District heating systems show the country’s net zero capabilities - Yorkshire Post Letters

The government should take more note of a recent great British success in our transition to Net Zero. In just three years from being an idea on the drawing board, a disused mine in Gateshead is now heating water for an existing district heating system. This clean and cheap resource is delivered to municipal buildings to make them warm.

This is achieved by exploiting the hot water that exists in our flooded mines which is used to drive an ultra-efficient heat pump that brings water to a piping hot 80 degrees. This is then fed into the district heating system.

Air source heat pumps are already amazingly efficient, but this one is on steroids as the water from the mine is such a good source of renewable energy.

District heating is something that should be explored more widely and can be fed from ground heat and even from the water in rivers. But, without an effective strategy for Net Zero, they are unlikely to happen in many places.

Given that the proposed new Rosebank oil field has very little gas and the oil will be immediately exported for refining, we would be better to invest in the many opportunities, like district heating systems and wind or solar farms, that exploit resources that don’t ever run out.

Rosebank will only deliver for 25 years and mostly benefit the private company that will own it. In contrast, the hot water in the mines is the gift that keeps on giving with the hard work of heating the mine water done for free by the hot rocks deep under our feet.

The sooner we reduce our reliance on expensive and polluting fossil fuels the better. We need the government to get behind more such Great British wins.