In my home town Kuopio (pop. 93 000) 90% of all real estate is connected to district heating.
In Finland we've even had discussions about using heat from nuclear plants to town heating. But connecting Loviisa or Eurajoki (where our plants are located) would require building of heat transfer pipes. Helsinki - Loviisa is 87 km. Projected cost would be 700 million euros or 10 million euros / km. 500 million euros for building heat transfer infrastructure at the plant.
Rough estimates for 1000 MW reactor: Produces 3000 MW of heat of which 1000 MW can be converted to electricity. Remaining 2000 MW of heat is currently dumped into ocean.
They've estimated that with current heat transfer technologies they would be able to put 1500 MW of wasted heat to good use.
"In 2007, co-generation produced 74 percent of the heat needed for district heating and generated 29 percent of the Finland's electricity supply and 34 percent of production.
In my home town Kuopio (pop. 93 000) 90% of all real estate is connected to district heating.
In Finland we've even had discussions about using heat from nuclear plants to town heating. But connecting Loviisa or Eurajoki (where our plants are located) would require building of heat transfer pipes. Helsinki - Loviisa is 87 km. Projected cost would be 700 million euros or 10 million euros / km. 500 million euros for building heat transfer infrastructure at the plant.
Rough estimates for 1000 MW reactor: Produces 3000 MW of heat of which 1000 MW can be converted to electricity. Remaining 2000 MW of heat is currently dumped into ocean. They've estimated that with current heat transfer technologies they would be able to put 1500 MW of wasted heat to good use.
"In 2007, co-generation produced 74 percent of the heat needed for district heating and generated 29 percent of the Finland's electricity supply and 34 percent of production.
The total efficiency of the systems is typically more than 85 percent while the separate systems have an efficiency of only 45 percent." http://www.energy-enviro.fi/index.php?PAGE=2286