advantages of geothermal energy
Advantages Of Geothermal EnergyImagine that you arrive home from work on a cold winter day and retrieve your mail. As the stinging icy breeze hits your hands, you pull out your latest energy bill and hope for the best. To your delight, your home energy costs are reasonable even with a harsh winter climate; geothermal energy is one of the most efficient, cost-effective ways to heat your home throughout the year, and that is only one of the advantages of geothermal energy.
Importantly, geothermal energy sources can provide heating and cooling to supplement your traditional home energy system, and are vastly more efficient than traditional systems.
Geothermal energy systems result in up to 50% improvements over traditional heat pumps, resulting in less electricity use, more stable energy regulation and more sustainable environmental practices. Modern geothermal energy systems are highly efficient and require less maintenance given their ingenious, relatively simple design. For homes with existing zone-based heating and cooling, the systems can be fully integrated for a combination of energy savings and comfort.
While the technology has improved rapidly in recent decades, the core engineering insights date back to the 1850s from Lord Kelvin, while scientists in the post-war era developed some of the first modern implementations. A variety of local governments have directly installed the systems to benefit from reduced greenhouse emissions, lower energy costs and more sustainable energy practices. In fact, entire cities in Iceland, such as Reykjavik rely upon geothermal ground systems to provide a substantial part of their heating needs. Although geothermal systems provide less than 1/2% of global energy supplies, they are a growing factor in the green energy movement for their cost and environmental-efficiency in markets across the world.
One of the primary benefits of geothermal technology is its impact on reducing carbon-emissions which contribute to global warming. With vastly improved efficiency standards, geothermal heating sources emit much less pollution than traditional heating and cooling systems, reducing reliance upon fossil fuels. While the environmental benefits are well documented, the economic advantages of the systems are also impressive: geothermal heating systems can help lower energy bills for buildings, homes and direct energy applications with substantial results.
Many of the world’s leading energy producers, such as Chevron, have invested in the technology, recognizing its role in the future of sustainable energy production. In technologically-savvy countries such as Sweden and China, households have rapidly adopted the technology to heat water, homes and buildings. Cities such as Portland rely upon the systems to provide a stable source of municipal energy supply.
Since the core of the earth is heated on a relatively stable basis, energy systems can utilize this consistent temperature to extract energy on a regular basis. The systems can provide both heating and cooling with high levels of efficiency. Both the public and private sector are actively investing in the technology, and estimates from MIT suggest that rapid adoption can produce over 100 GW of energy within the next few decades (source: http://geothermal.inel.gov/publications/future_of_geothermal_energy.pdf).
As energy firms increase the efficiency of the systems and drill deeper to extract even more energy (where the temperatures are higher), the advantages of geothermal energy become a credible alternative to traditional fossil fuels for heating and cooling generation.
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