Showing posts with label geo engineering. Show all posts
Showing posts with label geo engineering. Show all posts

Monday, January 19, 2009

Geothermal system for house air conditioning



Do you know how much power is utilized for the working of the air conditioning system in your houses?It is a huge load.The power used for these purposes is more of coming from the non renewable sources of energy.So how is  the plan of setting up a air conditioning system with the support of earth's energy.Yes the earth's energy is what is called geothermal energy one of the most important renewable sources of energy.It is actually easily affordable for the common man to install a geothermal ground source heat pump(it is also called so).More than that one can avoid using the fossil fuel which is costlier to get a more clean green fuel.


Two ground-source heat pump units stacked on top of each other. Heat is extracted or added to water which is pumped undergound.

Strictly speaking, what's often called a "geothermal system" is a misnomer because it implies tapping the heat in the Earth, something already done at large scale to supply electricity to utilities. This geothermal energy--and its offshoot enhanced geothermal--works only works in certain geographies and uses different technology.Rather than use underground heat, geothermal heat pumps attached to buildings capitalize on the steady temperature of the ground or deep water wells. In effect, they treat the Earth like a giant energy savings bank, depositing or withdrawing heat depending on the time of year.

The pump room at an apartment building in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.

During the summer, the systems pump indoor heat to underground and draw on the lower temperatures of the Earth to cool a building. In colder months, the same process works in reverse order where the heat from the ground being used to warm indoor air in the building.

Indoors are box-shaped heat pumps that pull and and push either water or a working fluid, such as antifreeze, in and out of the ground. Using the same compressor loop mechanism that a refrigerator has, a heat exchanger draws energy from the circulating liquid to either heat or cool a building.

In actual calculations geothermal system uses only 25 to 50 % less electricity than the conventional way of air conditioning.Also the amintenance cost of the system is nearly half of that of conventional method.Under the recently passed federal there is renewable soourdes of energy incentives of $2000 per year credit.The only disadvantage of the geothermal system is that its initial capital is little expensive that it comes about the double charge as that of the conventional heating and cooling.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Geo engineering-new green technology


Geo Engineering -What does it mean? what isits motive? So many questions may arise when you hear a word or term like that.The answer is simple I tell you.It is a drastic counter measure to reduce or nullify the ill effects on our planet due to various human activities like global warming,Polar ice melting etc..This branch of science tries to deal with the problem of global issues like this with a solution which can create an opposite effect on the environment to get it back to its green nature using the natural phenomenons to counter act it. This concept was actually rejected by many scientists as a 'fringe science' when it was introduced back in 1960s.But now its application or use is more clear and transparent that one can't easily avoid it.


One of the examples they trying to do is to create an artificial volcano to counter act the devastating effect of global warming due to the accumulation of green house gases like carbon dioxide, methane etc...
This volcanic erruptions can release to the atmo
sphere tons of sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere which can cause a temporary cooling effect on the planet. The sulphur dioxide would react to form a cloud of sulfuric acid droplets that would in turn reflect sunlight and helps in cooling.how these materials aredelivered to the stratosphere is not actually designed.It can be achieved by using ballons or cannons or high altitude flying planes.But these project would cost a lot of financial holdings.It can cost like about $1 billion to $50 billion a year.Also there is a problem dealing with these valcanic erruptions that it hinder the repair of ozone hole.Isn't it worth doing or just a waste of money is a hot topic in the discussions of many scientists.But really no cost would be so high if it can make a change in the global scenario that can reduce a devastating effect like global warming.