Originally posted by tim60 So the US one burns stuff to get the heat while the Norwegian one uses heat that is in something in nature already.
Here we leave the snow and after a while it goes away, and in Australia we got by without ever getting the snow at all.
The Norwegian one still burns stuff (or needs a land-cable for power) to pump water, crunch ice, and cleaning the waste water. But yeah, at least they save some energy for the melting part of it.
It's a bit too much to just leave for spring to take care of, and dumping it in the fjord (as we used to do) is unhealthy for marine life. Depositing it on land causes accumulation of the same unhealthy substances - and takes up quite a bit of space.
Personally I prefer the Australian way, though.