The Goracle threw down the gauntlet again yesterday, earning praise for consistency of vision if nothing else. He’s got a compelling point at the heart of his speech: We’re borrowing money from China, to buy a product from the Arabian Gulf, whose use poisons our environment. It’d be swell to willingly suspend belief and get on board.
But, as Steven Den Beste writes, “hoo-ah” don’t get it done. The physics are daunting.
In order for “alternate energy” to become feasible, it has to satisfy all of the following criteria:
1. It has to be huge (in terms of both energy and power)
2. It has to be reliable (not intermittent or unschedulable)
3. It has to be concentrated (not diffuse)
4. It has to be possible to utilize it efficiently
5. The capital investment and operating cost to utilize it has to be comparable to existing energy sources (per gigawatt, and per terajoule).If it fails to satisfy any of those, then it can’t scale enough to make any difference. Solar power fails #3, and currently it also fails #5. (It also partially fails #2, but there are ways to work around that.)
The only sources of energy available to us now that satisfy all five are petroleum, coal, hydro, and nuclear.
So there’s that. Even if, as James Pethokoukis points out, Gore’s plan wouldn’t be crushingly expensive:
(Converting) the whole economy to renewable energy in a short period of time might cost $5 trillion
That is the problemm with the warmers/enviros/greens. They do not understand the scale of the problem. Conservation and renewable energies can help. But, as Den Beste points out, if we are to maintain some semblance of a modern lifestyle while we transition to the clean, abundant, reliable energy sources of the future, we’re going to have to use all the fossil fuels we can lay our hands on to make that transition.
The energy problem is consists of three divisions.
1. Energy for transportation. Gasoline, diesel, ethanol, bio-diesel,
and eventually transitioning to electric vehicles or hydrogen power or ??? A 25 to 50 year evolution.
2. Energy to make electricity. Coal, hydro-electric, natural gas, nuclear, geothermal, wind, solar, and tidal.
Of these coal is abundant, but dirty. Maybe it can be made clean. The jury is out on that. Solar, wind, geothermal, and tidal can fill niches of the necessary output, but as Den Beste points out none will ever be a primary source. That leaves hydro and nuclear. I love hydro and we could do a lot more with it in this country, but the enviros hate it. That leaves nuclear, which the U.S. Navy has used quite safely for the last 50 years.
3. Energy to heat homes. Right now natural gas is the preferred source, but it will eventually be exhausted. Solar, both active and passive can fill niches in sunny climates, but is not a panacea. Geo-thermal heat pumps are the most efficient way to heat/cool buildings currently available. They are, however, hard to retrofit and pricey. Conservation, good insulation, efficient light bulbs, smaller houses (Al Gore call your office), etc. can all help in this area.
The gist of what I’m saying is that we need to see the problem in its various divisions and attack different aspects with differing solutions.
Compelling to who?
A- We’re borrowing money from China,
Well I ain’t. Once in a while I may buy something from Wa-Mart and I ain’t going to the Olympics.
B-to buy a product from the Arabian Gulf,
Yep and VZ, too. $4 a gallon from my earnings from hard productive work, not any GD diminished stimulus check from Nancy Pelosi.
C-whose use poisons our environment.
What a crock of bull that is..Sounds like Harry Reid. I can handle an energy crisis (again) and I can listen to all that psuedo-science fat florid, Gore the history major spouts, but together?
Get the hell outta the way you Goreittes cause we’re gonna drill, drill, drill. Yep. In 4 years I expect Lex will see offshore oil rigs from the headlands of “old” Del Mar…
It’s a matter of national security and it’s what 75% of the American people want.
Agree with “build-build-build” when it comes to nuc power, too. If the Frenchies can make it work so can we.
All of the above- short to mid-term- needs to be started now in the name of “National Security”. T. Boone Pickens can attache a windmill to his arse and fly away! Call what we need to implement a “Tangible Manhatten Project” not a “Hysterical Project” like the one ALGore and the green lefty, philosophy majors want..
Hey- this oil shale stuff sounds good too. I read we have a 200-300 year supply:
http://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/2008/07/angry-at-price-of-gas.html
“Just do it”. Dammit.
b2
If you are an American citizen that pays taxes – you are borrowing money from China.
Jeez, Lex, I sure hope that we opt for nuclear [as most of Europe has for a long time] and offshore drilling to fuel our transportation needs for the time being. Living in Texas as I do, I know how transient and downright stubborn wind power can be [it's 97 today and for the past month or two and not a breath of air stirring so there goes wind power] and I’m with you and others commenting on this board that nuclear is far safer than the greenies would have you believe.
Some blog on the internet pointed out that we already have more than 140 nuclear plants in the U.S, quietly and efficiently producing reliable energy. We have one nuclear power plant here in Texas, and I hope we invest in building more. I think biofuels are of only limited value, because it interrupts the food chain to produce it, raising costs for all foods, and besides is currently more consuming per gallon than petroleum converted to gasoline.
Petroleum is a non-renewable resource, as you all know, but we can stave off the end of petroleum production by drilling offshore, and in a little bitty piece of ANWR which, someone pointed out, is about the size of Dulles Airport. And we already know the oil is there.
The deliberately dumb politicos who whine that oil companies should drill on the oil leases they have bought, don’t recognize that an oil lease is a license to look for oil, not a guarantee that it’s there. Of course they’ll drill exploratory wells. That’s what they bought the leases for. But the grim fact is, approximately 8 out of 10 exploratory wells come up dry, or with so small a deposit as to make it impractical to recover.
By the way, Jimmy J., I think geo-thermal is a nifty source of energy too, but the U. S. doesn’t have enough geo-thermal sites to be a national solution. It works great in New Zealand and in parts of Scandinavia, but we don’t live there.
So let’s try to muzzle the greenies long enough to get offshore drilling passed in Congress.
Marianne
Not a permanent solution by any means but you could always borrow money (from wherever) to buy a product from the Great White Up. To poison the environment. Still, it might prove a little more palatable at the moment. Although apparently it’s just not clean enough for ya.
To each their own, I suppose.
Nuclear has some interesting forms that have never been tried, the 4S (super-safe, small and simple) reactor designs being one with a lot of potential.
If we’re to move away from petroleum towards electricity we’re going to need them. A lot of them.
The problem, quite honestly, is power density. Solar radiation is about 1.3kW/m^2, so all of the USA (at 9,826,630 km^2) takes in (scribble) about 12.7 terawatts of energy. That’s raw solar input, which makes the wind blow and the plants grow and all that. Extract it any way you like, that’s what we have to work with.
We currently have about 1.1 megawatts of electrical generation capacity, but add in our heating oil, gasoline, diesel, etc… and we’re looking at something on the order of (I recall, hesitantly) 3 terawatts of total energy usage.
3 is a pretty significant chunk of 12. You’d have to put solar panels over every square inch of the country west of the Colorado river to supply all our energy. Which would affect weather patterns, food production, and don’t forget losing a quarter of the vegetation scrubbing co2 from the air via photosysthesis.
So that pretty much leaves coal, natural gas, and nukes as our future energy sources. That’s what the physics dictate.
So, any volunteers to have one planted in their neighborhood?
Thus the problem.
– Max
B2, A first class rant you old Pecker-Wood…that said I suggest droping the ” ain’t” from future screeds … it tends to sully the tenor of your typically overwrought comments . Best
I like them oil sands Michelle. Bring it on. Shale probably has the same problem but if there’s a will we can figure out a way- $40 a barrel outta the ground sounds real good.
In the meantime we drill with American companies so we ain’t paying the “Enemy” directly…
OK Peck-er. I do pay a lot a tax. But let me think in my own mind that mine go to paying for our troops needs…hey, at least a helluva lot less Chinese are starving unlike when I was young’un…
As a fossil myself, I like my fossil fuels including coal and natural gas. Electric cars and crap like that are for those Blue Zone type Gore attracts who like living on top of each other like the Chinese and poor unfortunate redzoners who must live amongst ‘em. They all think their apartment buildings come with free heat.
Heck, I just bought my pickup and I like it. Plus, I can’t see myself driving around and going hunting in one of dem Toyoter Priaprism ‘lectric cars!
BTW, there could be another way outta this mess but they’ve been preaching against Imperialism since the ’60′s….Someday, unless we do something “acheivable” (look at the variety of opinions up above) it may make a comeback.
b2
Why don’t we just build a big geosynchronous solar reflector in space that will focus the sunlight and redirect it to a strategically placed high efficiency solar farm in the middle of somewhere no on cares about?
That’s about as reasonable a proposal as most of the ones I’m hearing from “experts.”
We all need oil like a junkie needs smack. Gonna take a while to ween of us of the addiction.
“Evolutionary beats revolutionary every time.”
I’m ready to sign up. I’ve wanted a nuclear-powered pickup for years now.
There was an element of the physics department that has been woefully neglected during all of this discussion about what to do, that being high energy dense plasma research.
I mean really people. If we could dump a fifth of what Gore is proposing into advancing research into magnetic containment fusion, intertial confinement fusion, and thereby produce a viable reactor, we would have this problem essentially in the bag.
Although the National Ignition Facility (NIF) is pretty off the rails insofar as cost overruns go (then again what government project isn’t), it does show promise in these areas.
What drives me nuts about all this is that I can’t understand why we’re concentrating on funding renewable sources that are available now. What we ought to be doing is funding the hell out of research that will bear enormous fruit tomorrow and in the future. ICF (currently in infancy), tokamak reactors (to include the ITER in France and SST-1 in India), stellerators, and whatever else ought to be the R&D priority for DoE and the United States.
Furthermore, if something like intertial containment energy (ICE) or MCF were to pan out, we would be looking at technology licensing rights and contracts in the tens, if not hundreds, of trillions. Real-world (meaningful to the market) net energy from a tokamak like ITER would be the death knell for coal, natural gas, and conventional nuclear power.
Really, we aren’t that far away either, and an additonal (serious) injection of research capital into this arena could provide a success within 20-25 years. And are we doing anything about this? No. Congress pulled the plug on U.S. ITER funding for the FY-2008 budget.
I just want everyone to understand that a viable fusion system would represent the same sort of fundamental shift in human civilization as the discovery (or rediscovery if you’re from Scandanavia) of the Americas by Europe. Practical fusion would change literally everything.
ITER site concerning the machine and a few other things, well worth your time: http://www.iter.org/a/index_nav_4.htm
And yes, it’s located in France. So you can start flaming me now.
b2,
You can’t hunt in a Prius, but apparently you can run a rally in a Hybrid Civic: http://www.green-car-guide.com/news/new-honda-civic-hybrid-unveiled.htm
“That would be like creating another Japan. Or fighting World War II all over again”
Or invading Iraq. But keep bashing Gore, by all means.
Drew C, Interesting comments… for the interesting times we live in…oh and please don’t call me people as in ” I mean really people”… it’s off-putting. Best
PS, B2 You must learn to deal with your tensions.
b2 … I’m another fossil. I just went to the repair garage to pick up my 17-year-old Volvo station wagon after getting her air conditioner repaired. She’s a splendid old girl, very peppy for a 4-cylinder engine and has only 40,000 on the clock [because she belongs to a little old lady in tennis shoes]. Gets 19 miles per/gallon in the city — or did, before the oil companies had to start adulterating gasoline with fed-mandated biofuel. I love that car and will continue to drive her as long as I am allowed to drive.
Now if we could just get that silly legislation mandating the elimination of incandescent bulbs by 2012 changed, I could relax. Michelle, is your all-wise government doing that to you, too?
Marianne
The incadescent bulb change? Funny, I thought that was only happening in this nanny state. Yeah, it’s on it’s way here. Not sure exactly by when, though.
And definitely unsure of the “all-wiseness” of either my provincial or federal government. I mean, it has to be bad when even I think they go too far, right? And some legislation I digested recently….
Why is it, that no matter what the problem is, the solution proposed by liberals is always socialism?
Michelle … somewhere on Youtube there is a video of U.S. Congressman Ted Poe [a bright man, former Houston judge, now a Representative] talking about CFBulbs and reading the instructions on how to dispose of them if they’ve broken, without contaminating your house with the mercury contained in them. The instructions say you have to turn off the air conditioning, open all the doors and windows. After ten minutes, you can, using a dust mask, sweep up the fragments by hand wearing rubber gloves [no vacuums, please] double-bag the detritus in heavy plastic, and then take the bag to a hazardous materials disposal site. You can’t just send it to the town dump. It might contaminate the other folks living there.
Can you imagine all of your citizens following these instructions? Can’t picture it here, where some of our citizens don’t read real well, and others don’t give a darn a lot of the time.
Our Congress decided to pass this dadblamed legislation because the manufacturers of compact fluorescent bulbs were having trouble convincing the shrewder members of our public to buy their product. And they asked Congress to prevent the free market from doing its job. After all, we can just throw incandescent bulbs away in the trash, where your helpful city government will dispose of it for you.
Marianne
Oh brother … what a sick joke!
Nuclear power (like coal), while certainly beneficial for the power grid, it can do little with regard to our massive transportation needs.
France is many decades ahead of us in nuclear power production, as is Brazil in eliminating their dependence upon foreign oil. But as the world’s largest energy consumers (and wasters), we have sat on our hands so long that there are now no easy, or inexpensive answers to our worsening dilemma.
For half a century we have been warned of an inevitable peak oil situation and its dangerous effects, happening eventually in our lifetime. The energy crises of 1973 and 1979 along with the oil spike in 1991 were poignant but more unheeded warnings. (Indeed, the solar panels put on the White House roof in Carter’s administration were later removed in the Reagan administration.) Except for brief, fleeting periods, we as a nation have been in foolish denial while continuing to waste a formerly cheap but finite resource, increasing our foreign dependancy, and unlike other countries, failing to adequate develop alternative sources of energy.
Future offshore drilling and shale and tar sands are not the answer. Massively expensive, and requiring perhaps a decade to begin producing substantially, they will be too little and too late. Further, their false promise of a future ‘fix’ is like that of a drug addict remaining addicted to his drug of choice. By then world energy demand will be greater with more developing countries, while many old sources of oil production will be stagnant if not declining, and we will remain in our same predicament if not far worse, and another decade behind.
Re “borrowing from China.”
Indeed we are. China is the second largest foreign holder of our Treasury Bonds with nearly 16%. In fact, China is helping pay for our Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Since funding the wars has been outside the annual federal budgets, it has to be financed with Treasury debt. China buys the T-bonds, lending us the money and we pay China interest – with our tax dollars – on the debt.
(Paying interest is one thing, but if they ever pull out the principal, we are in big trouble.)
Moreover, when we buy at Wal-Mart, much of our dollars and wealth go to China. We are very fortunate that they return those dollars to our Treasury in the form of loans. If they did not – as they have occasionally threatened – it would be disastrous for the US dollar and our US economy.
Too much of our nation’s wealth goes to the Middle East and Venezuela for oil, and to Asia for goods and services. Fortunately, some of it returns in investment. But as the dollar falls and our economy stagnates, foreign investment in our debt will diminish, further exacerbating our economic downfall.
What this country needs is a little less playing partisan politics, and a lot more attention to science and economics in solving our seriously growing, national problems.
Filter, that’s where you’re wrong
Nuclear power can solve ALL of our transportation needs. Nuclear-powered CO2 to petrochemicals has been long known. With Los Alamos’ recent gains, it is now down to 200$ a barrel for oil produced by nuclear power, sucking in only CO2 and H20.
Carbon Neutral Fossil Fuels. Carbon neutral advanced composites.
Don’t worry, the men and women in white coats and with pocket protectors will save you.
Comment editing is not functioning, will have to post twice in sucession.
Max: I’ll volunteer to have a Liquid Sodium or a Pebble Bed in my neighborhood if it replaces the 3 coal plants in this area of OH. I’d get less radiation to my lungs that way.
One thing that our host did not discuss was Geothermal. MIT released last year a study of powering the US with geothermal and the sustainability and costs, it was slightly higher than nuclear power. A group of Case students (including myself) ran further numbers on their study for longevity. At the output required for predicted US usage in 2050 (All electricity consumption, we left transportation out), assuming 5% conversion efficiency in the generation systems, the heat resources would last for 500 years, more, if we practiced either intelligent usage of it or improved efficiency. Transport would cut this number in half, but if we haven’t developed fusion by 2300, I quit.
I can’t get the link to the study to work, but googling MIT and Geothermal will put it as the first link.
How do they do it in Brentwood/Nashville? Surely, they’ve got some compelling technologies afoot. No?….thought so. Typical do-gooders. They love humanity but hate their neighbors. Full disclosure: F=MA and I hated Sat am labs.
As far as the “Great White Up”, they happen to be our number one source of imported oil, with Mexico, and Venezuela rounding out the top 3. Saudi Arabia and some God foresaken plot in Africa are next up.
As to Hydrogen powered cars, that dog don’t hunt. The main way we get hydrogen now is via Steam Methane Reformation, using Natural Gas (methane) as a feed stock. To increase the hydrogen production, we’d increase our use of fossil fuels (refinery fuel gases and refinery off gases contain recoverable hydrogen, and is a viable feed stock, as long as the refinery is cranking out OTHER hydrocarbon fuels). Just google “hydrogen myth” and you’ll find tons on why it won’t be feasible anytime soon. Of course, there’ll be the cars… capable of using hydrogen. Just no large scale producers. It’s the old “what came first, the chicken or the egg?” question. No large scale producer will create the infrastructure to fuel those cars without some sort of guarantee.
You want off foreign oil? Look at T Boone Pickens plan. Pretty straight forward really, amounts to utilizing ALL available technologies to offset the imports. Nuclear, Wind, Hydro, and all the rest. All of it. Nothing off the table. Only way really. Could be done.
All I know for sure is this: I go to work everyday (well, not EVERY day), and make about 35 million cubic feet of hydrogen. Every day. And it’s just a drop in the bucket…
GeoSTI,
I know a bit about geothermal power and geolog, but I’m afraid I’m going to ask some fairly ignorant questions. One, if we’re talking about injection, wouldn’t there be an issue with saturation to provide enough for more than a small town? Two, just running a straight tap (over hot springs, for instance) would require that the source remain stable for that long with no major fluctuations in the local water table.
It’s ironic that you mention Los Alamos in your post, in that there is a prototype geothermal plant there that does provide some power to sections of the lab. Also, there are a number of hot springs (American, Jemez, Soda Dam) in the Jemez mountains that are slowly dying because of well drilling in the area. Not just from the Baca land grant in the Jemez (what used to be a largish cattle ranch) – but from Los Alamos, White Rock, Santa Fe, Pojoaque, and Espanola.
Otherwise, I agree with the substance of your post. Much like the Apple sponsorship, I’m imagining that Mr. Gore has a good bit of money wrapped up in turbine and solar panel manufacturing. Otherwise, I would think that he’d give a bit more time to some of the alternatives to wind and solar.
I’d be curious to see what we could do with ocean wave based electricity generating systems, as well. There was a very interesting prototype (Japanese, if I recall correctly) that generated electricity as sea water moved up and down inside of a pipe and forced air through small turbines.
Snake,
Apologies for the ‘people’ thing (seriously), there was supposed to be a comma in there and the phrase was more directed at Gore and his ilk than anything else.
The simplest solution is to cut consumption. Take the leftists like Gore who have fought every attempt to develop domestic energy sources in the last 30 years and forbid them to use any power they did not make themselves. NO oil. NO electricity. Nothing. Reduce them to the same 18th century of living that they want to impose on us.
Problem solved.
Drew: The study focuses on closed loop single and binary systems, which prevents most of the issues with injection or direct tap. As for stability, most of where it could be used cheaply is the area of the Yellowstone Caldera, which is approx. 35-45% of the US, given the temperature ranges for 10% efficient systems.
The study talks about the various possible systems, but concludes that a binary type (wiki has a good explanation) is the easiest for generating power, cheaply. Bonus is that there are some good offshoots from oil-tech (diamond bores, horizontal drilling, depths of 20K plus) that help the process.
I’m no where near an expert, I build plane-parts for a living. This is just from the MIT paper and some other studies that have been done. Out here in the Buckeye state, Geothermal won’t work as efficient, but could still supplement much more than solar could.
Drew C, Got it and thanks… a comma, as is often the case, makes a big difference… thanks for the clarification…keep on trucking… Best
My district’s high school is going geothermal; it only cost them a little used field:
http://www.niskayunaschools.org/district/BoardofEd/geothermalFAQ.htm
Look. I don’t mind all the “science fair” talk above- good ideas. Always interesting. A lot of good stuff and a lot of potential.. but….
Just like I’m always haranging about in here about pilotless UCAVs and stealthy ships and power beam weapons..All that talk = greenhouse gas expelled when all I want is viable defense to face todays enemy. Same thing with energy that’s affordable, acceptable and plentiful. Sure, all in their time maybe, but right now we need an energy policy, a comphrehensive energy policy, centered on what we already know works today- fossil fuel extraction, coal technology and nuclear reactors for power generation. If we did that and then applied 15-20% of the total resources available for R&D on all those science fair projects we could be prepared for tommorrow 10-20 years out and still be strong for that breakthrough when it comes..Right now we’re going nowhere and close to be led down the biggest rathole in western civilization since the Childrens Crusade if we follow Algore and the Green Team as futurists. IMO, capitalists and entreprenpuers who actually know how to take a breakthrough and productionize it must lead the way-not government. I hope we can all agree on that. Being frozen in place while we debate the pros and cons of the theoretical ain’t gonna get most of us to/from work tommorrow, next month or 5 years from now. Fossil fuel and it’s derivatives are. Sorry.
re Humble’s: “We all need oil like a junkie needs smack. Gonna take a while to ween of us of the addiction. ”
Gee. I heard Al say that once- See? It’s made it to the mainstream in a naval officer’s jargon….
IMO, that’s what wrongheaded and embedded in the young now from kindergarten. Do you suggest we let the stuff sit under the ground unused? I beg to differ having been around awhile. It ain’t the people that are addicted. It’s the machines we drive, play on and fight with that are. Multiple trillions worth.
GeoSTI- hey, is that a fossil fuel burning machine in your pic? I have property 30 miles from the center of Yellowstone. That’s a big old caldera ready to blow (ready as in geologic time). I saw that scary show on Discovery Channel about how when it blows humans will become extinct as the dinosaurs! If I’m out fishing I’ll be one of those shadow fossils! If we sucked it out and used the energy would it relieve some of the pressure? There’s a helluva lot of it under the ground. What about that hydrogen, or whatever gas it is, open vents in the Gulf of Mexico. Could we tap it off and burn it?
Drew- what does the machine cost though? Only the US Navy let me play with protoypes. Sometimes they’re pricey-know what I mean? Is it like that hybrid Lexus Gore has that cost $95 K?
b2
Humble,
You might want to check out Jerry Pournelle’s web site. He’s talked in the past about using orbital solar panels to collect the power and then transmitting (vice reflecting) the power to ground stations. Of course, the devil’s in the link budget.
There doesn’t seem to be a report page where he collects correspondence and essays on this topic, but you might want to start here; there’s an entry in Tuesday’s section about the DOD looking into it, and he says that the technology exists, it simply needs to be refined.
B2: Burning gas indeed. I’ve gotten 9mpg out of that thing whilst on a sanctioned even. And yep, one of the side benefits to geothermal in that area is well, venting pressure. So we save the world (again) by preventing one really, really big boom. The issue with hydrogen is storage, which is why fuel cells are a hard sell. Its a pain to transport as a gas and not much better as a cryogenic liquid.
As for some of the pie-in-the-sky thinking, stuff like fusion is about 40+ years off (closer, if Bussard wasn’t being his usual self with his Naval research). Someone needs to plant the trees to shield the roads, even if they may not give shade to the troops now. However, planting small shrubs (solar) or Topiaries (wind) isn’t exactly what is meant.
JimmyJ…”Geo-thermal heat pumps are the most efficient way to heat/cool buildings currently available. They are, however, hard to retrofit and pricey”…they have another problem too…they aren’t *visible* enough.
One might think this would be an *advantage*, given that heating/cooling equipment is rarely viewed as having a high aesthetic value. But the geothermal trade association says it’s a problem, because people who pay $$$ for energy-conserving technology darn well want their neighbors to know about it…
david foster,
That’s funny! I had no idea that showing one’s green bona fides was in such demand.
It occurs that some commenters may not know what a geo thermal heat pump is. A heat pump, as I’m sure most of you know, is basically a heat exchange machine. A fluid runs through coils that extract heat from the air. The heat is then transferred into the house. Very efficient until the outside air temp gets down near freezing. Then you have to have a back up furnace of some type. In areas where electricity is cheap, as in the Pacific Northwest, they are excellent heating and air conditioning systems. The geo thermal heat pump takes this a step further by putting the coils under ground or in water where the temperature is a constant 40 degrees. This provides a system that needs no back up furnace and operates at the highest efficiency possible for a heat exchanger. Heating costs are about 1/3 to 1/2 of a regular heat pump with back up furnace. Installation costs are two to three times ($20-30k) that of a regular heat pump with furnace. Hard to retrofit because you have to dig up the yard to put the coils under ground. The farther north you go, the deeper the coils have to be buried.
I contemplated putting such a system in my present house. The cost to heat my house with natural gas is about $120/month during the cold months. It would be $50/month with a geothermal heat pump. If the savings were $500/year, it would take 30 years to recoup the higher installation cost. But it is green and clean. (Assuming my electricity comes mostly from hydro.) If one assumes natural gas prices will go up astronomically, it might make more sense from a financial point of view.
You’re lucky to have such inexpensive heating. In my area, a typical house is heated with oil or propane and costs $5000-$6000/year to heat at current energy prices. A geothermal system drops this down to $500-$1000, making it a “no-brainer” for new construction.
For retrofits, most people here go vertical loop, and if they’re lucky, they can go open-loop (use groundwater) for the best overal efficiency. So the land disruption is fairly minimal.
I wonder if we could drill deep holes at Yellowstone, and simultaneously get “free” energy, and maybe put off the day when the whole thing blows up and kills most of us.
Of course, drilling deep holes might just bring it on sooner…