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Google's New Startup Heats Your Home With Energy From Your Lawn (cnn.com)
WindBourne shares an article about Google's plans for "an extremely cheap form of HVAC." CNN reports:
A new startup called Dandelion, born from the secretive and futuristic lab "X" of Google's parent company Alphabet, says it will offer affordable geothermal heating and cooling systems to homeowners. Existing systems are typically expensive with big upfront installation fees, discouraging homeowners from adopting the technology... Installing the pipes -- called "ground loops" -- under someone's lawn is a traditionally invasive, messy process. It involves using wide drills that dig wells more than 1,000 feet underground. Dandelion's drill is fast and lean, allowing for only one or two deep holes a few inches wide. The system will cost between $20,000 and $25,000, compared to conventional systems priced as high as $60,000.
Geothermal systems are better for the environment because they significantly cut down on carbon dioxide emissions... Buildings are responsible for 39% of carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S., according to the U.S. Green Building Council. Most of these emissions come from the combustion of fossil fuels to provide the building with heating, cooling and lighting, and to power appliances and electrical equipment.
Google has been studying the potential of geothermal energy since 2011. Dandelion will eventually partner with local companies to handle installations -- and is already accepting sign-ups from customers in New York.
Geothermal systems are better for the environment because they significantly cut down on carbon dioxide emissions... Buildings are responsible for 39% of carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S., according to the U.S. Green Building Council. Most of these emissions come from the combustion of fossil fuels to provide the building with heating, cooling and lighting, and to power appliances and electrical equipment.
Google has been studying the potential of geothermal energy since 2011. Dandelion will eventually partner with local companies to handle installations -- and is already accepting sign-ups from customers in New York.
No, not a start-up, a new subsidiary. Stop misusing terms - this has the full backing of Google as a throwaway corporation, it's not five people in a bedroom with a great idea struggling to pay their bills.
I suspect that they don't actually mean geothermal in the Icelandic sense but in the "hey, let's use the thermal mass of the earth as the heat reservoir for a heat-pump", where "heat-pump" is basically a reversible air-conditioner (it can move heat in either direction). Most air conditioners use the outside air as the heat resevoir, which is is not terribly good during summer if you're trying to cool. The earth a few feet down soon goes to a relatively constant temperature.
The problem with ground-source is avoiding locallized heating/cooling in the ground. You either need very heat-conductive ground or lots of contact space.
Of course, you can also do the same thing with a body of water that doesn't freeze in the winter or get too hot in the summer.
What's the point of heating if it goes straight out a poorly insulated wall or roof? Follow the passive house standard and you won't even need extra heating.
What we do is we create rectangular holes in your house, then we put glass in the holes, and then you can use the heat from the sun to heat up your house!
We have already been granted a patent for this, back in 2007, and it is called "Windows 9". We have also sued everyone that has infringed upon our patent, including Microsoft. Ever wonder why there wasn't a Windows version 9?
Now you know.
is that this only makes sense for very wll insulated housed. The efficiency of heat pump systems decreases with the output temperature. In old houses you need a high output temperature due to all the heat loss, which means that the efficiency is low. For well insulated houses a much lower output temperature is necessary, so not only is there less energy required for heating, it is also produced much more efficiently.
We have a ground heat pump installed in our house (which was built seven years ago). There are three holes, each 90m deep. The heat pump is of course driven by electricity, which then extracts about 3 to four times the heat energy from the ground. Basically you can think of it as an amplified electric heating. Installation cost is relatively high (especially compared to gas heating), but running costs are much lower.
And it would be a great system to store excess solar or wind energy, provided that large enough tanks for the heated water are installed.
Signature deleted by lameness filter.
The Google "secret sauce" in this seems to be a "special" drill for putting in the wells for the ground loops.
In the the videos I've seen of this, the drill looks to be about 18 inches in diameter. this seems to claim a smaller diameter drill.
The primary reason people tend to not use heat pumps is they are electric and electricity from the utility is expensive. very cheap renewables (wind/solar) is what is required for this to be feasible.
In Europe such systems are much more common and prices much lower than the ones proposed here.
I included a link (in German) where such systems cost between 10 and 12000€ for a system getting the heat out of the air, out of the soil or out from the ground water.
The latter depending on local regulations, since it's impossible for everyone in a street to cool down the ground water, so they have to be a bit more apart, usually around 300 Meters.
http://www.erdwaermepumpe.de/k...
There'll be a free option if you let Google use your lawn to display ads. It'll be called ... [sunglasses] ... Google Grass.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
OK, so they save some money by using thinner boreholes, but how? The width of the boreholes is determined by the need to insert a loop of 2 pipes with big enough diameter to handle the coolant. If you decrease the pipe size, the resistance increases dramatically and pretty soon you're so much energy to pump it you're not saving anything. Maybe they are running the refrigerant directly into the loops, instead of water/methanol as is typical, but that's just a guess. In any case, you're not going to save $35,000 on the wells. We put in geothermal 2 years ago, I researched it pretty thoroughly and I've never heard of a system costing $60,000, so that's just a wild exaggeration. The estimates for our house ranged $31,000-36,000 and it's pretty rare for a system to top $45,000. I've never heard of anyone with 1000-ft deep wells, either. We have two 360-ft wells (although the house is small ~1500 sf). In the end, I acted as my own contractor. I paid the driller $14,000 to put in the loops, bought a heat pump on ebay, and paid a plumber to link it to the existing cast iron radiators, so no messing with the ductwork. Total cost was ~$21,000, or ~$15,000 after the (now expired) tax credit. But my point is, the loops aren't the only reason these systems are expensive. The fancy heat pumps they typically use are pretty pricey, especially after a nice markup by the HVAC contractor. If alterations to the ductwork are necessary, that's a lot of expensive labor. If Dandelion can do it cheaper, great, but I remain skeptical of how much they can save just by making the wells thinner.