Copenhill's Lost Counting Chimney

How big of a statement is one powerplant supposed to make?

Amager Bakke, also known as ‘Copenhill’, has been a shining example of waste-to-energy power production since its completion in 2017. Below the facility’s rooftop ski slope, Copenhill features a whole suite of filtration and reprocessing techniques to recover as much usable material as possible and capture toxins released by burning trash—the white trail from the chimney is almost entirely steam, not smoke. Copenhill was, and perhaps still is, the cleanest waste-to-energy trash incinerator in the world. It provides recreation: in addition to the ski slope, Copenhill boasts a park with walking trails, a climbing wall, and a café at the top. Copenhill’s visible combination of recreation and utility seems bold, but this powerplant was almost constructed to also do something far grander: to send a message of environmental devastation.

A snowboarder walks upslope on the roof of Copenhill (Amager Bakke) with snowboard in hand. Photo by News Oresund on Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

Much of the attention Copenhill has received focuses on the ski slope (including a video from charming travel channel The Tim Traveller). But the facility’s chimney almost stole the show. Bjarke Ingles Group (BIG), the architecture firm behind Copenhill’s design, considered a radical departure from typical chimney designs: they wanted it to blow “smoke rings”. This was not just for the sake of spectacle—during the design phase, Bjarke Ingles told architecture magazine Dezeen that the chimney would time its puffs to release a ring for every 250kg of carbon dioxide the power plant released.

Ingles said the goal was to make “something uncountable countable”, but the steam-ring chimney would have succeeded also in making ‘something uncomfortable countable’. Visible across much of the city, the steam rings would have been a constant carbon-footprint reminder to the community Copenhill served. To make sure the message was heard, they even planned to illuminate the rings at night.

Artist’s render of the view in Copenhagen including Copenhill and its proposed smoke rings. Image found on Dezeen, where it was presented without attribution (reverse image search didn’t turn up the source).

Copenhill didn’t get its ring-throwing chimney. Today the steam rises out of the Copenhill’s main stack in a steady stream like any other steam generator. The decision was at least partly a practical one: the ring-generating design added weight, cost, and complexity that BIG would have to develop—no manufacturer made smoke ring generators so large. Despite an attempt to crowdfund part of the development costs, BIG gave up on the puffing chimney.

A structure that counts the uncomfortable, uncountable impact of human activity and presents it on the horizon for a whole community, that’s a vital concept that should absolutely be built … in Texas. Denmark already takes climate change seriously—79% of Danes consider climate change the biggest threat to humanity (a higher percentage than any other EU country) and their energy grid is closing in fast on 50% renewable. Making every 250kg of carbon dioxide visible is a wakeup call, one the community around Copenhill have already felt. Plastering that message in the sky every day might motivate some Danes, but for others it would reinforce the apparent hopelessness of the situation.

A steam chimney placed atop a ski slope is Copenhill’s message. The inclusion of a park and walking trails adds that Copenhill is safe enough to sit near a community. Under the roof, Copenhill meets those claims. For many toxic pollutants, including Mercury and sulfur dioxide, Copenhill’s filtration systems intercept far more than required, beating EU Directives on these pollutants by orders of magnitude. For carbon dioxide, a carbon capture system is being tested at Copenhill that is expected to trap 500,000 tons each year. Instead of allowing trash to release methane (a powerful greenhouse gas) in a landfill, incinerating it provides heat to about 70,000 homes.

Skiers swoop down Copenhill’s artificial turf surface, which was designed to feel like snow under skis and snowboards. Photo from Funivie.

Copenhill probably won’t remain the cleanest waste-to-energy powerplant in the world for long, if it still holds the title—a new generation of waste-to-energy facilities are racing to surpass Copenhill, some partially online. Copenhill has set a new image for waste management and electricity generation, carrying a more interesting message than the puffing chimney would have ever said. Utilities don’t have to be ugly, smelly, dirty, and placed as far as possible from where people live. You can have a clean facility that deals with the problem as cleanly as possible. Place it nearby or even embed it within a community. Utilities are part of communities, we have just grown accustomed to putting them far out of sight, someone else’s problem, invisible as carbon dioxide. And that’s a bad habit we can unlearn.