WSJ: Big tech firms seeking power

Petri Helenius pete at he.iki.fi
Sat Jun 17 03:58:28 UTC 2006


David Lesher wrote:
>   
> I don't know the area; but gather it's hydro territory?
>
> How about water-source heat pumps? It's lots easier to cool
> 25C air into say 10-15C water than into 30C outside air.
>
> Open loop water source systems do have their issues [algae, etc]
> but can save a lot of power....
>   
If you drill a vertical hole in the order of 50-200 meters deep, the 
cooling effect of water pumped through a pipe in that hole is in the 
order of 50W/m. So you can lose 10kW of heat into 200 meter hole. Not 
sure what the separation needs to be for this to be sustainable. Pretty 
good return on investment, considering drilling a hole is $3k-$6k.

Pete

>
>   




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