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Rail tunnel ground water to heat a tropical greenhouse

Aug 14, 2008 / alpMedia
In the future, the ground water that drains from the Lötschberg Base Tunnel at a temperature of 20°C will be piped into a tropical greenhouse which is to be built at the northern portal in Frutigen/CH to produce fish and tropical fruit, and also to heat the administration building.
Exotische Früchte
Image caption:
© http://www.sxc.hu
The facility will include forty aquaculture tanks for an annual output of 45 tons of sturgeon, 3 tons of caviar and 20 tons of other fish species, while the greenhouse will be used to produce an annual total of 20 to 40 tons of tropical fruit.
There will also be an energy park on the site. In a project initiated by BKW FMB Energie AG, various sources of renewable energy will be presented to the general public in easily understood form. The exhibits - a geothermal plant, a wood chip heating plant, a water turbine, a photovoltaic installation and a biomass power plant - will offer visitors a striking demonstration of eco-friendly energy production and use. There are also plans for a project called Regio Plus in support of effective marketing for agriculture and the trades in the Kander Valley in general and for the produce from the tropical greenhouse in particular.
Sources and information: www.nzz.ch/nachrichten/schweiz/tropenhaus (de), www.tropenhaus-frutigen.ch (de/fr/en)