The world's first eco-disco, Surya, opens for business

Sounding like something Arthur C Clarke might have come up with if he had scripted Saturday Night Fever, a London club launches tonight that claims it will be powered by clubbers shaking their stuff on its dance floor.

Named Surya, the King's Cross nightclub is billing itself as the world's first eco-disco. It is the baby of Dr Earth aka property developer Andrew Charalambous. Worth an estimated £100 million, Charalambous, who in the past stood as a Conservative parliamentary candidate, has invested £1 million in the project and claims the aim of the venture “is to go beyond the concept of sustainability and into the realm of ecology, generating surplus energy to power not only the club but also neighbouring properties.”

Made of materials such as quartz crystals and ceramics, the venue’s dance floor, they claim, uses the concept of piezoelectricity in which the materials rub together to create a charge. Normally used in electric cigarette lighters, this will be the first project of its kind using the technology. Recently a US-based project attempted and failed to power battlefield equipment by generators embedded in soldiers' boots.

Other more conventional initiatives at the site include a wind turbine, solar energy system, waterless urinals, low flush toilets, recycling and, somewhat paradoxically, ‘the latest in ecological air conditioning units'.

All guests will be required to sign a pledge to work towards curbing climate change and tonight, in his Dr Earth guise, Charalambous will be unveiling a “10 point manifesto for all club owners and promoters across the world to adopt and do their bit, however small, towards saving the planet.”

Hosting the glitzy launch party will be luxury jeweller and DJ Jade Jagger. Mayor of London Boris Johnson and Conservative leader David Cameron are also rumoured to be attending. No doubt the cha cha cha skills they demonstrated the night of Boris's Mayoral win will create enough wattage for Jagger to at least spin Duran Duran's apocalypto-pop anthem, Planet Earth.

Watch the orginal Planet Earth - purely for fun

Surya is at 156 Pentonville Road London N1 9JL

Original here