On Wednesday, I am talking with the folks working on ***geothermal heat networks*** in the Northeast, including someone from the utility Eversource, which is busy building a pilot project.
Got any questions about how these things are shaping up?
Got any questions about how these things are shaping up?
Comments
asking for a little rural town where the propane suppliers are local businesses that sponsor kid’s sports teams and people mostly resent the electric utility, ha
https://greenupwestunion.com
https://midwestdecarb.org/cchi
The above is a thing for commercialised hot springs bathing destinations in some countries
But then I must ask, north east of where?
What are the major points of failure in the system and the cost to repair or replace them?
https://www.volts.wtf/p/volts-podcast-audrey-schulman-and
Perhaps start with explaining 3/4th gen (HOT water, heat exchanger, heating only) 5th gen (tepid water, heat pump, heating+cooling) and geothermal heat network (5th gen + boreholes?)
a LOT of buildings with steam heat use ConEd instead of operating their own boilers
Not to mention huge blue collar labor shortage as baby boomers retire.
Should we replace natural gas local infrastructure with something safer? I saw that one with my own eyes, from 10 miles away. It doesn't change the number of local infrastructure utility services.
... while we're adding arguments instead of defending them.
Have they looked into staging it out with a big geothermal unit conditioning a room underground with individual residential condensers?
What's the case for this, vs traditional district heating (warm enough to heat directly) or GSHP at each unit / cluster of buildings?
And is easier to reduce grid peak loading.
But if you are going g to run the pipes, why not an industrial scale heat pump to use the boreholes.
Also as in the other tweets, you now need to insulate the water lines
And how to make the billing for net metering less of a mess
Also, what will be the buyout situation for people who have recently invested in boilers? I have a gas boiler now
#Heating ✅
#FossilFuels ❌
It can only be done at scale with a central source, hence requiring a heat network.
This one seems a bit suspicious to me due to the high storage temperatures, costs, and the amount of concrete being used.
But, in general, we'll be seeing a lot of this in the future!
(I admit that this is partly a question to get you to talk about NY HEAT and other "obligation to serve" amending bills!)
How are they going to make this project appealing to investors who seek profits in addition to environment and climate health?
2. Are these types of systems complimentary to standalone ground source heat pump type solutions (dandelion, bedrock, others)? Are these the sorts of solutions that work when the density isn’t there?
https://www.heet.org/our-history
https://www.heet.org/our-history
What are the main logistic challenges for siting this kind of network? What other locations could make good candidates if this succeeds?
With the infrastructure in place, can it assist with both heating and cooling like heat pumps? With both hvac and water? How deep can it integrate?
For example, my neighborhood (while probably not dense enough for this to make sense *yet*) doesn’t have sewers - could building both sets of infrastructure conceivably happen at the same time?
1. The default approach to electrifying home heat is to stick a heat pump in every house. The networked geothermal approach sticks a heat pump in every house, but also builds out a pipeline network, boreholes, etc. (continued)
Diminishing returns, maybe?
https://bsky.app/profile/jaapburger.eu/post/3lcxkpt5nxc27