New energy uses for asphalt
‘If you’ve ever blistered your bare feet on a hot road you know that asphalt absorbs the sun’s energy. A Dutch company is now siphoning heat from roads and parking lots to heat homes and offices.
As climate change rises on the international agenda, the system built by the civil engineering firm, Ooms Avenhorn Holding BV, doesn’t look as wacky as it might have 10 years ago when first conceived.
Solar energy collected from a 200-yard stretch of road and a small parking lot helps heat a 70-unit four-story apartment building in the northern village of Avenhorn. An industrial park of some 160,000 square feet in the nearby city of Hoorn is kept warm in winter with the help of heat stored during the summer from 36,000 square feet of pavement. The runways of a Dutch air force base in the south supply heat for its hangar.’
