People power to warm new building in Stockholm: project leader

STOCKHOLM (AFP) — The body heat from hundreds of thousands of people
who pass through the Stockholm Central Station each day will be used to
heat a new office building nearby, the project leader said Wednesday.

"So
many people go through the Central Station ... We want to harness some
of the warmth they produce to help heat the new building," Karl
Sundholm, of the Swedish state-held property administration company
Jernhuset, told AFP.

Some 250,000 people pass through the station
each day, rushing to catch trains and subways or simply visit the many
shops and stores inside.

"All people produce heat, and that heat
is in fact fairly difficult to get rid of. Instead of opening windows
and letting all that heat go to waste we want to harness it through the
ventilation system," Sundholm said.

He said the body heat would
warm up water that in turn would be pumped through pipes over to the
new office building, which will also house a small hotel and a few
shops and is expected to be completed by the beginning of 2010.

"This
is old technology, but used in a new way. It's just pipes, water and
pumps, but we haven't heard of anyone else using this technology in
this way before," he said, adding that Jernhuset expects the system to
bring down heating costs in the building by up to 20 percent.

Installing
the heating system is not expected to be complicated or very costly,
Sundholm said, pointing out that laying the necessary pumps and
underground pipes might cost a some 200,000 kronor (21,200 euros,
31,200 dollars).

"For a large building expected to cost several hundred million kronor to build, that's not that much," he said.