enough to power entire countries

Canada was missing energy that were found in the sewers. Enough to supply entire countries. More and more regions decide to use their resources and become independent from others. This is how such fascinating initiatives were created, such as a product that produces transparent energy, bypassing greenhouses and farms.

The energy sector is at a crucial moment due to the growing demand for energy supplies. Another area that is also booming is self-supply. As the world increasingly focuses on sustainability and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, switching to cleaner energy sources is more of a necessity than a decision.

Owning your own energy at country or user level is an attractive option reduces the impact on the environment and can generate significant savings.

Canada surprises us with its missing energy

They are used by residents of False Creek, a district of Vancouver on the west coast of Canada own sewage as a source of renewable energy. There are 6,210 houses in the newly rebuilt district. To join the rest of the world in their exploration, they are making the most of waste that typically ends up in sewage systems.

Instead, they get affordable, emission-free heating and hot water. “There’s enough heat in the sewage to literally warm neighborhoods,” Derek Pope, director of local energy for the City of Vancouver, explained to the BBC. “That’s what we’ve been doing here at False Creek since 2010,” he noted.

This is not the only district that chooses this form of energy. There are also other communes that have this using excess waste heat to decarbonize their energy networks.

“The most interesting thing is that our heat recovery system operates with an efficiency of over 300%, so for every unit of electricity used to power the heat pump, we receive over three units of thermal energy or heat,” explains Pope.

“Using waste heat is one of the tools we have to transition away from (natural gas). This is a really good platform for reducing emissions on a neighborhood scale, especially in areas with high population density“

How does Canada’s missing energy work?

When we talk about missing energy, we mean the energy produced by this system would be lost if not implemented. The way this energy is created and used is as follows.

The city has installed an energy center above the sewage pumping station, which captures heat before it reaches the treatment plant. The heat from water is relatively easy to use in a plumbing system because it is retained.

Also, the temperature of the sewage is approximately 20°C and heat pumps concentrate this heat to produce hot water up to 80°C.

How many houses can it deliver?

Heat is recovered from domestic water and then transferred to an 8.3 km long network of pipes. The latter is called the heat network and distributes heat to 44 buildings in the district.

According to the BBC, experts from London South Bank University in the UK calculated in 2020 that energy from 16 billion liters of sewage in the UK per day could theoretically provide over 20 TWh of thermal energy per year. That’s enough energy to power 1.6 million homes.

However, the UK and Canada are very different from each other, and the latter is still a long way from providing so much energy. The biggest challenge, according to Pope, is the lack of integrated urban planning and a vision for the future. “We need to start seeing waste heat as a resource and find ways to incorporate it into urban planning,” he warned.

Eventually, Canada disappeared energy it has a lot of potential and, if it develops, it could teach us lessons about how to obtain energy in our everyday lives. Until then, we will have to “make do” with existing projects, such as the 300,000 hectares plagued by future energy.