Massive geothermal apartment complex is going up in Brooklyn, first of its kind

Re:Massive geothermal apartment complex is going up in Brook... by wcoenen on Thursday April 27, 2023 @03:28AM (#35724482)

I feel that it is wrong to conflate "ground source heat pump" with "geothermal".

Ground source heat pumps use the soil or ground water as a low temperature mass to draw heat from. Surface soil follows air temperature, with a lag because of its high thermal mass. Below a meter or so this lag becomes so large that it just stays at the annual average of the air temperature. So the heat is not coming from the earth below!

I would reserve the word "geothermal" for projects that actually access high temperature sources, where the heat does actually "come from below".

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Re:Massive geothermal apartment complex is going up in Brook... by cognaitiv on Thursday April 27, 2023 @12:36PM (#35730682)

This is a helpful comment given the confusion above.

The concept seems more related to Thermal Mass than geothermal energy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_mass

I’m fascinated by Eathships which rely on this along with convection to regulate air temperature. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship

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