What is Digg?52 Comments
- Zera, on 12/15/2007, -0/+7Cost estimate for a Geothermal heat pump like my parents installed is $3000-$8000 more expensive than a standard air conditioner for new home construction, and slightly more to retrofit a home. With that said, the new models get up to an E.E.R. (Energy Efficiency Rating) of 29, which is almost three times more efficient than the most efficient air conditioners anywhere. A system like this pays for itself very quickly in saved electrical costs, depending on local climate and how insulated your home already is.
This is absolutely practical for home use, the poster above me is just plain wrong. My Dad installed his three years ago, and his air conditioning power consumption dropped to one third, and that's down from a standard model that is the most efficient available in 1980, with an E.E.R. of 11. - 00Sean00, on 12/15/2007, -0/+6Well, current systems cost around 10k-20k installed, and rarely need service for the first 15-20 years. My electrical bill for the entire summer, with my house being a frosty cool 20C, cost a whopping 200 bucks. You recoup the cost of installation rather quickly. So yes it is quite feasible for most homes.
- Zera, on 12/15/2007, -0/+6Nope, geothermal heat pumps are three times more efficient than standard air conditioners. You make some good points, but remember what it's up against.... Hot metal coils with fans blowing hot summer air against them to cool them down. That's extremely inefficient. Now compare that with water, going through pipes buried in 55 degree soil.
- GrantRobertson, on 12/15/2007, -1/+5Sure, geothermal is great. But it is not new. It has been in full scale use for at least a decade. I worked in a building that had miles of pipe buried under the foundation. It saved the owner a fortune. Heat pumps aren't new either. Most new heating/cooling systems are heat pumps. The idea is that the thermal mass of the soil is enough so that there is enough heat in it to pull heat out of it all winter without dropping the temperature far enough to make it hard for the heat pump to pull more heat energy out of the ground. Then, for the summer, you reverse the process. You use all of that cooled off soil to absorb the heat you are pulling out of the building. It certainly beats using 80-100 degree F air to absorb the heat in the summer time then using cold air to try to pull heat from in the winter time, which is the way most home heat pumps work.
The big problem is that this guy writes as if he invented the stuff and he doesn't write very well at all. So that is why I buried it. - link5280, on 12/15/2007, -0/+3This is a great way to use the earth’s internal energy. I wish there was broader initiatives like this, such as those in Iceland on a national scale.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power_in_I ... - fgsfds, on 12/15/2007, -0/+3Wrong kind of geothermal. This doesn't use the earth's internal energy, it uses the near-surface ground as a giant constant-temperature heat source/sink.
- askjoe, on 12/15/2007, -0/+3I spent 2 years in Iceland and those people have geothermal user down.....the use it for nearly everything.
It is truly an untapped source of energy. - schnikies79, on 12/15/2007, -1/+3Geothermal is a great idea, if it's financially feasible.
My parents looked at it when building their house, but because of the amount of rock in the soil it just cost too much. Central southern Indiana has a massive amount of rock in the soil. It was going to cost around $15k just to drill the holes, let alone set the lines and pay for the system. I think the total was around $26k (this was in 1995 and the price hasn't went down because of the around of labor). If I lived in a place with feasible soil, I would get it in a heartbeat.
They went with a furnace/ac. - balthisar, on 12/15/2007, -0/+2For my 1500 square foot house plus 1500 square foot finished basement, the retrofit is costing about $16,000, including the landscape work to fix the loop field installation mess. Replacing the existing gas furnace (23 years old!) was quoted at about $10,000, including new air conditioner. These would have been the most energy efficient replacements available. So the higher price now will pay for itself in about three to four years (remember when the engineers tell you about "payback" they usually mean versus the cost of installing a conventional, replacement system).
It's so efficient that I won't have to play stupid games with setbacks, and wear sweaters in the house in the winter, and strip down to stay cool in the summer.
Also this includes a desuperheater and a couple of water tanks. This means free hot water while the system is operating. Well, virtually free; there's the tiny, little recirculating pump to account for. Actually, it becomes "not free" if you *don't* use the hot water, because the water in the powered tank will eventually get cold and the heater will kick on! Better find something to do with your hot water a couple times per day! - Destined, on 12/15/2007, -0/+2"So, Geothermal energy exchange != magical renewable energy source! You need electricity to make it work.. (electricity is usually generated using fossil fuels)."
True, but you don't create heat with the electricity... you actually move heat around to/from the ground. The electricity is used to move the heat around and not create it, that's why geothermal is a much, MUCH more efficient way of heating/cooling.
BTW, heating a house is quite easy for geothermal. I have been involved in projects that heat over 150 unit hotels and various other resorts. One project coming up is going to require well over 300 boreholes, and it's for a single high-rise (14 stories) done entirely by geothermal with only electric backup.
I'm surprised that the story only mentions 10 boreholes in an alley. (Most homes I know of have 4-7 boreholes at 300 feet deep.) - Sp4rker, on 12/15/2007, -0/+2I know a farmer who build a system like this under his house, and it seems to work perfectly.
Intuitively tho, I wonder what the effects would be of millions of people transferring heat from the crust of the earth to their houses. Wouldn't we be cooling down the surface of the planet? Maybe that warmth serves a purpose..? - G1MPY, on 12/15/2007, -0/+2We've had geothermal since we built our house last October. Works great, and cut our electricity bill by a fair amount.
- fgsfds, on 12/15/2007, -0/+2Well, you don't really change the temperature of the ground all that much since the surrounding area is constantly bringing it back to normal.
For air-based systems, you have an intake outside that leads through lots of underground pipe. That brings the air to 50-something. However, that's good enough since it's a LOT easier to heat 52 degree air to 68 than -20 degree air, and a LOT easier to cool 52 degree air to 45 than 100 degree air. - 2010student, on 12/15/2007, -0/+2Erm, cost estimate?
- Bozodog, on 12/15/2007, -0/+1I don't like Bush either. That's why I pointed out it was Laura's idea. He, like Gore, would never have cared, and he had nothing to do with it.
- teaBagger, on 12/15/2007, -0/+1i dugg you for the TA reference....
TA has to be the greatest game ever made... - maino82, on 12/15/2007, -0/+1this is not geothermal, this is a ground source heat pump. for geothermal energy you have to go much, much deeper and you actually use the earth's heat to produce steam to turn a turbine to produce electricity. ground source heat pumps simply are a fancy heat exchanger that is much more efficient than other forms of heating/cooling. we have this at our office: http://www.z2building.com
- greenlight2001, on 12/15/2007, -0/+1spot on.
- patbingsoup, on 12/15/2007, -0/+1sure can, almost all HVAC dealers...well in the midwest anyway, are installing geothermal heat pump systems, the market is actually pretty large and well established. My dad started a company over 10 years ago to install the loop systems
- fgsfds, on 12/15/2007, -0/+1Not viable. You need to have hot rock near the surface for geothermal power to work, and across most of the world (Including the US) the hot region is just way too far down.
This, however, can be done pretty much anywhere (Barring houses built on permafrost). - liuite, on 12/15/2007, -0/+1heat pump has been cost effective since price of natural gas has surpasses 60 cents a therm
- kd1s, on 12/15/2007, -0/+1Geothermal is interesting. A friend is thinking of doing that at his place in Rehoboth, MA. Since digging isn't in the cards for me as a city dweller I have to think of other methods. My place stays at an average 62F even now when it's fairly cold outside. Parasitic heat from the unit upstairs. Got to love that. Plus I've got this great southern exposure and that sunshine really heats the place up significantly.
But I've thought about capturing more of that solar energy. I could build a collector system fairly easily then pump it inside and through a heat pump arrangement.
I've started planning it out, it'd be a portable system of sorts. - konspence, on 12/15/2007, -0/+1It can be done if you have the right soil for a relatively cheap cost though. It's just burying pipe underground about six feet, and pushing air through it. A step further would be to run liquid through it, to get an increase in conductivity (or even a pure copper rod, or something similar).
A small scale one has yielded a temp decrease from 85'F to 70'F, and increase from 25'F to 40'F.
Probably not enough to replace everything, but it still can offset a lot of heating/cooling. - link5280, on 12/15/2007, -1/+2I think the better solution is geothermal powerplants.
- biffen, on 12/15/2007, -1/+2Did anybody else only read the article because they maybe, just maybe, it was about Total Annihilation?
- themajor, on 12/15/2007, -0/+1@ campigenus
They are both geothermal systems. A heat pump is just a unit that exchanges heat from one medium to another(water to water, air to air, water to air) The term geothermal refers to where the heat is being extracted from or released to. - patbingsoup, on 12/15/2007, -0/+1these systems have been around for nearly 30 years, well established for 15-20, mainstream for about 8 years.
- campigenus, on 12/15/2007, -0/+1Sorry mate, but you are VERY wrong. It's SIGNIFICANTLY more efficient than regular furnace/AC systems.
If homeowners could open their eyes and see past the initial investment, most of them would want this. - campigenus, on 12/15/2007, -0/+1I think they use a different system there. The one in TFA is just a heat-pump, not really a geothermal system.
- themajor, on 12/15/2007, -0/+1hot drop, it would be good for you to actually look into how the system (read: heat pump) works. The ground water doesn't directly cool the air. There are components in the heat pump that act similar to a refrigerator; extracting heat from the ground loop water, and then transferring it to the air that actually makes it into the house (or hotel).
- looselips, on 12/15/2007, -0/+1If you are looking for heater, maybe try a solar heater in a south facing window.
I have tried this sponsored video ( http://www.ifilm.com/video/2912438?cmpnid=784&pt=b ... ) idea, and I can tell you it works. A little too well for hot glue!
Do not try to use hot glue as I did! I should researched to find out it was 130 degree(low temp) glue first.
From someone who unsuccessfully only managed to create a pile of hot glued, pennies at the bottom of my window, and a lot of hot glue I now have to remove.
Thats right, it got hot enough from the sun to melt them right off of my flat-black-spray-painted penny laced-cardboard prototype, half way through its first non-cloudy day.
The digg story here:
http://digg.com/educational/Easy_Free_Home_Heating - patbingsoup, on 12/15/2007, -0/+1most systems use a presurized closed loop liquid system,earth air tube systems are rare, and a hell of a lot less reliable from my experience than geothermal water loops
- Ghost_MH, on 12/17/2007, -0/+1This reminds me of the fantastic Monarch Lofts they've built up here in Lawrence, MA. They've been trying to lay claim to the title of largest geothermal apartment project in the US. Anyone know if their claim is even close to valid???
- rhodydog, on 12/15/2007, -0/+1This is a great idea, my brother has helped install this kind of system. He says that for every 1 kW of energy you use in the heat pumps you get 4 kW out from the ground. Some people apparently use a small windmill to provide the 1 kW.
- grapeguy, on 12/16/2007, -0/+1We live in Central Ohio and installed a 5 ton geothermal (with 11Kw electric aux. heater) to replace a monster fuel oil furnace in our 150 year old farmhouse. We used horizontal tubes about 5 to 6 feet buried.
We love it! Cheaper cooling and oil-free heating rock. We were getting about 150-200 gallons of fuel oil per month before. The electric bill is cheaper in summer and only slightly more in winter. We have never use the auxiliary electric heater yet and we've been below 0F several times.
Best home improvement we ever did! - sunshinemonster, on 12/15/2007, -0/+1If you watch "Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe," you already know all about this.
- Zera, on 12/17/2007, -0/+1No, not at all. This system uses the earth as just a huge nearly limitless (for these purposes) heat sink. It has nothing to do with solar other than the sun does keep earth from being a giant ball of ice. For this to be solar, it would have to be utilizing the energy from the sun. This uses electricity to pump heat in and out of the earth.
- joshuamckenty, on 12/15/2007, -0/+0What you're referring to (tubes carrying air, as a pre-heat/pre-cooling step) are usually called "Earth Tubes", check this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_cooling_tubes
There are a fair number of differences between them, but they both provide an efficiency boost vs. standard HVAC. Earth tubes are less effective but, as you mentioned, much less expensive to install. Liquid-based near-surface heat pumps are much more sophisticated. - mhmdkhamis, on 02/09/2008, -0/+0This guy is building the hotel (actually hostel) about 100 meters from where I used to live. This is in a great neighbourhood (Kensington Market) and any visitors to Toronto should check it out!
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http://www.refco-turkiye.com - bamatthew, on 12/16/2007, -0/+0Fantastic article - really well written!
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- Scienceisfun, on 12/15/2007, -0/+0It's actually not inefficient at all. Think about the middle of a Canadian winter: -25 degrees at night. With a geothermal system, you have access to a heat reservoir just under the Earth's surface at about 5 degrees Celsius. With a 30 degree temperature gradient, heat really, really wants to flow from the ground to the house, and it's an incredibly efficient process. Summertime (with a 25 degree house and a 5 degree ground) gives you similar efficiency in pumping heat out of your house and into the ground as an air conditioner.
- hiPpymIck, on 12/15/2007, -1/+1the comments on the site have exactly the same thumbs up/down buttons as Digg
- Scienceisfun, on 12/15/2007, -0/+0Yup, you're right, it does require some electricity to run. It's also piles more efficient than a standard furnace, or central air conditioning. It actually is as good as it's cracked up to be, as long as you don't think it's going to knock your heating and electric bills to zero. But I guarantee those bills would be much, much lower with the system than without.
- neutrino15, on 12/15/2007, -2/+1Everybody always fails to mention the big caveat of geothermal heat exchange systems. Because the difference in heat is so minimal at a ~6' depth, you need a "heat pump" to compress the liquid when it reaches the surface.
These systems use the same technology as air conditioners, but because the exchange pipes exchange heat underground instead of into the air, it is a tad more efficient.
However, the compressor still requires a decent amount of electricity to sufficiently heat a house. (fyi, this does not apply to the massive systems that flash water to steam by digging near the mantle).
So, Geothermal energy exchange != magical renewable energy source! You need electricity to make it work.. (electricity is usually generated using fossil fuels). - Scienceisfun, on 12/15/2007, -1/+0In line with fgsfds, this is really a form of solar energy, since that's what keeps the near-surface ground at a roughly constant temperature.
- fgsfds, on 12/15/2007, -3/+2For geothermal-aided HVAC? Lots, and it's not exactly a flawless technology.
It's not practical for use in a home, but makes sense for larger buildings - schools, apartment buildings, and anything else with high heating costs.
The technology has been around and in-use for decades, it's just making a resurgence now. - torontoliam, on 12/15/2007, -2/+1This guy is building the hotel (actually hostel) about 100 meters from where I used to live. This is in a great neighbourhood (Kensington Market) and any visitors to Toronto should check it out!
- themoosejuice, on 12/15/2007, -4/+1can i make a mini version for my dog house?
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