Image Credit: WFI Industries

One of the most overlooked and effective geothermal technologies is the heat pump. As shown in the diagram above, the technology can be used for heating and cooling and depending on the annual temperature variance from the base earth temperature, annual savings vs. conventional HVAC equipment can be as high as 50% per year. Essentially, these systems use the earth (or water held in the earth) as a heat exchanger, moving heat from one place to another via a working fluid in a closed loop system.

In a heating situation, if the ambient air temperature is 32F (0C) and the earth temperature is 53F (12C) the working fluid will be used to transfer heat from the earth to the interior ambient environment – a 21F (12C) advantage over taking exterior ambient air – and then will use conventional means to heat the air to the desired temperature. In a cooling situation, it’s the reverse taking heat from the interior ambient air and transferring it to the earth. Since most humans don’t wish to live in 53F temperatures, further cooling isn’t generally necessary.

One of the leaders in geothermal heat pumps is Indiana based WFI Industries, manufacturer of the Water Furnace. It would seem over the past few years that WFI has been discovered, take a look at their stock chart from that time frame:


Image Credit: Yahoo Finance

This is clearly a technology with huge benefits, particularly where the climate has significant differences in ambient air temperature between summer and winter conditions.

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Via Cleantech.com:

Tokyo-based Toyota Motor (NYSE: TM) said it plans to start selling plug-in hybrid vehicles by 2010.

That would put the new cars in direct competition with the Chevy Volt from Detroit’s General Motors (NYSE: GM), another plug-in hybrid expected to be released that year.

Toyota said the first sales of its lithium-ion battery-equipped plug-in hybrid vehicles would be to fleet customers in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Read more…

This is the first of many of these sorts of announcements we should expect, the PHEV is a sensible next step in the evolution toward all electric transportation. As can be seen from the troubles with Tesla, it’s very difficult to simply jump from combustion technology to all electric (though we’re still wondering why an electric vehicle needs a transmission per se…)

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This short film was Produced by Frank DiMassa and T.H. Culhane (narrated by T.H.) Sure, it’s a little cheesy, but you can get a look around a Geysers dry steam plant and it does hit the high points on the benefits of geothermal power.

HT: Yahoo Geothermal Energy Group

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Last week US Geothermal announced that the construction phase of the 13MW Raft River One Unit is now completed. After a little more testing, the facility will enter production (although the test power is being sold presently according to the company.) Congratulations to US Geothermal on making the leap from developer to operator.

Raft River Plant during Construction

Photo Credit: US Geothermal

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