First there’s this:
Armed with survey results revealing public misperceptions about energy use, The Pink Panther(TM), Chief Energy Officer at Owens Corning (NYSE: OC), broke his decades of silence on October 9, 2008 to focus national attention on the massive amount of energy used to heat and cool buildings. According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), 40 percent of U.S. energy is swallowed by buildings, yet most Americans believe transportation and industry are the largest offenders.
To View the Multimedia News Release, go to:
http://www.prnewswire.com/mnr/owenscorning/35579/
Then there’s this:
The earth absorbs almost 50% of all solar energy and remains a nearly constant temperature of 50°F to 70°F depending on geographic location. Working with an underground loop system, a Climate Master geothermal unit utilizes this constant temperature to exchange energy between your home and the earth as needed for heating and cooling.
In winter, water circulating inside a sealed loop absorbs heat from the earth and carries it to the unit. Here it is compressed to a higher temperature and sent as warm air to your indoor system for distribution throughout your home.
In the summer, the system reverses and expels heat from your home to the cooler earth via the loop system. This heat exchange process is not only natural, but is a truly ingenious and highly efficient way to create a comfortable climate in your home.
I’m not sure pumping water into the ground to cool a building is the best way; air might do the job just as well and be a lot less problematic. But you get the idea – geothermal systems are an excellent way to reduce America’s energy consumption, yet are being largely ignored.
Grimmy
Grim,the above is true.
Water Source Heat Pumps are very efficient at heating,much more so than burning firewood and heating oil.
Air Source Heat Pumps are impractical for the majority of the United States though and have to rely upon electric heat strips when the temperature outside dips past freezing.
The output temperature of the heating ducts is below body temperature causing the living space to feel chilly.
Till now using a water sourced heat pump in the northern states seemed like overkill,
with the days of temperatures over 90 degrees being relatively few,it just seemed to be a waste to invest in High Efficiency Air Conditioning and so few have taken advantage of the opportunity or the rebates.
Ask Your Electrical provider in Your area.
For more and better information see the link below:
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Home_Generation:Ground_Source_Heat_Pump
Comment by Rainlander — December 23, 2008 @ 9:38 pm
Its rain again,Just wanted to follow up with a link that I could not find earlier.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCGVTYtJEFk
Later versions of these solar towers could possibly contain evaporators/condensers similar to the oldest form of refrigeration found in RV’s,Travel Trailers,Reefer Units and Dry Ice Manufacturing.
The purpose here is to send moisture aloft into the upper atmosphere to precipitate as rain,cooling and effectively scrubbing the atmosphere and providing agricultural irrigation.
An 50 million dollar version was slated to be built in Oz but the investors backed out and left only 5 million to work with,the down-sized
Aussie unit would still be 4-5 times larger than the Madrid tower generating roughly enough energy to power 15,000 homes.
Not too shabby.
Comment by Rainlander — December 24, 2008 @ 5:22 am