
Power Plant Turns Waste into Energy and Doubles as a Ski Slope and Climbing Wall - abbe98
https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/power-plant-turns-waste-into-energy-and-doubles-as-a-ski-slope/
======
Fezzik
This reminded me of The Oregon Garden (see below). The City of Silverton zaps
all its waste water with UV light, after other treatment processes, leaving
the water a few degrees too hot to put back in to the watershed. So, the water
is then pumped a few miles to a manmade, multi-acre wetlands habitat, that
cools the water down and naturally adds nutrients prior to re-entering a
stream. On top of that, the City has built a botanical garden that also uses
this water and added a conference center. There is also a free educational
program sponsored by a local grocery store owner that utilizes the area to
teach K-12 kids about wetlands.

There are all sorts of other neat factoids about the complex, but there really
are creative/ingenious ways to address our waste.

[https://www.oregongarden.org/](https://www.oregongarden.org/)

~~~
elihu
I haven't visited in awhile, but they also have a Frank Lloyd Wright house (I
think it's the only one in Oregon) that used to be in Wilsonville, but the
owner wanted to bulldoze it in favor of a fancy mansion, so some people
convinced him to allow them to move it to the Oregon Gardens.

~~~
Fezzik
I forgot about that! It is a very unique set of things that have accumulated
around the gardens. I worked there through AmeriCorps in 04/05 and remember it
fondly. I have always wondered why more small communities do not adopt a
similar method for waste water treatment.

------
driverdan
This article reads like PR. No content about the power plant, just praise for
making it a fake ski slope.

> what is possibly the greenest power plant in the world

That's a bold claim with no evidence. They're burning trash. How could that
possibly be the greenest power plant in the world?

~~~
juanjmanfredi
I share your skepticism. Waste-to-energy plants produce ash, and I can't
imagine people will enjoy skiing in polluted air.

If anyone knows where to find more technical details about how this plant
works, and what makes it "the greenest power plant in the world", I would be
curious to take a look.

~~~
pmjordan
Although waste will be produced, that doesn't mean it's emitted into the air.
There is a famous waste burning plant[1] (~6MW) within the city of Vienna, and
which is near residential buildings and supplies the nearby general hospital
with energy. The waste gases are thoroughly processed and filtered. It emits
CO2 of course but it certainly wouldn't be permitted to operate at that
location if it produced anything more immediately harmful to the surrounding
population.

[1]
[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Müllverbrennungsanlage_Spittel...](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Müllverbrennungsanlage_Spittelau)

~~~
craftinator
Certainly not!

------
beloch
There's an epsisode of "Abstract - The Art of Design" on netflix in which this
building is featured.

------
mholt
For anyone else more interested in the climbing wall, direct link to their
climbing page:
[https://www.copenhill.dk/en/activities/climbing](https://www.copenhill.dk/en/activities/climbing)

~~~
rurp
That link mentions multipitch climbing, which is surprising but cool. Every
artifical wall I've seen outside of a climbing gym was strictly for single
pitch top roping. I'm not sure how that will actually work in practice though.
Are they really going to open the wall up to lead climbing? Seems like a
liability and logistical nightmare. The article certainly implies that's the
case, but is worded confusingly enough that I'm skeptical.

~~~
kirrent
Well, they reference some kind of qualification and there's plenty of climbing
gyms around the world which allow for multipitch climbing. Often you have to
bring your own rope though.

On the other hand, I can think of a multitude of ways of providing multipitch
top roping in such an environment. Joining two ends of a rope and running it
through both anchors would be fine. You could even use a series of autobelay
devices with retrieval tag lines to keep things relatively simple (though arm
destroying).

------
philippoi
Just to point out, Copenhagen isn't (entirely) located on Amager, as the
article suggests. Part of it is, but that's only a couple of neighborhoods in
the city which is composed of 8-ish distinct areas. Copenhagen is located
entirely on Sjælland, but calling it Sjælland Bakke wouldn't make sense in the
local context.

~~~
jVinc
And for further social context, they are essentially saying what for a Dane is
the equivalent of "New York is located in New Jersey".

~~~
SahAssar
No, it's more like "New york is located in Brooklyn". As in, Amager is still a
part of Copenhagen, but does not encompass all of it.

~~~
slau
Most of Amager isn’t part of Copenhagen. Dragør, Kastrup, etc, are their own
municipalities.

------
undersuit
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amager_Bakke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amager_Bakke)
I especially like that it can transition between heating and electricity
production. Community heating is something I think North America needs to
embrace more.

~~~
dzhiurgis
I feel most of Denmark should be able to mostly go thru winter with a thousand
dollar heat pump...

~~~
undersuit
Rugged individualism on an island with 2000 people per square kilometer...

------
kawsper
They had trouble getting permission for people to be allowed on the roof back
in May, because there was a chance for visitors to be cooked alive if there
was an accident.

I wonder how they solved that, likely with a waiver, as it might be a risk you
take if you ski on a power plant.

~~~
ceejayoz
Someone probably did the math and realized dying from the _skiing_ is a lot
more likely.

~~~
njarboe
Skiing survives in the highly litigious US only due to strong state laws that
shield ski run companies from liability. Time will tell if this ski run can
stay open without similar protections.

------
growlist
We have a few of these plastic ski slopes in the UK and I have to say on a
cold, wet winter evening - which is often when people visit them, getting a
bit of practice in for a ski holiday in the Alps - they can be bloody
miserable. And from experience falling over on one I can testify that plastic
has a lot less give in it than snow.

Now: an artificial outdoor slope with real snow running from say 2500m down to
1500m, that could be interesting, but would also require the tallest structure
on earth.

------
buboard
I remember videos about this project from many years ago. His plan was to make
the chimney puff a ring of smoke. Seems it took longer to finish than
anticipated

~~~
madmoose
The designer of the chimney puffer is serving a life sentence for the brutal
murder and dismemberment of a Swedish journalist, on his home-made submarine.

~~~
Symbiote
You'll need a source for a statement like that. You appear to be overstating
the reality.

"It is correct that Peter Madsen worked on the prototype for BIG back in 2014
in his capacity of a welder," a company spokesperson told AD PRO.

[https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/blarke-ingels-
pete...](https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/blarke-ingels-peter-madsen-
amager-bakke-power-plant)

~~~
tecleandor
The Guardian says: "The smoke ring mechanism has been put on hold, in part
because Peter Madsen, the artist who helped design it, was sentenced to life
in prison for murder." [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/13/danish-
waste-t...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/13/danish-waste-to-
energy-projects-key-selling-point-ski-slope)

Maybe somebody overstated when talking to the journalist, or maybe the company
understated his position in some short of PR movement...

------
doctoboggan
I was just in Copenhagen and saw this building from a distance. I was curious
about it then and am surprised to see it featured here.

------
authoritarian
This is pretty cool. It would be interesting to see more industrial projects
using some of the space available to them for community activity spaces such
as this

------
dasanman
Hasnt this power plant been there for like 5 years at least? Not exactly new
anymore

~~~
scarlac
Plan has been around for a while, yes, but the building was not open to the
public. Apparently that has now changed.

------
unholyguy001
Why do I want to end this statement with “what could possibly go wrong ?”

------
throwaway5752
It is an incinerator with a fancy roof.

