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Great Balls of Geothermal Fire!
Everyone knows that volcanoes have plenty of heat to spare, and normally we prefer that they keep it to themselves. Now, with energy prices rising, some communities are starting to reconsider their rumbling neighbors.
Geothermal energy relies on heat and water beneath the earth’s crust. Together they can create steam to turn a turbine. The trick is access: most of the earth’s heat is located miles beneath the crust. Even active volcanoes can hide their volitile energy under very hard igneous rock. Young volcanoes can have shallow magma reservoirs and sometimes they still have softer earthen crust. Just add water into this situation and you have potent potential for geothermal energy.
By Carol Gulyas •
June 4, 2008
New legislation in Germany is making geothermal electricity a viable option for the first time. Germany’s support of solar energy, mostly in the form of incentives and high return for consumers who sell excess solar power back to the grid, has made it a world powerhouse in solar energy generation and solar panel manufacturing. Now it promises to surge ahead in geothermal electricity generation, according to a [...]
Editor’s note: While we’ve discussed home geothermal systems a number of times around the Green Options Media network (see the list at the bottom), we’re glad to bring you today’s post from GreenBuildingTalk on the subject. They not only provide an overview of the technology, but point you to some cutting-edge models of geothermal heat pumps. This post was originally published on Thursday, May 15, 2008.
With energy costs on the rise, homeowners are looking for ways to offset higher bills. Geothermal heat pumps are one of the best options, as they currently offer the highest efficiencies of any heating and cooling system available today. A study by MIT emphasizes the potential for geothermal, and manufacturers are offering more options for consumers. While at the Midwest Builders show, I stopped by ClimateMaster and WaterFurnace booths to learn more about their newest offerings. Before diving into the respective systems, let’s review the three main components of a geothermal system; the heat-pump unit, the liquid heat-exchange medium (open or closed loop), and the air-delivery system (ductwork).
The heat pump simply moves heat energy from one place to another, just like your refrigerator or air conditioner. But a major difference is that air conditioners and refrigerators transfer heat in only one direction, while a heat pump can transfer heat in two directions, thereby heating or cooling the space. In the cooling mode, the geothermal heat pump takes heat from indoors and transfers it to the colder earth through either groundwater or an underground earth loop system. In the heating mode, the process is reversed.
The buried pipe, or earth loop, is the most important technical advancement in heat pump technology to date. The idea to bury pipe in the ground to gather heat energy began in the 1940s. But it’s only been in the last twenty-five years that new heat pump designs and more durable pipe materials have been combined to make geothermal heat pumps the ultimate in efficiency. The two main types of loops available are open and closed. An open loop system is less expensive to install, but over time could require more maintenance. A closed loop system is more expensive up front, but requires almost no maintenance. As manufacturers phase out R-22 (HCFC) refrigerant, there have been more environmentally friendly liquid mediums brought into the marketplace to use in your system. The most common antifreeze solutions in the U.S. and Canada are propylene glycol, methyl alcohol, and ethyl alcohol.
By Gavin Hudson •
March 2, 2008
Dear Readers,
This week, from March 3-10, we’ll be examining renewable energy around the world.
African American community leader Bertha Calloway once said, “we cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.”
Likewise, we cannot direct the sun, the tides, or ground energy; and these are only a few of the many options for clean, renewable energy.
However, by adjusting our sails we can benefit from energy from all of these untamable forces of nature.
By Timothy B. Hurst •
February 29, 2008
Wind turbines and solar photovoltaic have become the iconic symbols of clean energy and environmental consciousness. But what about the other less ’sexy’ forms of clean energy? Well, of course using less energy is the cleanest form to use, and it is usually the most cost-effective. But for people who want to increase the uptake of energy from clean sources, it may be more difficult. Unfortunately, not everyone has a strong enough wind or solar resource to make those investments [...]
By Smart HomeOwner •
August 21, 2007
A growing number of neighborhoods make saving energy a community effort
One of the latest trends in homebuilding is the creation of entire neighborhoods or communities of green, energy-efficient homes. The premise behind these energy-efficient communities, which are springing up all over the country, is simple: there’s power in numbers – or, rather, a greater opportunity to reduce energy consumption and improve resource management when dozens, or perhaps hundreds, of homes in a neighborhood incorporate
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A recent study found that the clean energy industry is the fastest-growing sector in Massachusetts, easily beating out behemoths like financial services, healthcare, and communications.
The Massachusetts Clean Energy Census was published by the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, a quasi-public agency that runs a renewable energy trust fund of green power projects. The study found that clean energy industry had a 26 percent increase in jobs and now accounts for more than 14,000 jobs in
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By Gavin Hudson •
August 3, 2007
Editor’s note: We had a technical glitch earlier this week, and some posts got published before they were supposed to. Gavin’s was one of them — by the time we’d discovered it, though, it had already gotten out to several social bookmarking sites. We didn’t, however, want it buried immediately…
Clean, renewable energy is sweeping the country like a wave, and now
for the individual consumer, it’s “surf’s up!” Power your home with
100% renewable energy for
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Today the U.S. House is likely to vote on the Udall-Platts Amendment to the energy bill. This legislation would require 15 percent of our nation’s electricity to come from renewable sources by the year 2020. It’s high time the federal government catch up to so many states that already have implemented 21st century policies like this one.
But in addition to broad state and federal programs, consumers can
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Global warming concerns, government policies, and money-saving efficiency benefits have spurred clean energy systems to spring up all over the world. But a giant wind farm in the middle-of-nowhere North Dakota doesn’t do much good if there aren’t transmission lines to connect the power with the more populated areas that need it.
Europeans are facing similar distribution and reliability issues with their burgeoning renewable energy growth, and some see a continent-wide grid as
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