In the quiet village of Cumberland, British Columbia, the ghosts of an industrial past are stirring to offer change, an unexpected key to a future of clean energy. Deep beneath the streets where miners once trudged home blackened and weary, a labyrinth of abandoned coal mines now sits flooded. These flooded mines are like a water-filled tomb to a bygone era. Yet, within these sunken corridors lies a powerful paradox. The very remnants of an industry that put lives at risk and powered the world with dirty fuel are now poised to become the foundation for one of the cleanest energy systems imaginable: Geothermal energy.
Key points:
- The village of Cumberland, once a hub for coal mining, is partnering with the University of Victoria’s ACET initiative to explore geothermal energy from its flooded mine shafts.
- The project would use the constant, moderate temperature of the water trapped in the mines to efficiently heat and cool buildings with near-zero carbon emissions.
- This initiative represents a profound symbolic shift, turning “ruins of extraction” into a clean energy resource that honors the community’s history while building a sustainable future.
- Initial plans focus on a new civic precinct and an industrial zone, with the potential to attract businesses and create jobs by offering low-cost, clean energy.
- The project is inspired by successful models in other former mining towns like Nanaimo, B.C., and Springhill, Nova Scotia.
The alchemy of water and rock
The science that makes this possible is as elegant as it is effective, a beautiful synergy between geology and simple physics. Imagine those vast, empty mine shafts, some descending hundreds of feet below the surface, now filled with water. This underground reservoir is not a stagnant pool but a massive, natural thermal battery. The earth’s crust acts as a superb insulator, maintaining a remarkably stable temperature in the mine water that hovers around 10 to 15 degrees Celsius year-round. While the surface shivers in winter frost or bakes in summer heat, the water below remains in a perpetual, gentle state of moderation.
Harvesting this energy relies on a technology known as a ground-source heat pump system, which Cory MacNeill, a local geologist involved in the project, describes as a form of “re-imagining these old relics of industry.” In practice, a closed loop of pipes would be run down into the flooded mines, circulating a fluid that absorbs the consistent temperature of the water. In the winter, this fluid, slightly warmer than the chilly air above, is drawn up. The heat pump then concentrates this mild warmth and transfers it into buildings to provide heating. The process reverses in the summer; the system draws heat from the buildings and expels it into the cooler mine water, effectively providing air conditioning. It is a dance of equilibrium, using the planet’s own stable nature to offset the extremes we experience on its surface. This method is wildly efficient, requiring significantly less electricity than conventional heating and cooling systems, and it does so without burning any fuel on site, resulting in near-zero operational carbon emissions.
A community built on coal, reimagined
To understand the weight of this transformation, one must first appreciate the depth of Cumberland’s history with coal. From 1888 until the last mine closed in the 1960s, the community’s identity and survival were inextricably linked to the black rock beneath its feet. Historian Dawn Copeman from the Cumberland Museum and Archives notes that a staggering 16 million tons of bituminous coal were excavated from the Comox Valley, loaded onto ships at the Union Bay wharf, and sent across the globe.
These coal powered steamships heated distant homes and was coked for smelting metals, embedding Cumberland firmly in the industrial narrative of the 20th century. Coke is not a type of coal, but rather a product created by heating coal in an airtight environment, a process called coking. This process removes volatile components like water, tar, and gases, leaving behind a hard, porous, and nearly pure carbon material that burns hotter and cleaner than the original coal. Coke is primarily used in industrial applications, such as smelting iron ore to produce steel in blast furnaces.
The mines provided livelihoods but were also sites of profound danger and exploitation, where lives were lost and the final product, when burned, contributed directly to the pollution challenges we face today. This history makes the geothermal project more than just an infrastructure upgrade; it is an act of healing. Mayor Vickey Brown articulates this vision with clarity, stating, “This is a way to highlight the history of Cumberland and bring it into a sustainable-future, clean-energy ethos. It’s something that old Cumberland can be proud of, because we’re using the waste of that old resource to transition to cleaner energy.” The project does not ignore the past but repurposes its physical remains. The tunnels that were once symbols of dangerous, extractive labor are now being viewed as a communal inheritance. Zachary Gould, the ACET community energy planner leading the project, captures this sentiment perfectly, noting that it’s “an opportunity to look at resource extraction in a new way in a village that was built on extractive principles.” Where once resources were taken away, never to return, now the mine itself gives back, continuously and cleanly, to the community that grew above it.
A model for resilient towns everywhere
The potential ripple effects of this project extend far beyond heating and cooling municipal buildings. For a small community like Cumberland, with a population of just 4,800, economic resilience is as crucial as environmental sustainability. The initial modeling for the Cumberland District Energy project focuses on a proposed civic precinct redevelopment, which could include a new community center, municipal offices, and affordable housing. Success here could unlock a much wider application. Mayor Brown dreams bigger, envisioning the network of mines as a tool for economic development. She suggests that providing cheap, clean thermal energy could make local industrial land highly attractive to specific types of businesses, such as greenhouses that require steady warmth or food processors that consume large amounts of heat. Drawing in these enterprises would mean creating new local jobs and bolstering the municipal tax base, creating a virtuous cycle of investment and growth.
This vision connects Cumberland to a small but growing global movement seeking to find opportunity in post-industrial landscapes. The geologists in Cumberland looked to successful examples in Nanaimo, B.C., and Springhill, Nova Scotia, proving the concept is not just theoretical but a practical, working solution. It offers a powerful alternative model for countless other communities grappling with the legacy of mining, whether for coal or other minerals. Instead of seeing abandoned mines as dangerous liabilities and environmental hazards, they can be re-evaluated as potential thermal reservoirs.
Sources include:
TechXPlore.com
UVIC.ca
Enoch, Brighteon.ai
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