There’s an opportunity to create a new form of infrastructure that can capture, store, and share the heat lost from industry, electricity generation, and communities, even in the summer.Buildings are the third-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada. In many cities, including Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary, buildings are the single highest source of emissions.The recently launched Infrastructure for Good barometer, released by consulting firm Deloitte, suggests that Canada’s infrastructure investments already top the global list in terms of positive societal, economic and environmental benefits.In fact, over the past 150 years, Canada has built railways, roads, clean water systems, electrical grids, pipelines and communication networks to connect and serve people across the country.AdvertisementNow, there’s an opportunity to build on Canada’s impressive tradition by creating a new form of infrastructure: capturing, storing and sharing the massive amounts of heat lost from industry, electricity generation and communities, even in summer.Natural gas precedentIndoor heating often comes from burning fossil fuels — three-quarters of Ontario homes, for example, are heated by natural gas. Until about 1966, homes across Canada were primarily heated by wood stoves, coal boilers, oil furnaces or heaters using electricity from coal-fired power plants.After the oil crisis of the 1970s, many of those fuels were replaced by natural gas, delivered directly to individual homes. The cost of the natural gas infrastructure, including a national network of pipelines, was amortized over more than 50 years to make the cost more practical.This reliable, low-cost energy source quickly proved to be popular. The change cut heating emissions across Ontario by roughly half throughout the 1970s and 1980s, long before climate change was the concern it is today.AdvertisementNow, as the need to decarbonize becomes more pressing, recent studies not only emphasize the often-overstated emissions reductions benefits from using natural gas; they also indicate that burning this fuel source is still far from net-zero.However, there’s no reason why Canadian governments can’t invest in new infrastructure-based alternative heating solutions. This time, they could replace natural gas with an alternative, net-zero source: the wasted heat already emitted by other energy uses.Heat capture and storageDepending on the source temperature, technology used and system design, heat can be captured throughout the year, stored and distributed as needed. A type of infrastructure called thermal networks could capture leftover heat from factories and nuclear and gas-fired power plants.In essence, thermal networks take excess thermal energy from industrial processes (though thermal energy can theoretically be captured from a variety of different sources), and use it as a centralized heating source for a series of insulated underground pipelines connected to multiple other buildings. These pipelines, in turn, are used to heat or cool these connected buildings.A substantial potential to capture heat similarly exists in every neighbourhood. Heat is produced by data centres, grocery stores, laundromats, restaurants, sewage systems and even hockey arenas.In Ontario, the amount of energy we dump in the form of heat is greater than all the natural gas we use to heat our homes.The effort demands substantial leadership from all levels of government. Creating these systems would be expensive, but the technology does exist, and the one-time cost would pay for itself many times over.Such systems are already working in other cold countries. Thermal networks heat half the homes in Sweden and two-thirds of homes in Denmark.The oil crisis of the 1970s motivated both countries to find new domestic heating sources. They financed their new infrastructure over 50 years and reduced their investment risks through low-interest bonds (loaned by public banks) and generous subsidies.These were offered to utility companies looking to expand district energy operations, and to consumers by incentivizing connections to such systems. Additionally, in Denmark, controlled consumer prices served a similar function. (ICE TORONTO)

Fonte notizia: https://www.canadianmanufacturing.com/