New ener­gy sup­p­ly for Lon­gye­ar­by­en: decis­i­on made

For years alre­a­dy, the­re has been a dis­cus­sion about a new ener­gy sup­p­ly for Lon­gye­ar­by­en. The old coal power plant should have been repla­ced years ago, pre­fer­a­b­ly with a more envi­ron­men­tal­ly fri­end­ly and relia­ble ener­gy source. A wide ran­ge of pos­si­ble solu­ti­ons has been dis­cus­sed over the years.

Final­ly, a decis­i­on is now been made. The result may sur­pri­se at a first glan­ce, but second thoughts will reve­al gre­at wis­dom, con­side­ring the solu­ti­on that has, in its essence, been used by indi­ge­nous cul­tures for ages around the glo­be, some­thing that will suit the litt­le arc­tic sett­le­ment in Spits­ber­gen well.

The new power sup­p­ly will be based on bio­mass. The high­light of the new sys­tem is that it will be based on a local ener­gy source, name­ly reinde­er drop­pings, just as camel muck that has been used by noma­dic peo­p­le in hot deserts for gene­ra­ti­ons.

Lon­gye­ar­by­en will get a power plant based on bio­mass, fired with reinde­er drop­pings.

The decis­i­on is based on con­side­ra­ti­ons and cal­cu­la­ti­ons that were made pos­si­ble by the local reinde­er popu­la­ti­on cen­sus of 2019, which yiel­ded a total num­ber of more than 22,000 ani­mals. The reinde­er don’t do any­thing else than tur­ning tun­dra vege­ta­ti­on into pre­cious fuel – and they pro­du­ce more than enough to gua­ran­tee a suf­fi­ci­ent sup­p­ly of ener­gy. Addi­tio­nal­ly, the drop­pings dry quick­ly in the arid high-arc­tic cli­ma­te.

Tech­no­lo­gy to auto­ma­ti­cal­ly coll­ect the drop­pings on the tun­dra is curr­ent­ly being deve­lo­ped, based on auto­ma­tic vacu­um clea­ners.

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