this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2024
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Futurism
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One thing that the article ignores is the reason this is so prevalent in Russia and eastern Europe: centralized heating was part of the Soviet housing model, and worked great when everyone was living in the Soviet high density cubicle apartments which made up most of Soviet towns. The losses are lower due to less piping, and the cost of installation is lower due to less piping. It doesn't play well with the suburban or rural environment in most of Canada.
Furthermore, as the article does indicate, most of these centralized heat plants are fed by fossil fuels. It just kicks the can down the road.
Vancouver has a few district heating systems. One near Olympic village uses waste heat from sewage flow as the main heat source, only emitting carbon when sewage flow is slow/cool.
They use a heat pump to move heat from shower/dishwasher/laundry outflows into a high pressure steam system.
This is energy that would otherwise be lost warming the dirt around the sewers.
You can get home drain heat recovery systems too, and either pump the heat into the air or just passively pre-warm the water entering your house/watertank.