Edinburgh University supercomputers to heat thousands of homes? That sounds like a great idea – Scotsman comment

The drive to net zero will produce many opportunities to develop valuable new technology

Anyone with a laptop knows how hot they can get (Picture: Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Rest a laptop on your knees and you may soon discover just how hot computers can get, as the fan whirs noisily into action and the temperature starts to become uncomfortable. Heat causes such a problem for computers’ performance that high-end desktops are available with water (or, in some cases, Irn-Bru) cooling systems.

However, all this waste heat is exactly that – a waste. So a £2.6 million feasibility study into using the extraordinary 70 gigawatt-hours of excess heat generated every year by the University of Edinburgh’s Advanced Computing Facility (ACF) to provide warmth for as many as 5,000 houses in the city sounds like a very good idea. The plan is to store the heat from the supercomputers in water in disused mines, from where heat pumps can return it back to the surface for use when needed.

Innovative projects like this one, which has attracted funding from the US Department of Energy, show the potential to create valuable new technology as the world moves towards net zero. There will be many more such opportunities that we would be fools to miss.