily common knowledge, even among native English speakers.

[@nSnowCrow]

We have a free standing storage tank with around half the capacity in Rostock, Germany. Berlin has also a really big storage tank but a bit smaller. So even if you don’t have the geology for a big cavern there are viable solutions to store the summer heat.

[@Morboxx]

This is basically the reverse of what people used to do to have cold beer (among other things) in the summer. During winter, they got ice and put it in deep cellars.

[@mikeb5664]

Because we need cold beers.

[@interrobangings]

0:12 "that was a long and sticky process" HEHEHEHEHEHEHE

[@sanbest93rd]

yeah, we've got a central heating where i live. it would be hard to cope without a hot shower when it's -50 °c outside

[@emilg]

I'm pretty sure I had district heating when I lived in Saljö-Boo, Sweden. Some nights is wasn't heating up my place as much but it was manageable. Low electricity bill was nice.

[@dalehalliday3578]

In Toronto we use cold water (constant 4 degrees C) from the bottom of Lake Ontario to cool many of our large buildings downtown.

[@stratosdrix1091]

It's a really good and effective system, but since it's monopolized it's important to note that it is, due to that, fairly expensive for the consumer

[@apondo100]

Exceptional journalism.

[@Confessor555]

Yep.

[@marianfawcett2300]

I concoure.. here here

[@DeniseSkidmore]

My father was a proponent of small scale heat piping. He was an energy engineer and encouraged factories with waste heat to sell it to nearby offices and apartment buildings.

[@SamuSaurama]

The Finland's "heat tank" is just below my mtb routes ❤

[@kenseitakesi4521]

Are you in helsinki?

[@SamuSaurama]

@kenseitakesi4521 Yes, I live in Helsinki.

[@kenseitakesi4521]

@@SamuSaurama se on hyvä se. Tampere on vain parempi

[@chv2948]

I wonder it will be hot enough below that the snow will melt on your route.

[@SamuSaurama]

@kenseitakesi4521 😁😁

[@kallieholman9329]

Please talk about the career landscape architecture! As a landscape architect our career isn’t well known but holds so much power for change! The career is being redefined and amplified through teaching at universities. I’ve worked on projects focusing on the micro scale of modules that are built for water filtration and habitat rehabilitation, to exploring energy sources and creating environmentally friendly energy producers in our landscapes.

[@natesummer7532]

I'm moving to Sweden!!

[@paal8193]

... bring with you your own cave , ok?

[@phillipcoiner4232]

Bring your copy of the Koran

[@danvernier198]

Oh noes, is the little eastern European jealous that someone from the middle east did a better job on northern Europe than they did? I guess you got replaced.

[@SaraJfai]

Welcome. The first thing you should get from the supermarket is ”schysst käk’s kebab”, and you won't be disappointed that you just moved here. 😂

[@Yuri-p7z]

@@phillipcoiner4232his name is Nate summer

[@erik7271]

i worked with eldercare and going to old peoples houses. One fella had his heater turned up to maximum and next to it he had the balcony door open. becuase he "wanted to be warm and have fresh air". I almost flipped out at how he was wasting energy like it was nothing. Sometimes making stuff free makes people think there is infinite of it.

[@larslrs7234]

"Only little of the heat escapes" -> Please quantify. Underground rocks are not a good insulator.

[@kronop8884]

Considering the huge volume of the cavern in relation to the comparatively small surface area of the bedrock enclosing it this is the result. Compare if you will with a radiator or heat exchanger where the goal is to maximise the surface area to volume ratio to improve heat transfer, in the case of the cavern it is the opposite situation

[@u1zha]

@@kronop8884 Still the open-air water tank with human made insulation may beat rock in efficiency, 11:21... Would be nice to get reports on the actual numbers

[@leoh5405]

In eastern Germany in the region of the ore mountain there’s a lot of abandoned mines. There’s research into using those mines which fill up with water by themselves as a geothermal energy source as well as heat storage.

[@leoh5405]

The project is called MineATES

[@Tehkenny1]

People heating up things underneath Westeros has a bad history.

It's a way of bracing oneself for when winter is coming.

[@TobiasLundqvist-ys2xw]

Well......Winter is coming! Best be prepared 😅😂

[@mikedunn7795]

When I was a boy in the mid fifties,we had district heating,which was not very eco-friendly. A central plant would heat water with coal/oil,and the water was sent to homes through underground pipes into what looked like a furnace in our basement. The pipes went through a sort of radiator,and through the heating ducts.

[@petter5721]

Sweden has many of these oil bedrock storage facilities. Some are not used any more an can be converted to store hot water.

[@ArthursHD]

Pretty cool (well actually hot) heat storage. I was looking into seasonal heat storage and solar thermal, PVT.

[@Respectable_Username]

Glad to hear Westeros is putting a thought towards its heating system after the squabble for the Iron Throne was sorted out 😜

[@DigitalDiabloUK]

$15m doesn't seem like a lot for a scheme of this size. I've often thought London should do this to extract the captured heat in the Underground.

[@misstakenot9582]

Research "Bunhill 2 energy centre"

[@JoeKingAudits]

I'm Bradford west yorkshire England we have heating just for council building in Bradford town center. The pipes are extensive as I saw it built but it's publicly funded and only there to benifit the council. Seems a bit wrong imo. Be interesting to know more about it though and when will it start paying for itself if it ever will.

[@simsnqta]

Yorkshire councils live in the 19-th century.

[@JoeKingAudits]

@simsnqta yeah but we have the nicest theme park rides for people to enjoy before they get here...... rubber dinginey rapids!

[@freja9398]

All district heating in Sweden is publicly owned and funded as well. And we still have it basically every house in every Swedish town and city. I've lived in small towns like 30000 people where everyone had it, not only apartments but also villas. I have never lived in a place that didnät have district heating, it's basically unheard of unless you live on the countryside. You can do this the UK, you only need political will!

[@JoeKingAudits]

@ yep and that’s why I’m annoyed at our council and government. All they are trying to do is save themselves money literally in all senses of government and rip the public off doing so in just about every endeavour they decide. There is so much “affordable housing in the city centre that could take advantage of this heating system if it was implemented and if it saves money would help homeless of our streets possibly making it more “affordable” I put affordable like that because it’s as expensive as anywhere else in my experience. One rule for them and one for us while the use our money to better themselves it seems to me.

[@tor-bjornfjellner]

Arlanda Airport, which serves Stockholm, uses an underground lake to store energy between seasons. During summer, they circulate water from the lake to cool the terminal buildings. Towards the end of the summer, that underground lake gets reasonably warm (obviously, we're no talking about any 95 °C here, though. Then, during winter, that same lake gives back the stored heat through the same system...

[@wyhesggifrid]

district heating ftw

[@danielpullum1907]

I live in Decatur, IL. Springfield, IL had a central heating system for the center of town in the late 1800's. I don't believe any of that system is operating. It was not "heated storage" but coal fired boilers. Yours is a very interesting project.

[@EdMcF1]

3:48 Helsingborg, the Town Hall is visible there.

[@FredEmpty]

I thought i recognized it. Helsingborg is my hometown! Wonder when it was taken?

[@Oben153]

jag såg samma och kolla upp det

[@timlaunyc]

New York City's steam network can be considered district heating. It's over a 100 yrs old, and still heats dozens of buildings. There is no heat storage though, but it does use some waste heat to generate steam.

[@ronblack7870]

there are 4 gas turbines to produce electricity around ny city. they use the exhaust from those to produce steamin copmbined generation

[@rgolianeh]

I installed a heat pump last summer in California and I am very pleased. Saves me a lot of money on electricity and gas.

[@jrmills2468]

Bad bot

[@TheWebstaff]

Air source or ground source?

[@mikeb5664]

I did the same in Ontario Canada and got the same results. My only issue is dealing with the water run-off.

[@randoawesomemix9501]

US military bases used to be set up like this. They called it a "Central steam plant" system. Most have been converted away from this setup due to issues transporting that much hot water or steam to those distances.

[@tagzee3072]

Important fact nobody is talking about: They also burn a lot of household garbage. But the need for garbage is actually so big, so they even import garbage from other countries to fill their demand.

[@Allexz]

And that import is done due to the fact that sweden can burn the garbage more effectively and use it to generate both heat and electricity which warmer countries cant. That 90% turnover instead of 40% is the major factor. You make it sound like a bad thing to reduce waste instead of landfilling it. In 2020 only 4.6 million tons were landfilled in sweden while 23 million tons were recycled as materials or energy. Not many countries can even get close to the same numbers.

[@tagzee3072]

​@@Allexz We import millions of tonnes from countries such as Norway and Britain. Countries, that very well could recycle their own plastic instead of loading it on a oil-gobbeling tanker to transport it here so we can burn it and release more carbon dioxide. -Just to get taxed more by EU due to not reaching our goals. That's why the EU is such a scam.

[@oscarcampbell1242]

I live in Arboga, not far from Västerås, it's connected to a district heating system spanning two other towns as well. The heat comes from waste heat from industries, waste burning (highly regulated emissions) and as top off for colder days: bio fuel burning from local forests. No storage though as far as I know.

[@shapeshifter1364]

The problem with district heating for the consumer is that you are locked in a system with no alternative. They can charge you whatever they want. I Sweden they have risen the price with 36% the last couple of years.

[@juliannyca]

Well, you're in the same situation when having an individual system depending on exactly one kind of fuel.

[@shapeshifter1364]

@@juliannyca True that. Problem is that you can not say no to the installment of it. Kind of communism - just pay!

[@danielrose1392]

In the past 5 years my natural gas price has doubled, I also don't have an alternative.

[@lovehagglund3234]

I live in sweden and my heating is included in my rent. has been included in rent for every apartment ive had. Same as warm water. also included in rent. Currently I live in a 80m2 apartment top floor right in the city centre, for 1000$/ month Electricity is 30$/month. it's not too bad.

[@WaffleAbuser]

Can they really charge anything they want? Is it not regulated at all? I’m not saying that you are wrong, I am just surprised if that is the case.

[@niclasevaldsson1467]

In my home town they build a twenty kilometer pipe to a pulp mill in a neighboring village, 20 years ago. So that the excess heat could be used in the district heating network. While now a masssive greenhouse for tomatoes have been built next to the pump mill. So that the heat can be also used to grow tomatoes.

[@ZarlanTheGreen]

How does water heat storage, compare to sand and other materials, that are also used for heat storage? (for use as district heating and/or industry heating)

[@knowledgeisgood9645]

It is easy to pump water - sand not so much 😂 Sand needs a secondary system to transport the heat.

[@erik....]

Water can store 4 times more energy than sand, but sand can be heated far above 100 degrees celsius so it depends on the application.. mostly the input temperature I guess.

[@ZarlanTheGreen]

@@knowledgeisgood9645 Your point being...?

[@knowledgeisgood9645]

@@ZarlanTheGreen Water storage is simpler.

[@ryuuguu01]

@@erik.... water stores 5x as much heat per kg but only 2~2,5x as much per volume. A big advantage of water is that being a liquid heat is transferred inside the storage system by convection,, and with sand, it transferred by conduction only.

[@carldori6172]

Another excellent documentary, thank you

[@redtails]

there's an argument to be made that non-distributed heating systems, i.e. a heatpump in every home, can be much more efficient than pumping around hot water all over the city. Electricity to run heatpumps has minimal loss versus the heat lost in district heating. You can still produce your electricity 'green', and each home can have a tank of water as its own heat battery... can couple it into solar, wind, whatever. seems crazy to me to have district heating, the infrastructure is insanely expensive versus the energy.

[@ivveG]

The household waste still needs to get burned, and the heat energy from this should not be wasted, thus a district heating system makes sense

[@oyuyuy]

No there isn't

[@th3gughy]

I've lived in parts of Switzerland that had district heating.. personally I loved it, because it allowed me to keep the house warm and dry without worrying too much about the bills.. however, I remember loads of people being unable to manage their own heating system so they ended wasting heat just because they didn't pay for it. A double edged sword, especially when the people are not well informed about it!!

[@freja9398]

In Sweden every town or city has district heating and often waste is burned. All unrecyclade trash is burned in Sweden, we don't bury trash at all. When I visited Scotland I was very surprised they didn't have dustrict heating. Sweden is far ahead so many countries, you need to step up!

[@clauscinsci5398]

Scottish Winter The daytime temperature during winter in Scotland is on average 4°C (around 39°F). There may not always be snow underfoot, but snowcapped peaks are a fixture in the northern parts of Scotland. while the low record was below -27°C this is really rare, so you might guess why heating is not that big of a problem as in other parts of the world

[@robinandersson8981]

I'm living in a house in Västerås which is connected to this heating system. The pipes are entering the house in the cellar, however, the probe/meter is in the other end of the celler, so the pipes are crossing the whole cellar "unisolated" giving us some free heat

[@paytonturner1421]

I have to say that this type of technology is pretty awesome to see. I'm wondering if it can be combined with compressed air in a hybrid system that complements the two technologies in some areas that have no case systems to work with.

[@knowledgeisgood9645]

Air is a bad heat conductor. Water is many times more efficient.

[@123_1]

@@knowledgeisgood9645 I suppose he means compressed air for electricity storage

[@mr47blond]

We have district heating, but the pricing system in The Netherlands has been linked to gasprices, effectively allow the opperators to gauge and inflate the costs for the sakes of just grabbing more money, Eneco (part of the Mitsubishi Corporation) is basically acting as a heat yakuza, rather than a utility provider.

[@marius165]

So Westeros is real!

[@jonasaman9104]

Yes Västerås is real!

[@88marome]

Wait... why did no one tell me that English speakers would pronounce it like that?!

[@rickardcarlsson3692]

There’s also an island IN Västerås called Bear Island.

[@rachelnise2473]

@jonasaman9104 hysch! folk kommer att få reda på att Sverige finns i verkligheten också

[@prof2be]

I came for this comment 😂

[@Luftbubblan]

Nice video. Not so often we get to see anything about our home town.

[@joyfullivinglove9985]

pretty cool

[@djb6313]

Minus 20 is cold but I grew up in a town that went down to minus 45 in winter. Wish we had a system like this to keep town warm.

[@robselby9567]

0:49 "It's pretty cold, about -2 Celsius." *Laugh's in Canadian*

[@BooleanDisorder]

Yeah, in Sweden it gets way colder than that. I find -2 pretty comfortable. Better than 2 plus.

[@simonhultgren7778]

bro last winter we had -45 or 50 i dont remember we get it cold and dark at 2pm dont talk mate

[@Truthmybannerl4631]

I had similar idea in my college days but because I was not English my physics teacher ignored me n put me down!! Good to see Sweden using it modified method! Great job!

[@leonhardtkristensen4093]

Physics teachers are not always the smartest people around. They have a book to teach from and anything else is often ignored - simply because they probably don't even know what they teach. They tell you that the book says so so believe it.

[@Pythonizah]

"Conventional power plants are 40% at best" - no, that's not even close to truth. Your own German industry produces far more efficient prime movers. "Siemens now offers a CCGT for utility generation rated at 593 MW, ... operating at 63% efficiency."

[@maxdon2001]

Great video! Very interesting!

[@tonysolar284]

7:15 China will fill in the gap you left when it comes to Co2 emissions by building more coal power plants.

[@erik....]

We do have district heating where I live here in northern Sweden but geothermal heating is still cheaper. Might change if electricity gets even more expensive I guess.

[@phyarth8082]

Norway According to a report by Asplan Viak [4], 80% of the heating energy for buildings in Norway comes from electricity . This country have a lot of hydro dams and near free energy but use electric energy for heating is really crime against Nature. Norway must sell electric energy to countries with manufacture and service industry who burn a lot of coal use instead for heating.

[@Reddestlion89]

Norway exported 12,000 Gw/Hrs of electricity last year…that’s a mega amount why don’t these countries with manufacturing and service industries try to reduce there fossil fuel consumption themselves instead of expecting others to feed to them on a plate…

[@mattanderson9029]

Electric heating is not a crime against nature, natural gas and coal maybe

[@thelloydersvk5068]

​@@Reddestlion89 Just get paid for that exported electricity.

[@ofsen2497]

You are right. Im norwegian myself that see the potential as electricty exporter. Electricity is already norways 5th biggest export, and contributes tons of money into government budgets. Sadly the political climate is not favoring electricity cables to make all the potential export possible. The cause is increased energy prices, and people get angry although it benefits norwegian economy, the government and the people as a whole.

[@pin65371]

@@mattanderson9029 you are using a massive amount of electricity to produce the same amount of heat as gas.

[@theclearsounds3911]

Princeton University has a co-generation plant that generates electricity and uses the "waste" heat to heat their buildings. As far as I know, there is no storage, though. Just as I was moving out of Princeton, they were building a large solar panel project.

[@camerica7400]

For $15.5 Million they were able to make an amazing system to save lives, energy, and support the community. My local Walmart just did remodel for $8.1 Million and barely anything has changed and it’s much worse now.

[@benktbanan]

We have district heating in the south of Sweden as well but here staying connected and using the heat is actually more expensive than using your own heat pump that runs on electricity.

[@Victor-fu4cp]

You should cover Copenhagens district heating, as it is the largest in the world covering 98%. It is also the 4. Generation as it is mostly based on renewable energy.

[@eldsprutandedrake]

I'm from another rather small town in Sweden with a big district heating system but I don't hear much good about it. There's no storage system though, which might improve things. But the issue is fuel, there's not enough trash or garden waste generated to supply the plant so they need to import a lot of fuel, green or otherwise. And it's simply to expensive to run overall, the amount you pay to be hooked up to the system is too high. Many are switching to individual heatpumps instead, forcing the company to increase the price even more for the customers who are left just to break even. Sooner or later it will just be the big buildings owned by companies and so on left, when all the small homes that can leave have left... If nothing is done that is.