Geothermal heating and cooling systems provide a COP of 4 or more. Has anyone ever thought about generating electricity with this system? I know there are power plants that use geothermal energy but they use extremely deep wells to tap into the extreme heat of inner earth. Where it is hot enought to boil water. However, a typical home heating system is just tapping into the heat that has been placed into the ground by sunlight. Where you only need to dig down about six feet or so depending on your location. At this depth the temperature is usually around 60 degrees celcius nowhere near the boiling point of water.
Check out my website for more information on how geothermal heating and cooling works for a home owner. Here is the link below.
Evogreen.ca (http://evogreen.ca)
Nice add for your company.
And yes people have thought of it before, there are quite a few websites you can go to that offer the same services as you.
there are residential geothermal systems that generate electricity? can you give me a link?
And As of right now all i have is a website with information. No company that i am representing.
Evogreen.ca (http://evogreen.ca)
Geothermal is good on large scale systems, there are a lot of complications that occure over the life span of Geothermal pockets, they do run dry and have to be refilled every couple of years, you have to drill deep for high efficiencies.
I don't think it is practical because the cost would be pretty high to hire a drilling rig. general Geothermal plants have holes drilled from a 1/4 mile to 2 miles deep depending on the terrain and available Geothermal pockets per area.
small scale would run dry sooner because pockets are not as big, I see a lot of overhead for private residents trying to tap this on their own and trying to keep the system in maintenance order.
but if you are interested in this type of power then I wish you luck.
I would actually do some heavy reading about it first and then make your evaluations.
Jerry 8)
Thanks for the reply Jerry. Yeah i did some reading and can see that it is not feasable to use a goethermal system for generating electricity. But lets not forget how great they are for small home heating and cooling. I can't think of a better way to heat and cool your home. No other heating system offers you a COP of 4! I hope to own a home in the near future that is heated and cooled by geothermal. I would love to get rid of my Gas bill and also not have to worry about CO2 poisioning!
Evan
evogreen.ca (http://evogreen.ca)
Quote from: Evogreen on November 17, 2009, 11:31:00 PM
Thanks for the reply Jerry. Yeah i did some reading and can see that it is not feasable to use a goethermal system for generating electricity. But lets not forget how great they are for small home heating and cooling. I can't think of a better way to heat and cool your home. No other heating system offers you a COP of 4! I hope to own a home in the near future that is heated and cooled by geothermal. I would love to get rid of my Gas bill and also not have to worry about CO2 poisioning!
Evan
evogreen.ca (http://evogreen.ca)
Hi Evan.
did you know that Aerogel has a heat insulation efficiency of 99.8%, if your entire house was insulated with it you could heat your home all day with a mere lit candle.
insulating your home with Aerogel panels would cost you about the same as a top rate Geothermal heating and cooling.
the Aerogel would keep heat out at an efficiency of 99.8% as well as keep it in at the same efficiency.
With Geothermal heating and cooling you would have a monstrosity of equipment outside your home where as Aerogel can be embedded in your walls.
Jerry 8)
I had read a while back about how Iceland was using geothermal, even on the residential level. You could look up something about that.
Quotedid you know that Aerogel has a heat insulation efficiency of 99.8%, if your entire house was insulated with it you could heat your home all day with a mere lit candle.
insulating your home with Aerogel panels would cost you about the same as a top rate Geothermal heating and cooling.
the Aerogel would keep heat out at an efficiency of 99.8% as well as keep it in at the same efficiency.
With Geothermal heating and cooling you would have a monstrosity of equipment outside your home where as Aerogel can be embedded in your walls.
Jerry
Is Aerogel commercially available? Sounds very interesting where could i learn more about it? I know geothermal can do the job i want and it is easily available to me. The canadian government will even help pay for the installation of a geothermal system to the tune of $8750 cdn. However i have never heard of Aerogel. Do you know of anyone who has their home insulated with it? Or is this a product still in development?
Also a geothermal unit sits inside the home and is about the same size as a standard furnace no monstrous equipment outside. The pipes that are outside are burried so you don't even see them.
Evan
www.evogreen.ca (http://www.evogreen.ca)
Aerogel has been known for decades, there was no demand for it except in the space industries, why it never took off into the public domain is a mystery to me. in the scientific community it has always been a mysterious wonderment of material.
currently only space agencies and maybe some military applications have a demand for it and some small time laboratories.
it is a little expensive but not totally out of reach for the public domain, it is really not that hard to make it, it would become really cheap with more public demand because this is what drives the costs up or down.
you can look up Aerogel on wiki or do a google search on Aerogel, there are a lot of hits on the subject.
the process can also be made to make different types of Aerogels with different properties by doping the Aerogels with other elements.
currently with industrial demand Aerogel manufacturers only make small square panels anywhere from a few inches to about 1 foot square, the people making these panels are small time corporations that don't have the financial backup to make a full blown Aerogel Insulating plants on a mass scale. large industry.
using Aerogel as an energy insulator can save billions of dollars in wasted energy used to heat or to cool homes, warehouses, industrial plants.
it would actually reduce the amount of energy we use yearly, sometimes power grids are overloaded by people running there AC units all at once causing the system to shut down because their insulation doesn't have the proper efficiency to reduce use of energy that's not even needed.
Aerogel is more of a state of the art type insulation.
demand it and it will become more convenient and less costly.
anyone can buy Aerogel but like I said, it's a little costly and somebody would probably go cheaper, go cheaper and you get what you pay for, less efficiency as far as insulation is concerned.
with Aerogel you would never need an AC unit because it is so efficient that by simply adjusting an open window in your house would cool or heat the home.
Jerry ;)
Jerry is right. I looked it up on the web and had two companies that can deliver in appr. one week. Thanks Jerry!
My cousin uses geothermal for their home with 12" of foam insulation in the walls. At Christmas during winter, our family gathers at their house. They will have all the windows in the house wide open cause of the heat generated from all the people and the cooking........and it remains hot in the house even 4 - 6 hours after the cooking with the windows still open. They have 5 bedrooms with 5 bathrooms and a full size basement with 2 double car garage attached. It is not a small house, so what would happen if you did this with a smaller size house? You probably wouldn't be able to live in it, LOL.
There's a total of 7 people who live there. They're always sick due to the house being over-insulated. They even have air purifiers and filters through out the house to help.
Over-insulating your home will make it a germ factory and you will be sick a lot, trust me.
Quote from: Evogreen on November 17, 2009, 11:31:00 PM
Thanks for the reply Jerry. Yeah i did some reading and can see that it is not feasable to use a goethermal system for generating electricity.
evogreen.ca (http://evogreen.ca)
the ones for commercial power are used to generate electricity by drilling two holes, they pour water down one side, which hits the heat and vaporizes, and a fairly strong force of steam comes shooting out of the other pipe, which they use on a crank
for residential, i would go for something similar to a stirling engine, or any motor that works on variations in heat, which would work best in cold places, which can easily be used to generate electricity