Seed keepers of the Himalaya: The Reengineer Monitor #51

Forest city, biggest sand battery - and more!

Buildings in Nepal. Photo by Vincent Pelletier.

Heating and cooling

Another sand battery, or thermal heat store, is to be built in Finland. Energy company Lahti Energia has partnered with Polar Night Energy to build one of the latter firm’s sand batteries as part of a district heating network in the village of Vääksy. It will be a 2 megawatt project with a total storage capacity of 250 megawatt hours. This would make it the largest sand-based thermal storage device in the world once completed.

Buildings and infrastructure

Climate change is eroding property prices in disaster-affected parts of the US, according to new research. Home values are falling by an average of $44,000 in the top 10% of US zip codes that are most prone to wildfires and hurricanes.