this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2026
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If we weren't complete individualistic morons we would have district heating and even district cooling. You can produce chilled water with high grade waste heat with a absorber chillers. They use 1-3% as much electricity as the same capacity compressive cooler.
Paired with a soapstone sand battery you can sink over productive renewables (instead of shorting solar panels or stopping wind turbines) into high grade heat you can use later for winter heating or summer cooling.
Just looked up the soapstone thing... looks like Finland did a good job with one recently
Yeah it's pretty smart... And incredibly simple... Way too low profit for my country's blood (Canada) not to mention which duolopoly would own it in Canada? It can't exist as a competing business strategy. It either needs to be blocked with regulations (regs captured by industry and capital...) or it needs to be a pet project of one of our oligarchs that never grows beyond a pilot plant battery that maybe gets used to make chemicals or something via industrial heat.