As energy prices continue to skyrocket, is it possible employees may be hired simply for their latent body heat? Two recent examples where people make good heating investments - a Swedish office building heated by human bodies and a body fueled British funeral chapel – may be just the beginning of a future body heat wave.
It’s getting into the dead of winter in the Northern half of the world... in many places it’s one of the coldest winters in the last decade. As workplaces get chillier executives are looking for creative solutions... and rather than crank up the thermostat, perhaps it’s more cost effective just to hire more humanoid heaters.
In Sweden, heat from humans at a busy train station will be captured to help heat up a nearby office building. 250,000 warm blooded commuters pass through the central train station in Stockholm every day, and their hot bodies will warm up workers at a state owned firm. The cost to build the system is $31,200, which will heat 15% of the 4000 square foot building. This puts a whole new spin on human resources departments.
But human warmth isn’t just for the living. Apparently when you’re cold and dead you’re still good for fuel... there’s a funeral home in Britain that’s capturing the heat from cremating people and using it to heat the chapel so it’s warmer for mourners. As Rev Vernon Marshall told the Telegraph, “As a final act of generosity, it's a lovely way for the dead to provide comfort for the living at a difficult time."
So, let’s look at the numbers... when sitting at a desk, the average employee produces about 5 W of body heat power, or 17 BTU/hr. This sounds pretty good... but to increase the temperature of the average 100 square foot office by 1 degree, you need to cram 25 people into it. And to equal the heating power of a decent 1500W small office heater, you need to hire 300 people.
If your office is heated by diesel gas generators, the average employee working 2000 hours a year will save 0.3 gallons (or 1.1 L) of gas, or at current gas prices more that $1 a year. Walmart, the largest employer in the world, 1.7 million workers… so they may theoretically be saving $1.7 million a year just from their employees’ body heat alone, not including all those hot Walmart shoppers.
Throw in the current energy crisis and a forthcoming gas shortage on the horizon, and the economics may change rapidly. When gas increases to $130,000/gallon, it’ll be cheaper to hire humans instead of turning up the thermostat. And it makes for an interesting new job title, “Office Heater”... requirements: must be one big-time hottie.
