Jan 25, 2021
Today’s podcast is for homeowners who want to understand the basics about ultra-efficient geothermal heating and cooling, why your neighbors are moving to geothermal, and how easy it is to have geothermal installed in your home - without the pain of emptying your savings account.
I’m your host, Ron Kamen. My life mission is to empower everyday people like you to make clean energy transitions that reduce your carbon footprint, save you money, and create a proud legacy for your grandchildren.
For more than three decades, I’ve energized thousands of homeowners, communities, governments, non-profits, and businesses with the ability to “Go Clean & Save Green”.
As the host of the AWESome EarthKind Podcast, I explain how technology is now capturing the Forces of Nature to meet our electricity, heating, cooling and transportation needs – and saving people money when they make that evolution.
Burning any type of fossil fuel – whether it’s oil, coal, natural gas, propane, or wood -provides energy efficiencies that are significantly less than 100% efficient. A brand new high tech gas burner can have efficiencies in in the 97% range. But with older systems – and with hot water during the summer – energy efficiency drops dramatically, sometimes wasting 1/3rd to 2/3s of the energy that we’re paying for.
Heat pumps create heat with dramatically better efficiencies.
Sign up for a free webclass to discover how easy it is to get ultra-efficient geothermal heating and cooling installed in your home – without the pain of emptying your savings account.
Virtually everyone has a least one type of heat pump — our refrigerator and freezer. Heat pumps use compression and expansion to move heat from one location (inside the box) to the outside via heat dispersion coils.
An air conditioner is another type of heat pump that moves the heat from inside our buildings to the outside air. An Air Source Heat Pump is an Air Conditioner that reverses that process during the winter to move heat from the outside air into our buildings. Cold Climate Heat Pumps can now concentrate heat even when the air temperature is as low as minus 15 F.
The energy efficiency of an Air Source Heat Pump is 200-300%. Since we start with the temperature of the air, for every unit of electricity we put into the system, we get 2 to 3 units of heating and cooling out.
A Ground Source — or Geothermal — Heat Pump does the same thing. But, instead of starting with the ambient air temperature, a Geothermal Heat Pump sends a fluid into pipes underground where the earth’s constant temperature of ~55 F in the northeast US is transferred and returned to our utility rooms.
The same type of Heat Pump compression and expansion then bumps the temperature up to provide hot water year round and heat during the winter - or starts with the 55 degree temperatures to cool our homes during the summer.
Geothermal Heat Pumps provide efficiencies of 400 to 500%. For every unit of electricity put into a ground source heat pump, we get 4 to 5 units of heating and cooling out.
Geothermal systems tap into the largest heat storage system in the world - right under our feet. For billions of years, the earth has been absorbing the sun’s energy. The planet’s constant temperature just a few feet underground can meet all our heating, cooling, and hot water needs — with a minimum amount of energy to move that heat in or out of our buildings.
There are actually 2 types of Geothermal. In the western United States and Hawaii, Geothermal electric power plants use steam from hot water reservoirs a few miles below the earth's surface. That steam rotates turbines in generators that produce electricity. While California & Nevada are the biggest generators of geothermal electricity in the country, the Big Island of Hawaii gets actually 25% of their electricity from geothermal electricity power plants.
But everywhere else in the US, Geothermal refers to Ground Source Heat Pumps - the most efficient technology for heating, cooling, and creating hot water.
Geothermal –vcan provide savings up to 70% less than traditional fossil fuel technologies.
Saint Patrick’s Cathedral – one of the best know icons in New York City - has Geothermal. The geothermal wells reach 2000’ down into the Manhattan bedrock. The system was the LEAST cost option for this historic building- AND it is saving them over 30% a year in energy costs.
In the next the Power of Earth with Comfort podcast, you’ll hear how your local utility provides cash incentives for your transition to clean heat.
In another episode, you’ll also hear from a homeowner about why they decided to move to geothermal, and how they now have a clean, healthy, comfortable, sustainable, and economic geothermal heating and cooling system in their home.
In “The Power Of Earth with Comfort” From ClimateMaster a free webclass, you’ll discover the answers every homeowner needs to know, including:
- How geothermal heating and cooling can draw energy from the ground beneath our feet (for pennies)
- Why homeowners everywhere are making the switch.
- The secrets to securing utility incentives and tax credits to pay for a large portion of your new geothermal system
and much more …