Cities Need Heat Sewers

I think cities should create something like a sewer system for heat.

Air conditioners just move heat from inside buildings to the street, while adding even more heat from the electricity they consume. In dense cities, thousands of AC units collectively intensify the urban heat island effect, making the outdoor environment significantly hotter than surrounding rural areas. This, in turn, forces those same systems to work harder, creating a feedback loop of rising temperatures and energy demand.

This reminds me of how human waste was once managed individually and often simply dumped into the street. Eventually, cities built shared sewer systems, and we are all better off for it. A “heat sewer” could work similarly: buildings would send waste heat into a district network that transports it away, stores it underground, or routes it to places that need hot water or heating.

Instead of every building dumping heat into the street, heat could become a resource managed by a municipal utility.