Greener or creepier? European energy options are, um, unique

by Thor on Jan. 30th, 2008
in Energy Transformations

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Feeling the heat: An English crematorium has the okay to use heat from its body furnaces to heat the chapel where funerals take place. It's one of the unusual energy-saving ideas generating in Europe these days.
Courtesy DaemonDivinusHere comes a unique round-up of ways that Europeans are finding live greener, less energy-dependent lives. Of course, you’re always welcome to post your thoughts and reactions to any or all of these ideas.

• In Manchester, England, a crematorium has received the blessing from local clergy to use heat generated in its body furnaces to warm the chapel were funeral services take place.

• A company in Stockholm, Sweden, will use the body heat of people passing through a nearby train station to help heat its 13-story office building as well.

• In the German port of Bremerhaven, a huge freighter was helped out to sea by a giant kite, reducing the amount of fuel needed to use to get it sailing. Officials figure that the 1,720-square-foot kite can save up to 15 percent, or about $2,000 a day, on fuel costs and also reduce pollution given off by about 15 percent.

• In the Netherlands, an engineering firm has figured out how to successfully draw off the excess heat of roads and parking lots that have been absorbing solar energy through the day.

• Not such a novel idea: A Welsh farmer has received the okay to build a generator that would heat about 500 nearby home using the dung of his dairy cows as fuel.