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Can a Waste-to-Energy Plant Display Lessons on Saving the Climate?

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In Copenhagen, it can. And beautifully, too. An international design competition was held to design a waste-to-energy plant that would offer information about how the clean technology works and also be beautiful and inspiring. Sounds odd, doesn’t it? But why not? Why should practical green technology be ugly?

The design competition winner will be a work of art in itself. Berlin-based art studio realities:united will transform the plant’s smoke stack – making it appear to puff smoke rings, which will serve as a gentle reminder of the impact of consumption and a measuring stick of CO2 emission in Denmark, one nation that seems well on its way to being a lesson in clean energy.

This rendering shows the size and shape of the “puffs”, but the material will be ethereal: just the condensation of water in the flue gases as they as they slowly rise and cool. Barely visible in the daytime, but at night, heat tracking lasers will light the smoke rings into glowing art.

A consortium of renewable energy engineering firms headed up by the Danish architectural firm BIG and (flying smoke ring artwork: realities:united)  won the design competition.

The project will be the single largest environmental initiative in Denmark with a budget of 3,5 Billion DKK.

Here, visitors can learn about how easy it is to make electricity out of what most nations throw away.

Instead of seeing the project as an isolated building, BIG envisioned it as a destination, incorporating a ski slope on the roof of what will be one of the tallest structures in Copenhagen.

The entire building is wrapped in a vertical green façade formed by planter modules stacked like bricks  – making it appear like a green mountain from below.

And, by golly, it IS a mountain. This is one waste-to-energy plant that is destined to become a real tourist draw. And maybe it will offer lessons in sustainable energy that visitors from the rest of the world will take home with them.

Via PlusMood