Why don't more people get geothermal

Just the other day I read an article about how geothermal heat pump use grew 33% in 2006. 

And even without financial incentives from the government or energy utilities, says John Shonder of the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, “ground-source heat pumps have the lowest life-cycle costs in several cost studies that I’ve done” of heating and air-conditioning systems….

The systems pay for themselves in three to eight years, depending on “location and energy prices,” Mr. Shonder said.

Very cool.  I'm guessing they're not more common because a lot of people aren't aware that it's an option.  I certainly hadn't heard much about it before reading this article.  Not something we need in northern California anyway though :-)

If you use any form of heating and cooling system it would be to your advantage to install Geothermal.  Geothermal is well worth the expense wheather you live in the hottest parts of the South or West or the coldest of the North. Geothermal is the only sensible way to go.

I own Jeff Brewer Mechanical, a full line, licensed and insured, heating and cooling company.  I have been seeing a real increase in people interested in geothermal.  It makes sense to upgrade with energy costs soaring and in the interest of helping the planet.  If you are interested in more info on geothermal, call me at 810-688-4338.  Please visit my new web site at    www.jeffbrewermechanicalllc.com  for more information about us and to see pictures of some of our work on all aspects of heating and cooling.

is geothermal an option for homes in the city where most of a person's property is taken up by the footprint of the house? I'd imagine the installation requires the drilling of quite a few deep holes. Can that be done through a basement? Is it advisable? Does it cost more?

A new furnace and AC unit will cost anywhere from $3k to $9k or more if you have a huge home. $16k to $30k is 3-5 times as much. I imagine that's a hard pill for most homeowners to swallow, even if it is a net gain in the long term. For similar reasons you don't see every homeowner installing solar cells on their rooftops. Yes it's a long term net gain but the pay off date is too far in the future for it to be worth it to most people.

 OK, so I’m late entering this discussion.  I agree with the trend here...geo-thermal is the way to go.  It does cost more but a 3 - 7 year payback is quite good.  The space issue Mattress mentions can be overcome in some circumstances by going down rather than horizontally. 

We are installing geo-thermal units in our new house, and they will use about 500 linear feet of 3/4” ID piping, filled with a conducting liquid called “Environal”.  This “loop” circulates around the 500 ft. circuit and exchanges heat from the ground.  The loop is buried outside of the home about 6 feet deep, and the ground there carries a constant 55 - 58 degrees F.  The loop can be laid out going across and back a space, but will take up a space about 20 ft by 100 ft.  An alternative is to bury the Loop down, rather than horizontally.  You should then only need  top ground space maybe 10 ft by 10 ft, or so, and going deeper, should get to warmer constant temperatures.

In any event, we expect the payback for our system will be 3-4 years as it will carry the bulk of the heating load for the home, and for hot water, as well as most of the cooling load for the house.  The back up system is electric, but we expect the need for that capability will be infrequent.

Happy to discuss further.

We need to replace our heat pump and we are very interested in the geothermal water furnace. I would be very interested in hearing how you are enjoying your water furnace. Thank you very much.

Here is a video on geothermal heating if anyone is interested in this technology.

take a look at Iceland. There is so much geothermal activity there that most of their electricity comes from geothermal production. In addition to this, I also saw a video that they are pushing for hydrogen fuel cell cars, they are producing the hydrogen using the geothermal. Very interesting i thought. I saw this all about a year ago so I don't remember where exactly unfortunately :/

Iceland has stepped back from hydrogen, and they're more likely to pursue electric vehicles now.

http://www.eenews.net/public/climatewire/2009/07/01/1

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dana Nuccitelli 

Iceland has stepped back from hydrogen, and they're more likely to pursue electric vehicles now.

 

http://www.eenews.net/public/climatewire/2009/07/01/1

Hmmm, The Icelandic hydrogen generation was 100% electrically produced (via electrolysis) using electricity mostly from geo-thermal. Liquid hydrogen is a very nice way to store energy, no toxic & limited-life batteries, like today's EVs. I'm thinking that perhaps market-forces are pushing the Icelanders to EVs & away from more environmentally friendly liquid hydrogen. As EV prices come down, they fall below the cost of a hydrogen-converted internal

combustion

EVs seem like only a stop-gap measure in the world gaining freedom from oil. Given the long-term problems with batteries. (pronounced : TOXIC waste)

I bet that if GM threw it's considerable R&D behind large-scale production of efficient hydrogen motors, we would soon forget about EVs. But I suspect the oil-companies aren't too keen on that. The same oil-companies that supported the US government bail-out of GM.

The problem with hydrogen is that it is so abundant that it cannot ever be a limited commodity. Power is the ability to control a limited commodity.

Thanks for the resources on this! I completely agree with you mountain. It definitely seems like the world has turned off to hydrogen lately, you haven't heard anything about it on the news or even in blogs. What happened to hydrogen? In Iceland's case I think hydrogen is the best solution there, considering how they produce it, I understand that EV would still be powered by their geothermally generated electricity but the battery production and the battery itself and the long term effects make hydrogen a better solution in my mind. Seems at this point the biggest hindrance to hydrogen is the cost, which seems to be the case in Iceland.

spamme00  -  very fine review!

what seems perplexing in 2012 is that drilling costs are still high,  heat pump units are perhaps better priced due to the economy, oil is down 30% from 2008, and natural gas is way down and expected to stay low for a long time.

Shale fracking, horizontal drilling and more arctic natural gas reserves  means nat gas will be stable and low for a long time.

However, in the north here, the natural gas is delivered by a monopoly.  The cuft. unit cost stays at market value(?)  Pile on Delivery Fee, plus a Transportation Fee ( a new way of charging delivery twice), an astronomical fixed Customer Charge (tripled over the past 8 years to make up for low market costs of gas these days) and all of this taxed, my worst case month long winter bill for a high end Veissman Boiler for heat and hot water goes from  $17.63 of actual natural gas to a Total bill of $130.22  with all these gouging fees added on top.  i am powerless to stop this for the past 10 years.

I regret getting natural gas but  my space is too small to even fit the driller for geothermal.

electricity here is going up gradually but still cheap by comparison - and electricity also has $40 minimum account charge per month.

Given the trend for long term cheap natural gas, will natural gas make more sense even though there are yearly service maintenance required?  My boiler is 8 years old and expected to last from 30 to 55 years.  It is a high end German model.

I have read too many horror stories of bad geothermal installations or system design ( under or oversized), gouging on pricing, and the payback period taking decades instead of the 7 years I was first told about.  requiring a gas back up heater for the cold climate would make the whole exercise mute.

THis is a great thread - I would just echo that absolutely the major barrier to the wider use of ground source heat pumps is the lack of qualified and expert installers as well as those who need to work with them to get the job done (e.g. plumbers).  These and most types of renewable home energy system rely on word of mouth in many areas to get a groundswell of popularity, and when something goes wrong it can turn off many people quite quickly.  Done correctly, I think geothermal could be a major force - but as grvillage says quite well, the infrastructure is not there. 

My home building company specializes in high performance/green building. We have used ground source geothermal systems in the past, but I no longer recommend them for the following reasons.

1. The initial cost is VERY high compared with other options.

2. Here in Northwest Connecticut we pay a lot for our electricity (about 20 cents/ kilowatt).This makes the payback period much longer than in other parts of the country where electric power is cheaper.

3.Geothermal heat pumps do not create their own energy, but simply use grid supplied electrical power to move energy into or out of the earth. This requires a LOT of electricity  ( which is typically generated by coal, other fossil fuels and nuclear)

4. Geothermal systems frequently use electric resistance heat as the back up heating source. In our area this is the most expensive way to heat. It is very inefficient (as measured by looking at the amount of energy in the original fossil fuel burned at the power plant vs. the amount of heat generated by the electric resistance back up heat). This means on the coldest days these systems are the most expensive to operate and have a the biggest carbon footprint.

5. Geothermal systems are very complex. Parts are not stock items at supply houses. If a geothermal system fails it can easily take a week to diagnose the problem, and get the appropriate repair parts. This leaves the house without a heating(or cooling) system for an extended period.

6. I prefer horizontal loop geothermal systems because they can be less expensive than drilling multiple wells 250 feet into the ground for heat exchange. However many home sites do not have the type of soil conditions/space to install horizontal loop systems at a reasonable cost.

7. I recommend no air conditioning if possible. Proper design can often make it unnecessary. If air conditioning is can't be avoided there are air source heat pumps that are nearly as energy efficient as geothermal. These systems are far less complex,and much less expensive.

8. If air conditioning can be avoided I would recommend that solar thermal be the first "alternative energy source" to be considered.

9.Before any "alternative" energy source is considered the primary focus should be on making the building shell as energy efficient as possible. With a high performance building envelope very little energy is required to heat or cool the building  (or in some cases no energy at all). Alternative energy sources can then be used to produce the small amount of energy required by such a building.

10. NET ZERO energy should be the goal for all new buildings today.

11. Geothermal can be viable in very limited situations. First there should be an inexpensive/green source for electrical power. A large flat lot with sandy soil makes horizontal loop systems less expensive to install. Access to a privately owned body of water (pond) can make geothermal an even more appealing option because energy can be pumped into and out of the pond rather than directly into the earth. The pond options is rare, but is an ideal match to geothermal.