A typical power plant is a tangle of pipes and large metal cylinders enclosed in concrete walls coated with drab paint. Its furnaces burn dirty fuel and pump out noxious gases. Amager Bakke in Copenhagen is not your typical power plant. Designed by architect Bjarke Ingels, the power plant’s roof doubles as a ski slope and a hiking trail. The longest bit of flat surface becomes an 85-meter (280-foot) climbing wall. At the very top of the building, one of the highest points in the city, there’s even a restaurant and bar. The public is encouraged to tour the power plant, which burns waste instead of fossil fuel. The city’s municipal councils paid $670 million to build Amager Bakke, which began operating in 2017 . Burning up to 400,000 tons of waste per year, it produces electricity to power 60,000 homes and heat 160,000 homes. Its state-of-the-art technology ensures that there’s nothing noxious coming out the chimney. And that’s crucial, because it hopes to attract more than 300,000 visitors each year. Most countries in the world have waste incinerators, and Amager Bakke shows that they need not be tucked in a corner and kept out of reach for the […]
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