Ground-source heat pump systems are one of the most efficient ways to do climate control, but digging the wells can be prohibitively expensive for the individual citizen. What if you could do it at a larger scale?
Starting with a pilot to serve 37 commercial and residential buildings in Framingham, MA, Eversource is using its experience with natural gas drilling and pipe to serve up a lower carbon way to heat and cool this neighborhood. While district heating via geothermal has precedents elsewhere in the country, Boise is a notable example, it has remained a somewhat niche technology. Once networked, excess heat from one location can be used elsewhere in the system, like data centers or industrial facilities being used to heat homes in the winter.
As gas utilities look to transition away from fossil fuels, their existing knowledge base is a perfect fit for geothermal, but there are some regulatory hurdles. Six states have passed laws allowing natural gas utilities to expand beyond just gas, and bills have been filed in six more. This will likely accelerate with the formation of the Utility Networked Geothermal Collaborative which includes many utilities including giants like Dominion Energy who are looking to expand their energy portfolios.
If you want to dig more into district heating systems or geothermal energy, we’ve covered cogeneration from power plants to serve up the heat instead, doing it with wind, or even using old coal mines for geothermal heat.
A University in my city uses waste heat from a data center to heat an academic building across the street.
So instead of upgrading they’re CPUs to newer, more efficient models they keep old shit running just to produce heat. Great idea, totaly green /s
As a car mechanic, welder and metalworker I think 99% academics are idiots without any real life experience. They only know books, math, books, math etc. but when they need to replace oil filter or unclog 120 mm toilet pipe they’re as clueless as lambs lead to slaughter.
“instead of upgrading they’re CPUs to newer, more efficient models”
We are waaay past the point where CPUs advance enough that upgrading aggressively makes any significant difference in terms of power efficiency. Most university data centers are upgraded relatively rapidly, too.
“As a car mechanic, welder and metalworker I think 99% academics”
weird, I must know a ton of the 1% then, cuz I literally did everything you listed myself within the past week
although I will full on admit I can’t friggin’ weld, it’s been on my to-do list to learn for years now. Sigh.
So, a “network” of common interests sound like a HOA’ish idea. Just look to the messes in California and Florida – NO thank you.
Then there is Chaos, just like tornados find trailer parks, asteroids would likely find the center of that ground based heat sink.
Damn right! Sounds like communism.
It looks like Eversource is taking all the financial risk for this project. Good for them. I’ll bet they’re going to lose a bundle of money when the equipment wears out and starts failing in 5 or 10 years.
Why are we still using the term “fossil fuels” on this site? That misnomer has been debunked long ago. The conditions to form those hydrocarbon chains exist nowhere near the depth we find them at and the likely source is deep within the mantle (which would inconveniently label these “fossil fuels” as renewable energy).
Furthermore… Sure… These heat pumps are more efficient for cooling… But heating? Anyone who uses a heat pump in a colder climate (which is around half of the united states and a majority of north america) knows that in order for these systems to heat in these cold climates you would need so much ground capacity that even with multiple residential boreholes or a very large closed loop you STILL need tens of kilowatts of electric heat to augment it… Effectively rendering it as a very inefficient way to heat.
Lol.
Now if could just tap into Yellowstone park, where the heat is near the surface :) …
Hopefully we can now get more gas turbines, coal plants, nuclear sites on line to get us a steady supply of reliable energy … while we wait for the invention of a truly reliable green energy source for power like Dilithium crystals to control matter-antimatter reactors…
(Citation Needed)
Source please – and weren’t quite some fossiles found in coalbeds / coal stratum?
With
and
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel respectively
it sounds to me like the name fits perfectly. They are obtained “by digging” (some literally other only kinda) and are technically “traces of any once-living things”.
still a lot more effective than resistive heating.
And from what I can find in a short search with outside air temperatures between -15 and 35°C the overall efficiency of a heat pump is still between 2,5 and 3,5 times the electrical energy (air as external heat source).
https://www.energie-experten.org/heizung/waermepumpe/waermepumpenheizung/wirkungsgrad#c45382
Even with a temperature difference of 100K between “outside” and “inside” heat pumps still deliver 2-times the heat.
Wow, awful unhelpful and unkind comments out of right field, and no “report comment” link in sight. What’s happened to this place?
get rekt scrub