“Misty! Is that you?” Dewey Droppe asked as a cute H2O molecule came floating by. “Dewey! It’s great to see you,” Misty Foggbottom grinned. “You must be new here,” Dewey smiled back. “Who woulda guessed we’d both end up in West Union, Iowa? Wanna loop-da-loop with me?” The two water molecules had briefly shared a raindrop in a typhoon over Bora Bora back in ’97. Misty has had a crush on Dewey ever since, so she was thrilled to do some looping with him.
Dewey was an old hand in this high-efficiency, fossil-fuel-free geo-thermal heating and cooling system. He was eager to show off the layout. Misty listened politely but was more interested in… well, in other things.
West Union (pop. 2,500) in northeast Iowa is just west of Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. In 2014, its downtown streets needed a complete reconstruction. So the city took advantage of some grant money to build in an environmentally friendly, money-saving heating & cooling system. Today, the library, county courthouse, a law office, two banks, an insurance company and a shoe store are among the twelve buildings connected to an underground geothermal system running beneath six blocks of downtown.
This system circulates a mixture of water and glycol through pipes where underground temperatures remain at approximately 50°F year-round. As the water travels through a series of vertical bores, it is warmed or cooled by the surrounding rock until it stabilizes at 50 degrees. It’s a temperature well-suited for cooling on hot summer days and a great starting point for heating in winter. Heat pumps in each building use compressors and fans to further warm or cool the buildings depending on the time of year. The high-density polyethylene pipes are slated to last 80 years or more while the heat pumps have a life expectancy of about 24 years.
Energy costs for the buildings on the system have dropped 25 to nearly 50 percent. Utility costs for the rest of the town continue to rise. The local school district is so impressed, it’s installing a geothermal system of its own.
Yup. You guessed it; Misty and Dewey decided to evaporate together and travel the world. They couldn’t be happier! As could we all by taking a lesson from the fine folks of West Union - environmentally friendly and money-saving smart – because we’re all forever… Earthbound.
Dewey was an old hand in this high-efficiency, fossil-fuel-free geo-thermal heating and cooling system. He was eager to show off the layout. Misty listened politely but was more interested in… well, in other things.
West Union (pop. 2,500) in northeast Iowa is just west of Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. In 2014, its downtown streets needed a complete reconstruction. So the city took advantage of some grant money to build in an environmentally friendly, money-saving heating & cooling system. Today, the library, county courthouse, a law office, two banks, an insurance company and a shoe store are among the twelve buildings connected to an underground geothermal system running beneath six blocks of downtown.
This system circulates a mixture of water and glycol through pipes where underground temperatures remain at approximately 50°F year-round. As the water travels through a series of vertical bores, it is warmed or cooled by the surrounding rock until it stabilizes at 50 degrees. It’s a temperature well-suited for cooling on hot summer days and a great starting point for heating in winter. Heat pumps in each building use compressors and fans to further warm or cool the buildings depending on the time of year. The high-density polyethylene pipes are slated to last 80 years or more while the heat pumps have a life expectancy of about 24 years.
Energy costs for the buildings on the system have dropped 25 to nearly 50 percent. Utility costs for the rest of the town continue to rise. The local school district is so impressed, it’s installing a geothermal system of its own.
Yup. You guessed it; Misty and Dewey decided to evaporate together and travel the world. They couldn’t be happier! As could we all by taking a lesson from the fine folks of West Union - environmentally friendly and money-saving smart – because we’re all forever… Earthbound.
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