Great Article @doktorzoom! Jason from the Building Decarbonization Coalition (BDC) here. Wanted to just note that in the quote, it should be Lisa (not Liz) Dix. And that while BDC is a member of the UpgradeNY Collaboration, Lisa works at BDC, serving as the organization's New York Director, not at UpgradeNY.
In addition, email me and I can send you some more information on Thermal Energy Networks and how they help us scale building decarbonization. You can find my email on the BDC website under some of our recent statements regarding building decarbonization in NY
Bjorn Lomborg called. He said this cruel to the homeless and if you were a decent person, you'd wait for controlled fusion to create infinite electricity.
The Soviet Union had "district heating" going back to (if I understood correctly) the 1950s. From a foreign migrant to Russia, there was mention of the oddity in Russia of overheated apartments, and people having to sit around in their underewear, with the windows opened, in the Russian winter... then again, the Soviets weren't known for not going to excess.
This is a great thing, and there is a small chance I might even get to work on it since one of the 13 projects is right where my office is (Ithaca), and we work for the utility company doing the work.
One thing I note however is how this sort of system is designed from the ground-up (no pun intended) to be capital-intensive and tie-in the utility companies. Unlike putting up your own solar or wind or geothermal system for your house, you're wedded in these systems to Big Energy. Of course in urban areas you need a community-based solution, and even outside of cities few people have their own money to install alternative energy systems. (How many people in suburbia can go "off the grid"?) I'm just saying that big business is going to find a way to re-invent itself and suck-up a lot of the money and support from government that individuals would like to get for small-scale projects. Building big projects is sexy. Insulating houses and replacing windows? Not so much.
Ah, but there's also IRA money for building insulation and the rest, and even a building that's on district heat/cooling can go solar to power its internal fans and whatnots. There are going to be a lot of variations on decarbonizing; the one thing we all have to keep pushing for is making sure that low income communities get in on the good clean stuff too. That's already built into the IRA, and needs to go across all parts of the energy transition.
On top of that, just the fact that we'll be getting rid of fossil fuel will mean so much less sickness and death from lung and heart disease in areas that are currently near highways, power plants, and industrial facilities.
This! One thing that infuriates me is when people say “oh… but solar doesn’t work at night!” Or “what happens when the wind stops blowing!” We need a network of alternatives that work together and start to turn the ship around. Will we ever get to 100% decarbonization? Probably not. Is 90% or 75% still a big improvement? Of course. There is no one magic bullet, so we need to push ahead on ALL fronts.
If you aren't already following Dave Roberts's Volts podcast, I really recommend it. He and energy nerd Jesse Jenkins did a terrific deep dive in November on all the ways the "intermittency" of wind and solar are already being addressed, and what's on the way. https://www.volts.wtf/p/what-the-sun-isnt-always-shining
Geothermal heat came with my new house! While I'm more in favor of municipal projects like this, I'm in the country now, so if you want to be off the grid you need to do it yourself, I guess. It's real toasty warm, and the power bills are very low. (Once I got it working. It needed a new unit just before the owner went into assisted living, so she had it put in, but nobody noticed the thermostat was fubar.)
As a resident of a western state, I’ve gotta ask “where is all this water coming from?” Is it grey water? Is it coming from water treatment plants? Rain water collection? Rivers?
Mostly from geothermal reserves that are far underground, and therefore not useful for anything else.
I don't know enough about the details of the system - and certainly there is some water loss during operation - but it is a "mostly closed" system. Tap into the reservoir underground, pump out the hot water, then pump it back in to the same reservoir when it cools to be reheated again.
According to this, it can be as low as 1% of fluid flow.
We in Austin (and Phoenix) also have District Cooling plants. When it's hot, hotty, hot outside, we take renewable power and power plant electrons at night, refrigerate water and send it down insulated pipes who circulate through the building and much lower costs than installing giant cooling towers and pumps and the system can lower the temperature to being so cold you must wear pants!
Literally. Didn't a lot of apartment blocks in Moscow and other Russian cities get heated by communal steam tunnels?
Of course, the only thing most people will care about is, does the thing heat and cool properly and reliably, even when it's really hot or really cold out?
Ah... that's what I was thinking of when I posted above. Apparently, it's kind of a joke.. people in the middle of Russian winter opening the windows in their apartments, and sitting around in their underwear.
Heat pumps were never popular in colder climates because the closer the outside temperature gets to freezing the harder it gets to extract heat from the air. And if it gets in the 20s they need an additional heat source to stay warm. That is usually electric strip heaters, like a larger version of the portable plug in home heaters with coils that turn red as it heats up. That is very expensive to operate if it turns on most nights and some days.
But if you tap into an acquifer a few hundred feet deep where the water temperature is a steady 50 to 55 degrees it's much easier to get an efficient heat pump. And even save money on air conditioning in the summer because you are not having to cool outside air at 90 degrees to 75 degrees inside. I expect industrial capacity heat pumps could be even more efficient than a bunch of single residential units. And the cost of drilling wells, installing pumps, and other mechanical equipment would be spread over many users. Some are being used now but a lot more could be installed with some encouragement and financial considerations.
That used to be true. It's not any longer. I have 3 heat pumps here in the mountains in Maine, and they work well below 0°F. Their efficiency approaches 100% at those temps, meaning that a watt of electricity is required to get a watt of heat out of it. Typically they're 300-400% efficient.
To say that heat pumps don't work in winter or on cold climates is simply false. My units don't have resistance heaters in them, just straight heat pumps. They are brilliant technology, and very cost effective especially when paired with solar.
We really hoped to have a heat pump in our new house. Unfortunately, the water temperature is in the low 40s, it's very deep, the soil is rocky alluvium. It would take more energy to put it in and operate than we could get out.
We'll be putting in a solar array this year which will cut down on the need for gris power.
Just look at Pratt Institute y'all. I think it's relevant.
Great Article @doktorzoom! Jason from the Building Decarbonization Coalition (BDC) here. Wanted to just note that in the quote, it should be Lisa (not Liz) Dix. And that while BDC is a member of the UpgradeNY Collaboration, Lisa works at BDC, serving as the organization's New York Director, not at UpgradeNY.
In addition, email me and I can send you some more information on Thermal Energy Networks and how they help us scale building decarbonization. You can find my email on the BDC website under some of our recent statements regarding building decarbonization in NY
https://buildingdecarb.org/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0szHqIXQ2R8
I assume someone already had to have done this but I don't see it, so ....
♩♩♫♩ ♩♩♫♩ ♩♩♫♩ ♩♩♫♩ ♩♩♫♩ ♩♩♫♩
Yeah, I got, shh, clean heat
I got, shh, clean heat
I got, shh, clean heat
But I need your love to keep away the cold
Ta, Dok. Yes, this is a glimmer of hope, but I'm still glad I never had kids.
Bjorn Lomborg called. He said this cruel to the homeless and if you were a decent person, you'd wait for controlled fusion to create infinite electricity.
The Soviet Union had "district heating" going back to (if I understood correctly) the 1950s. From a foreign migrant to Russia, there was mention of the oddity in Russia of overheated apartments, and people having to sit around in their underewear, with the windows opened, in the Russian winter... then again, the Soviets weren't known for not going to excess.
Maybe that’s why Nixon showed Nikita the Nutone Kitchen Appliance… even though he didn’t have a clue as to what it was.
Exhibit A: the Moscow subway stations
This is a great thing, and there is a small chance I might even get to work on it since one of the 13 projects is right where my office is (Ithaca), and we work for the utility company doing the work.
One thing I note however is how this sort of system is designed from the ground-up (no pun intended) to be capital-intensive and tie-in the utility companies. Unlike putting up your own solar or wind or geothermal system for your house, you're wedded in these systems to Big Energy. Of course in urban areas you need a community-based solution, and even outside of cities few people have their own money to install alternative energy systems. (How many people in suburbia can go "off the grid"?) I'm just saying that big business is going to find a way to re-invent itself and suck-up a lot of the money and support from government that individuals would like to get for small-scale projects. Building big projects is sexy. Insulating houses and replacing windows? Not so much.
You live in Ithaca, I grew up one lake over... Geneva. Try getting this into places like Trumansburg or Dundee or Kashong.
Ah, but there's also IRA money for building insulation and the rest, and even a building that's on district heat/cooling can go solar to power its internal fans and whatnots. There are going to be a lot of variations on decarbonizing; the one thing we all have to keep pushing for is making sure that low income communities get in on the good clean stuff too. That's already built into the IRA, and needs to go across all parts of the energy transition.
On top of that, just the fact that we'll be getting rid of fossil fuel will mean so much less sickness and death from lung and heart disease in areas that are currently near highways, power plants, and industrial facilities.
This! One thing that infuriates me is when people say “oh… but solar doesn’t work at night!” Or “what happens when the wind stops blowing!” We need a network of alternatives that work together and start to turn the ship around. Will we ever get to 100% decarbonization? Probably not. Is 90% or 75% still a big improvement? Of course. There is no one magic bullet, so we need to push ahead on ALL fronts.
If you aren't already following Dave Roberts's Volts podcast, I really recommend it. He and energy nerd Jesse Jenkins did a terrific deep dive in November on all the ways the "intermittency" of wind and solar are already being addressed, and what's on the way. https://www.volts.wtf/p/what-the-sun-isnt-always-shining
Geothermal heat came with my new house! While I'm more in favor of municipal projects like this, I'm in the country now, so if you want to be off the grid you need to do it yourself, I guess. It's real toasty warm, and the power bills are very low. (Once I got it working. It needed a new unit just before the owner went into assisted living, so she had it put in, but nobody noticed the thermostat was fubar.)
As a resident of a western state, I’ve gotta ask “where is all this water coming from?” Is it grey water? Is it coming from water treatment plants? Rain water collection? Rivers?
I presume the water is in a closed-loop. And we have plenty of it out here in NY.
Mostly from geothermal reserves that are far underground, and therefore not useful for anything else.
I don't know enough about the details of the system - and certainly there is some water loss during operation - but it is a "mostly closed" system. Tap into the reservoir underground, pump out the hot water, then pump it back in to the same reservoir when it cools to be reheated again.
According to this, it can be as low as 1% of fluid flow.
https://publications.mygeoenergynow.org/grc/1033635.pdf
Grey water, and other water that's not really safe for human consumption. Like runoff from closed mines....
We in Austin (and Phoenix) also have District Cooling plants. When it's hot, hotty, hot outside, we take renewable power and power plant electrons at night, refrigerate water and send it down insulated pipes who circulate through the building and much lower costs than installing giant cooling towers and pumps and the system can lower the temperature to being so cold you must wear pants!
I literally JUST wrote a discussion post about enhanced geothermal energy for grad school!
Thanks Doc, you are really on top of things!
"District heating" sounds Communist.
Literally. Didn't a lot of apartment blocks in Moscow and other Russian cities get heated by communal steam tunnels?
Of course, the only thing most people will care about is, does the thing heat and cool properly and reliably, even when it's really hot or really cold out?
Ah... that's what I was thinking of when I posted above. Apparently, it's kind of a joke.. people in the middle of Russian winter opening the windows in their apartments, and sitting around in their underwear.
It's Thermal Socialism!
All your degrees are belong to us!
And here in Utah, the Speaker of the House is still claiming that coal is the best energy source.
Heat pumps were never popular in colder climates because the closer the outside temperature gets to freezing the harder it gets to extract heat from the air. And if it gets in the 20s they need an additional heat source to stay warm. That is usually electric strip heaters, like a larger version of the portable plug in home heaters with coils that turn red as it heats up. That is very expensive to operate if it turns on most nights and some days.
But if you tap into an acquifer a few hundred feet deep where the water temperature is a steady 50 to 55 degrees it's much easier to get an efficient heat pump. And even save money on air conditioning in the summer because you are not having to cool outside air at 90 degrees to 75 degrees inside. I expect industrial capacity heat pumps could be even more efficient than a bunch of single residential units. And the cost of drilling wells, installing pumps, and other mechanical equipment would be spread over many users. Some are being used now but a lot more could be installed with some encouragement and financial considerations.
That used to be true. It's not any longer. I have 3 heat pumps here in the mountains in Maine, and they work well below 0°F. Their efficiency approaches 100% at those temps, meaning that a watt of electricity is required to get a watt of heat out of it. Typically they're 300-400% efficient.
To say that heat pumps don't work in winter or on cold climates is simply false. My units don't have resistance heaters in them, just straight heat pumps. They are brilliant technology, and very cost effective especially when paired with solar.
We really hoped to have a heat pump in our new house. Unfortunately, the water temperature is in the low 40s, it's very deep, the soil is rocky alluvium. It would take more energy to put it in and operate than we could get out.
We'll be putting in a solar array this year which will cut down on the need for gris power.
Just do air source heat pumps. Even a whole-house system is worth considering.
I've got a nice heat pump in my apt. Previous tenants put it in by stealth! There wasn't any digging or anything. Works great.
In hot regions shafts can be drilled (shallower) to supply constant 54 f air.