Geothermal
From GNC
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Geothermal energy is a very cost-effective alternative technology for heating and cooling buildings. It takes advantage of the fact that water below a certain depth is at a near-constant temperature (50 - 55 degrees). The water is pumped to the surface and run through heat pumps which can, through basic heat transfer technology, provide either heating or cooling. The water is then returned to the ground. The only fuel used in geothermal heating and cooling is the electricity for the pumps.
Geothermal is particularly well-suited to the municipal building environment, because the additional capital investment required over a conventional system is compensated for by significantly lower operatings costs. In general, municipal buildings are intended to be long-lived, facilitating consideration of up-front investments. More importantly, the most intense pressure on municipal finance is in the operating budgets. Many municipalities find it easier to secure taxpayer support for capital investments because they seem more like investments than spending and because tax increases to pay for them have a finite life. On the other side, the steeply increasing price of energy has squeezed operating budgets ever tighter, so an investment which offsets and reduces a rapidly growing operating expense is very attractive.
- Geothermal Notes - notes made while researching Geothermal systems for heating and cooling buildings. They are have not (yet?) organized for presentation or general use, but everyone is welcome to the information here.
- Noble & Greenough School installs geothermal system - Boston Globe, September, 2007
- Media:Hastings_school.pdf - White Paper describing the first successful geothermal installation in a school at Hastings School in Westborough in 1997. Interestingly, this was not an installation during construction, but a retrofit.
