school energy&environment

Interesting news for our homes

A practically inexhaustible source of energy to heat our homes at a very low cost and in a clean and environment respectful manner: this is the dream of millions of families all over the world… certainly also ours! Geothermic energy seams to answer all these requests and, since the dawn of civilization, man has learnt to use the heat inside the Earth. Initially man enjoyed the pleasure of thermal baths with naturally heated water and later on, at the beginning of the 20th century, learning to use water to produce electric energy (5,570 Gwh were produced in Italy in 2007). Moreover, water was also used to warm houses of entire cities (the first district heating plant was started in Iceland in 1925). However, until a few years ago, the use of geothermal energy for domestic heating had two important limits which strongly held back its diffusion: geothermal power could be obtained in the presence of relatively high temperatures (60 – 80 °C) and only in the area of the geothermal fields; the heat used was therefore endogenous: it was not possible to transport the heat too far from its source nor was it possible to use it at a low temperature (that is to say at a “low enthalpy”). With the recent technological developments, it is now possible, through particular instruments known as heat pumps, to use the heat of the Earth even when temperatures are not particularly high (12 – 14 °C). This has brought about a new and important step forward in geothermics: with these new systems, it is in fact possible to obtain sufficient energy for a family’s everyday heating and warm water consumption, in any place of the Earth, with any geological or climatic condition. The energetic possibilities of this new technology are huge and potentially unlimited.