Nearly 70 years after Ball State University installed its four coal-fired boilers, school employees have stopped shoveling, and the old system has gone cold as the university embraces renewable energy with the world’s largest district closed geothermal energy system.
One of Colorado’s largest geothermal projects recently drew to a close. Solaire Apartments in Brighton, Colo., is entirely heated and cooled by ground-source heat pumps.
In the late 1940s, 28- year-old Ed Malzahn applied a combination of knowledge from his father’s blacksmith business and his degree in mechanical engineering to produce a machine that would revolutionize the underground construction industry as we know it today.
Architect Eric Corey Freed specializes in green designs and makes extensive use of geothermal heating and cooling in his projects. That experience led the International Ground Source Heat Pump Association to invite him to deliver the keynote at this year’s Technical Conference and Expo, held Oct. 9-10 in Las Vegas.
I can’t tell my readers anything about geothermal heating and cooling. Those who work in that segment of drilling and contracting know how to get installations done. They know geothermal works off the Earth’s constant, natural temperature. They know their systems have a long lifespan. They know ground source heat pumps win on efficiency.