In the UK you’d have a very hard time selling the idea of plonking a waste-to-energy incinerator slap bang in the middle of a city. Doubly so once people found out it would be the tallest building in said city. And I doubt that you’d find ANY way of beautifying it that would be acceptable to the British public……even if that meant burying it under a mountain of soil, sowing grass on its flanks, sticking a tree and a tea room at the summit and installing an escalator for ease of access.
No, I just can’t see it.
Denmark however, is an entirely different story. Architect Bjarke Ingels has just won a competition to design a new waste-to-energy plant which aims to be one of the cleanest in the world when it opens in 2016. The plant, which will be Copenhagen’s tallest building, will replace a 40-year-old incinerator located in an industrial area on the fringes of the city centre…….but how were the good folk of the Danish capital won over, I hear you ask?Â
Simple. Make the power plant 100m high and stick an alpine ski slope on its flanks. Seriously! A lift will take snowsports enthusiasts up to the top of the plant whilst offering them views of the machinery inside. How cool is that? The public get a fun day out but also get to learn about energy, waste and sustainability at the same time.
It’s a bonkers (but brilliant) idea, but one I still don’t think would win people over in the UK. Perhaps it was a canny move in a country not terribly well known for its hills and pistes? Perhaps the Danes have always wanted a hill of their own? Well, whatever the reason you really can’t help but be impressed at its audacity and the fact that it has won the competition.
The architect was quoted as saying:
“When you spend 3.5bn kroner [£424m] creating an energy plant in the middle of Copenhagen you make sure it doesn’t become an ugly box that the neighbours will protest against and clutters the cityscape. You have to make sure it becomes a public park, an attraction. And when the kids come to go skiing on top of the plant they will probably be curious to find out what’s going on inside the mountain.”
Furthermore, the plant will make people stop & think by churning out a 30m wide smoke ring from its chimney every time a tonne of CO2 is released. Ingels said: “One of the problems with emissions is that they are so abstract and intangible. You can see there is smoke coming out of the chimney but you don’t really know whether this is a significant amount. In Copenhagen in 2016 you will simply have to count the smoke rings.”
I’ll be honest, I have no idea how efficient, clean or sustainable these plants are, but Denmark has a good environmental record compared to most nations so I’d like to think they’re doing the right thing in a fun and educational way. The only question now is whether the snow will melt with all that crap burning beneath it ;-)
More than 50% of waste in Denmark is already used to create energy and the new power plant will be 20% more effective than its predecessor.
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