Barcelona hopes to have an indoor ski slope as nice as Ski Dubai (pictured), but carbon neutral.
Barcelona is not as hot as places like Abu Dhabi and Dubai, which now has an indoor snow ski slope. But they appear to be envious of Dubai’s very ungreen approach to denying that the country is a hot desert. Barcelona, home to art projects by Antoni Gaudi, Pablo Picasso, is also not the greenest city the world, even though it now is getting greener. Now Barcelona a Spanish, Catalonian coastal city with average winter temperatures ranging around 15 degrees Celsius is planning to build an indoor snow ski slope, similar to the one in Dubai. It will be called Snow World. And more than that, the ski slope will be a carbon neutral one, according to the developers of Dubai’s Ski World, who plan to create the same thing in Barcelona as well. But the one in Spain will be carbon neutral.
Building an indoor ski slope in a city that never freezes during winter months can’t be worse that building one in a place where summer temperatures soar to more than 45 degrees Celsius, like in Dubai.
According to the Guardian which translated the original article from Le Monde:
“Business activities will be integrated with the housing and connected to the city centre by the underground system. The two developments will be served by three plants generating heating and air-conditioning streams, fuelled by methanisation, solar power and plant waste from the city, primarily from Collserola, the world’s largest metropolitan park. Dalkia, a subsidiary of the French conglomerate Véolia Environnement, has won the tender for this part of the project.
“For the industrial cooling side, taking temperatures down to -10C, the designers plan to use the regasification facilities at Barcelona’s liquid natural gas terminal.”
And while Barcelona, like most of Spain has a chronic water problem, it is less serious than Dubai, where virtually all its water comes from desalinization. To add insult to injury, Dubai even considered building a special cooling system under its beachfront to actually cool the sand there so people could lie on it in the summer without being burnt. This project is in addition to a global warming ice/water park, an amusement center usually constructed only in a country with ample enough water resources.
Barcelona doesn’t have the problems of wild animals like lions and cheetahs kept by private people. But even so, building a ski slope in the city known for such artists and Gaudi, Joan Miro and Pablo Picasso is not a feat it should be proud of – especially in light of it trying to be a green city, carbon neutral and all. The fact that it will be using regasification techniques, though is commendable.
::Guardian
Read more on indoor ski slopes and extravagance:
Response to Treehugger’s Pablo: Don’t Forget Ski Dubai’s Water
Global Warming Message Gone Awry; A Water Park in DubaiAbu Dhabi’s White Gold Biofuel Mercedes; Another Dubious “Green” Development
