Earth energy: focus on ground-source heat pumps

This article focuses on the use of solar heat stored in the ground using buried plastic pipes circulating antifreeze which absorbs heat from the soil and releases it on return to a building on passage through a compressor. Details are given of the electricity required to power a ground source heat pump, the advantages of earth energy technology over conventional heating/cooling including the delivering of more energy than is consumed with lower emissions of greenhouse gases, barriers to the technology such as the first-cost installation premium, and other applications of earth energy such as air conditioning and water heating. Canadian research indicating that ground coupled systems are competitive economically with conventional space conditioning systems is reported