Could geothermal heatpumps spell trouble
Ted W.
| Posted in Energy, Heating & Insulation on
Supposing we humans managed to go completely geothermal for our heating needs. Do you think there would be significant negative consequences to sucking that much heat out of the earth? Is so, what do you think would happen?
~ Ted W ~
Cheap Tools! – MyToolbox.net
See my work – TedsCarpentry.com
Replies
Think raisin...
Beautiful!!!!!!!!
Are you talking about geothermal (i.e. tapping in to steam reservoirs) or GSHP (pipes buried a few feet below the surface)? I don't think it is wrong to call a GSHP (Ground Source Heat Pump) system geothermal, but I think for this discussion it does make a difference.
My unscientific guess is that GSHP systems would not cause any significant problems. The heat sink/source is so large that I would not expect we could change it. Plus, since you're putting heat in the ground in the summer and removing it from the ground in the winter, any effects would be partially mitigated.
An interesting corollary, do air source heat pumps cause any atmospheric changes? I'm not aware of any studies that show that they do.
Jon Blakemore
RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
GSHP
Thanks for cluing me in. ;)~ Ted W ~
Cheap Tools! - MyToolbox.netSee my work - TedsCarpentry.com
Well, where does that heat go -- it goes out thru the walls of the house and HEATS THE AIR, contributing to the dreaded global warming.
The sky is fallling, run , ;run , to where.........???
That hot aire, It melts the polar caps.....
so then, Warm Seawater covers all the ground source heat pump fields, and the water is cooled off and FREEZES.
OH my, an ice age has started!!!!!
Left entropy or some basic heat transfer out of the scheme somewhere, what....
"Left entropy " That dreaded libereal irreversabilty. Not quite so bad as "right entropy", however, just not able to be used when you calculations are conservative.
to sucking that much heat out of the earth?
Well, there's enough heat energy within the earth to keep the mantle molten; the crust of the earth is only a few miles thick, and floats on the semi-liquid layer below.
The mantle cools to become magma, which sools again when expressed on the surface as lava. That's cooled down to around 1300-2200ºF.
A lot of heat under our feet. Don't want to know which prefix you put in front of the kilocalories (or the size of the exponent needed after) to express that heat.
Now, there are environmental types who are leary of the fluids used in a heat pump to transfer heat from one side of the system to the other. We've had to outlaw freon, and similar chemicals, as a result. Luckily, fluorochlorocarbons of one kind or another will "lego" together along that zone in the periodic table and render us suitable refrigerants. Which spares us the joys of using things like ammonia for the task, which is fireproof, completely organic, but unpleasant at best to be around.
I am more concerned about all of the wind turbines slowing down t he earths' rotation.
.
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
I am more concerned about all of the wind turbines slowing down t he earths' rotation
nah, I herd some dudes, they 'splained it. Y'see, them windmills is hooked up to the 'lectric company, see? things gets slow, they's switch'em babies on, and they'll jes' blow a bit, speed'n them things up, y'know?
<g>Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
I am more concerned about all of the wind turbines slowing down the earths' rotation.
LOL! Good one =)
You laugh now, but when we suck too much heat from the Earth and she cracks like an ice cube dropped in a warm glass of burbon, you'll say "Wow, that Ted guy was right." And all them solar panels catching the sunshine before the Mama Earth gets any ain't helping one bit.~ Ted W ~
Cheap Tools! - MyToolbox.netSee my work - TedsCarpentry.com
them solar panels catching the sunshine before the Mama Earth gets any ain't helping one bit
'an eye no frum deyrect perience dat a trampoline dont cut the son as much as a solur penul.
I left my garden hose under the trampoline all day and it didn't even get warm. Next time I'm gonna try it on a sunny day!
~ Ted W ~
Cheap Tools! - MyToolbox.netSee my work - TedsCarpentry.com
Edited 4/3/2009 4:31 pm by Ted W.
i read a lot of science fiction, so i can't remember any specific author or book, but some have used the concept of a "core tap" for providing energy.. (maybe try googling it?)
as someone mentioned, there's a lot heat expressed with a lot of zeroes down there, so no worries.
and iirc, it's caused by radioactivity, so it's renewable. lol
ps- i just looked at your website. nice work. you've mentioned (i think) that things have been slow. as i tell my son, our dog got more pats on the head than i ever do. so here's one for you. woof.
Alf! Is that you? I told you 1000 times you're not a dog, you're an alien. hehe
I'm calling on some of my old customers from years ago, hoping to grab some extra business. So far they're all glad to hear from me. No work yet, but glad to hear from me just the same. And I guessing they'll come up with something for me to do.
Thanks for the kind words about my work. I do take a lot of pride in it. =)~ Ted W ~
Cheap Tools! - MyToolbox.netSee my work - TedsCarpentry.com
drozer opined: " i read a lot of science fiction, so i can't remember any specific author or book, but some have used the concept of a "core tap" for providing energy.. (maybe try googling it?) "A core tap, you say, like this one perhaps?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crack_in_the_Worlda visionary cautionary tale for our times, for those of you who favor tampering with the earth for energy...and the new moon is going to play hell with my tide tables and fishingjose c.
--
"Though I don't think" added Deep Thought "that you're going to like it."
ok in the same thought...
everyone puts solar panels on their roof... all the heat that would be reflected back into "space" is now sucked into the panels...
so everyone paints their roof white... sure saves on the cooling cost... but now all that heat is reflected back into "space" as there really is very little natural "bright white on earth... white surfaces just ain't in gods plan...
we cut back on our water usage... now there is less water in our streams... less water to be evapporated back into the air.. so we have less rain... and less clouds to reflect the suns heat...
now... you figure out... the right thing to do...
p:)
you figure out
Remember Carl Sagan on TV after the Gulf war and hero of the mideast Saddam set fire to the Kuwati oil wells.
IIR the interview, ol' Carl said 'the black plumes will rise miles and miles into the air, blocking out the sunlight - will never be able to get them extinguished for at least 5 years' or some such, followed by 'the earth will be fortuanate to avoid another ice age' or something like that.
In a discussion once with a unilateral disarmament proponent who said even if the radiation from a thermonuclear war didn't kill everyone of cancer (a somewhat valid fear) then all the energy released would overheat the earth. A quick back of envelope calculation for 25,000 MEGAtons showed it equivalent to a little over 15 minutes of sunlight.
Still say, run, run, hide,hide .......as someone else said in a different thread, after you leave and run, can I have your stuff <G>
"so everyone paints their roof white... sure saves on the cooling cost... "
I'm doing this today ... but having a hard time getting the paint to stick to asphalt shingles. ;o)Jeff
"I am more concerned about all of the wind turbines slowing down t he earths' rotation."
Just as long as some geothermal operates some wind turbines that do some pushing it all works out in the end.
My vote is to harness the vacuum energy (zero point) in politicians heads. Now that is an inexhaustible source of power.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine...... Bertrand Russell
http://www.drawingwithlight.smugmug.com
...to harness the vacuum energy (zero point) in politicians heads...
Whoa there... we don't wanna go and blow the global circuits! he he
~ Ted W ~
Cheap Tools! - MyToolbox.netMeet me at House & Builder!
Edited 4/12/2009 11:17 pm by Ted W.
In the summer you use the geothermal to cool building , putting heat back into the ground. Your crediting the heat back to the earth. Should balance out ! ( carbon credit ?)
In the winter, geothermal heat has a significant impact on the nighttime temperatures. The very coldest winters nights happen when there is a good layer of snow on the ground which limits the effect of geothermal heat. So if all these ground source heat pumps are cooling the ground down, the winter nights will get colder, which mean the GSHP's will have to cool the ground yet more, and the nights will get colder yet, and.... sounds bad.
We're doomed.~ Ted W ~
Cheap Tools! - MyToolbox.netSee my work - TedsCarpentry.com
So how much heat does the earth lose to the atmosphere on cold nights?I wonder if the heat extracted via a GSHP would even register when being compared to this heat loss (desolation?).
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
"So how much heat does the earth lose to the atmosphere on cold nights?I wonder if the heat extracted via a GSHP would ev'en register when being compared to this heat loss (desolation?)."I'm just funnin' about GSHPs. ;) I do know that the depth of snow does effect winter temps. I was living in Northern MN in the when we set our all time state low temp. There was four feet of snow on the ground. (now THAT was a he-man's winter.)the whole thing about the earth being this huge ball of molten rock and such is quite interesting. Seems like it must be cooling down. Another billion years and GSHP's and frost protect foundations will be a thing of the past.
I'm kidding too, but also leading up to a bigger question. I know we couldn't cool the Earth to any significant degree even if we tried to. With that in mind.. there are 3 basic forms of power that we use - electric, heat and gasoline - and the gasoline is being replaced by electric. We can create electric with heat, and heat can be drawn from the very ground on which we build our homes, factories and other buildings. In other words, if done properly, we can get all the energy we will ever need right under our feet.
We don't have to run miles upon miles of wires to our home for electric. We can install a generator right at home that runs on the heat right under our home. From that we can charge an electric car, run all our appliances and electronics, and light our home. And of course, we can heat our home too. And to top it off, it's clean and it's free. And we can do it anywhere we can dig a hole.
So why do we need oil? And why do we need the electric company?~ Ted W ~
Cheap Tools! - MyToolbox.netSee my work - TedsCarpentry.com
<<So why do we need oil? And why do we need the electric company?>> Cause, my GSHP grinds to a halt if I don't pay the Man. The irony of it is, with the unit in the basement we won't be
able to get off the grid any time soon. Far to big of a draw for
any affordable solar options.
They make refrigerators that run on propane, so I have wondered if they could make a GSHP that runs on nat. gas.
Don't see why not. I wonder how the efficiency would compare.
20-30 years ago there where gas "fueled" AC units.But they where never commercially successful. Don't know what the fundament problems where. It might be that using new materials and technology that they could be possible. Don't know.Right it is only a niche market. Refrigerators for locations that don't have electricity..
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
Getting pretty popular are one source power packs/plants... IC engines usually run off natural gas... they are hooked to gen sets for electric... the heat the produce is captured for heating (hot water and exhaust) a/c refrigeration compressor is direct off the engine...
I've not seen one in use but have read about them... would be really cool if you lived in an area where natural gas was free (your own NG well)
you are still tied to a grid so in very low or very high power usage times it switches over... while running excess power is sold back to the utility
P
Somewhere else I posted a question about maybe marrying one of these home-scale co-gen things with a GSHP. The idea would be to use the fuel (propane, NG, whatever) in an IC engine. The engine would drive the GSHP compressor (directly or indirectly via electric gen), and the exhaust gas heat would go directly to heating air or water that is circulating through the house's heating system.The overall efficiency would be far better than straight combustion, since a good part of the energy extracted from the combustion process would be leveraged about 4x by using it to lift additional heat out of the ground.Invent it, patent it, go to production. I'll buy one.
Don't have any idea of how the numbers work out on those, but the concept is certainly sound.And I have seen some stories about units for home use. But AFAIK they are far from practical in that application.Sprint headquarters is here. And I assume one of their network control points. They have a large campus and they have 100 kw or maybe several hundred KW generator. I think that it is gas turbine. The POCO manages it and can use it for topping, etc. But when needed it is 100% for Sprint.Don't know if they use any of the reject heat or not.A while back I read an article on where they are placing major server farms because of the need for large amounts of power to cool the equipment. It was focused on the cost of power and the closeness to the power plant.Now there reject heat is at a low temp, but it could be used for space heating in a near by building. Or maybe preheat for process water..
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
all (as far as i know) the casinos in tunica MS produce their own power... all of it all the time... big diesel cat units built into simi trailers... they all have several.... plug & play... rebuild or major service they haul in another and sawp em out...
i don't think they capture any of the heat produced
P
Why? Would it be cheaper than using the POCO?
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
one i don't think they have the service to supply them... I believe the casinos would have to pay for the building up the service... It must be cost effective... because they all do it... or the only way they can... or maybe if you produce 100% of your own power do you have to use the electrical code? somewhere i read that if you produce it ... they can't tell you how to use it...
p
Edited 4/9/2009 9:21 pm ET by ponytl
<<
They make refrigerators that run on propane, so I have wondered if they could make a GSHP that runs on nat. gas.>>Actually we have a huge solar air conditioning install happening near us in NC. Enertek is doing it. Same principle (ammonia cycle) as the propane refrigerator only using solar as the heat source. I am guessing that corrosive issues around use of ammonia would be a major hurdle. I need to find out more about this Ammonia cycle refigeration thing. Not sure if it would be reversible like a heat-pump. I do know that the Oak Ridge lab boys were working on a model affordable green house over in Tennessee and used trench style ground source heat pump for cooling a super efficient SIPS house and in August they recorded 117 degree temps at the pipes six feet under ground. Seems the constant heat caused by the prolonged hot summer air conditioning load drove the moisture out of the soil around the pipes and turned it into a fairly effective insulator. So much for the constant 50 degree temp at six feet under ground theory. The inside of my freezer is constantly freezing until I put three gallons of hot venison stew in it too.------------------
"You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."
The 117° number is certainly interesting.Do you know if they used a conventional design for the loops? I'm wondering if their loops were too short and that's what caused the problem.That happening would certainly put an effect on the geothermal craze.
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
<<Do you know if they used a conventional design for the loops? I'm wondering if their loops were too short and that's what caused the problem.>>Obviously something wasn't right and short loops may have been the issue but I think it was the clay soil. should have gone with wells. Still I tried to schedule a GSHP install in North Carolina a few years ago and the installer told me I needed to have it ready for him by the end of July because he was too busy with service calls in August to do any installations... m------------------
"You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."
Interesting.How many GSHP installations have you done? Good luck so far with them?
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
"the gasoline is being replaced by electric."Far from it. Electric will only make a small dent in the gas and diesel used for transportation. CNG has a lot more potential to suppliment large portions of gas and diesel..
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
IMHO, too much debate about heat loss, heat gain etc. These are all definable terms that can be measured and quantified. But are dangerous in the hands of the uninformed. This is not to say members of this forum are uninformed, NOT AT ALL! It is merely to note that what we write in jest may appear in a doctoral thesis by a pointy headed eastern intellectual. I am reminded of the sage words of my father, nearly 91 Years young and still going strong--- "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing" To that end we should not fear global cooling, remember this was the mantra of the original eco- terrorists on the eve of the first Earth Day who appeared in Parkas on the Washington Mall. Recall that "Five months before the first April 22 Earth Day, on Sunday, November 30, 1969, The New York Times carried a lengthy article by Gladwin Hill reporting on the rising hysteria of "global cooling" What we have to fear is also not "Global Warming" as the liberal intelligentsia still cannot explain why surface temperatures on planets distant from our own are rising. (Think solar activity, or Even a blind man knows when the sun is shining – “Good Lovin†The Grateful Dead). Let us not forget we have at our disposal the greatest source of hot air, blustery bloviation and unbridled bombast <!----><!----><!---->Washington<!---->, <!---->DC<!----><!---->. I say hook them up to giant fans and let the wheels turn!<!----><!----><!---->
we have at our disposal the greatest source of hot air, blustery bloviation and unbridled bombast <!----><!----><!---->Washington<!---->, <!---->DC
I thought that was this forum. =D~ Ted W ~
Cheap Tools! - MyToolbox.netSee my work - TedsCarpentry.com
NO Never this forum, are we the ones we have been waiting for LOL
In the grand scale of time, it could lower the earth's core temperature by some immeasurable amount over the span of some immeasurable length of time.
Of course, we'll have destroyed the planet much sooner than that through a variety of other methods for us to worry too much about geothermal issues.
But if we go completely geo thermal, we'll have world peace and all organic vegies. So no problems, we can be like... cosmic aware.
Tip toe, through the tulips, by the window..
~ Ted W ~
Cheap Tools! - MyToolbox.netMeet me at House & Builder!
Edited 4/13/2009 12:24 am by Ted W.
OK
You guys up north need to turn all those GSHP off.
Right now!
It was 72 F here Sunday.
Youse guys sucked up all our heat and it went to 30 F last night.
It's your fault.
Stop it !
I want my spring back 1
No! We're tired of all you folks in the south hogging up all the warm air, so we're taking our share of it.
btw, please be careful digging more than 10' or so, that you don't go and puncture one of our lines. It was a lot of work running them all them all that way.~ Ted W ~
Cheap Tools! - MyToolbox.netSee my work - TedsCarpentry.com
And thought that guy out there in January was my plumber.
Argggh, and paid him !
So.. I gues you found the line? Me and my big mouth. Now it's cold here again.
Just wait till next year. I hope you like playing in the snow.
Also, gonna get a different installer. This one didn't mention charging you, and skipped town without giving me my cut. The Crook!~ Ted W ~
Cheap Tools! - MyToolbox.netSee my work - TedsCarpentry.com
The sun heats the ground and warms it. later the stored heat(energy) is released.
We suck the heat out of the ground and warm our home, The energy is released.
same thing, we just slighlty speed up the time line
Ahh !
The law of entropy are indeed obeyed.
Edited 4/8/2009 7:57 am ET by DaveRicheson