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What does a ton of CO2 look like?
Posted by Patrick Burgoyne, 2 February 2011, 11:22 Permalink Comments (10)
A planned new waste-to-energy plant in Copenhagen will feature an art installation that will blow 30-metre smoke rings out of its chimney as a reminder of the pollution it is emitting
BIG VORTEX is the idea of Berlin-based artists realities:united. Waste gases will leave the chimney of the plant (which will turn waste into energy) as revolving gas clouds in the shape of smoke rings. The rings become visible due to the condensation of water in the flue gases as they slowly rise and cool, before resolving into the air. The rings produced in this way will, the artists estimate, be 30 metres in diameter and three metres thick and "constitute exactly one ton of fossil carbon dioxide, which is added to the atmosphere". "[In] this way the rather abstract pollution aspect gets somewhat more graspable and understandable, something you can see and relate to," the artists say.
Each should be visible for around 45 seconds. At night they will be lit by lasers and there are even plans to project pie charts of pollution data onto them.
The installation is part of the Amagerforbraending Denmark state of the art waste-to-energy processing plant to be created by BIG architects following an international competition. Its roof will be double as a ski slope, thereby "mobilizing the architecture and redefining the relationship between the waste plant and the city," according to the press blurb.
The smoke rings are seemingly meant as a reminder that, although the plant's work in turning waste into energy is generally seen as a good thing, it too produces pollution, so it would be better to produce less waste in the first place. "We admit, that we are an industrial plant. But with smoke rings we signal, that we are also something else. Many believe, that if you throw something away, it is gone, but it is actually not. And by sending smoke rings we'd like to make it noticeable, that we are here, and that we're solving a problem that the city has when it's getting rid of its waste," says Ulla Röttger, Director of Amagerforbraending.
Perhaps if all pollution-emitting buildings and vehicles were required to make the fact visible in this way, it would prompt more urgent action but the whole thing does sound somewhat ominous.
10 Comments
What a load of rubbish! This type of concept to glorify a power plant, albeit one which is fueled by waste and therefore pretends to be more green, will thankfully never be successfully integrated into the UK. It's a pseudo green joke!
The pretentious thoughts behind it are trying too hard to be edgy, especially the ski slope idea, where its simply not needed, and is over and above it all is producing large amounts of gasses which pollute the atmosphere.
It's not by making cute smoke rings with special lighting on them that we'll save the planet chaps!
It's just gift wrapping a turd!
The money would have been better spent in efficiently sorting and recycling, rather than simply burning.
There are very few things that can't be recycled, even plastic.
The Blest machine takes plastic (pp pe and ps), heats them, and makes oil from the released condensed gasses without producing any harmful by-products back into the atmosphere.
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-10/21/blest-machine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n2BDAvjDPs
Give me one of those please!
2011-02-02 14:52:42
^ Absolutely agree with Curator above.
A shocking piece of art!
Thanks.
2011-02-02 15:51:48
Art imitating nature... Mt Etna blowing smoke rings (probably releasing far more than a tone of CO2 in the process). See the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbV98Z0QP-k
2011-02-02 16:40:17
CR propose to be about advertising, design and visual culture. This blog posting references BIG VORTEX and BIG architects. Tub thumping aside, the writer of the post is Patrick Burgoyne, CR Editor. The focus of his writing on his personal blog are more art and design oriented pieces. Great! But for CR posts I would like the focus more tuned in to focus on just advertising, design and (some) visual culture. This current post is akin to a "groovy", "hip", "warh" post I'd prefer to read by visiting It's Nice That. Aside from liking things, it's important to maintain your focus and service your readership. Thanks.
2011-02-02 21:23:27
Its just another green publicity stunt, its no better or clever than the old US smoking advertisments blew real smoke out of the advert hoading. "You cant beat that Craven".
OK different purpose in each advert one makes you want to smoke & the other is to show you what a tonne of CO2 looks like. Is this educational or is it just smart-arsery?
Mount Etna or any Volcano is cool when it blows smoke rings in my book.
2011-02-04 14:38:46
did wonder about this piece...like what the @curator has to say about it. I'm keen to save the planet, but my overall concern is that blowing out the smoke rings isn't helping, and is just adding to the pollution, or have I missed something?
2011-02-04 15:21:24
Everyone's debating whether this is just "pollution" or a "cool eco solution".
Maybe the answer is that it is just "cool pollution"!
2011-02-04 17:51:04
What a load of grumps!
It's a fun/terrifying idea demonstrating pollution in progress.
Unless you are all living a carbon neutral, environmentally perfect lifestyle it's a bit hypocritical to accuse this of 'just adding to the polution' and getting all angry.
Of course it's a gren publicity stunt!!! That was the point of it, duH!!
2011-02-07 12:44:49
The artwork is designed to explore exactly the debate that this comment thread is following.
We know that we need to cut CO2 emissions, but we still need power stations. The last thing you want is a power station that pollutes unnoticed, with electricity we take for granted. The smoke rings remind us that the power comes at an environmental cost, and that we want to be using as little of it as possible.
2011-02-08 09:15:00
Besides the artistic appeal, these vortex makes the waste gases to go far away the region of the power plant, I don´t known if it brings environmental benefits, but at least avoid to form that column of white fume that normally is formed with these plants.
2011-10-10 02:58:43
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