Penine Village Gets the Hot Water Treatment
23rd June 2010
Warm as bathwater, the first gusher from Britain's new "underground central heating system" showered over a Pennine field today, while scientists and engineers applauded.
Tapped a kilometre down, hot reservoirs in granite fissures below Weardale are set to service a new "eco-village" in the valley, and provide the country's first naturally warm spa since the Romans at Bath.
The breakthrough has overcome obstacles dogging other geothermal projects with a twin borehole system which recirculates the water, avoiding costly treatment or polluted run-off.
Limitless supplies from the hot aquifers will be pumped up one borehole, piped through the new housing at Eastgate, near Stanhope in County Durham, and then returned down a second borehole for rewarming by low-level radiation in the rocks.
"The system works in just the same way as central heating constantly circulates between a home's hot water tank, boiler and radiators," said Professor Paul Younger, director of Newcastle University's institute for research on sustainability, which has designed the scheme.
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