Human heat proposed to warm offices

A plan to utilize the body heat of commuters in Sweden’s Central Railway Station is being advanced and appears to offer money saving environmentally friendly opportunity.

A private firm that owns and operates railway stations and other buildings attached to the Swedish railway network, Jernhusen AB believes the system can provide about 15 percent of the heat needed for a 13-story building currently under construction next to the Central Station.  Over 250,000 people pass through the station every day.

"It just came up at a coffee meeting last summer. Somebody suggested: why not do something with all this heat in the station?" project leader Karl Sundholm said.

Sundholm said the idea is to have large ventilators in the station suck in the warm air and use it to heat up water, which will then be shipped through pipes to the new office building.

The system will cost about $47,000 to install, he said.

"All that's needed is a few pumps and some pipes," he said, adding the station is already equipped with most of the required ventilator systems.