Yesterday, the company that received the bid for constructing our geothermal heating system finally started drilling. We had to wait for four months, because geothermal systems are now in hot demand in Switzerland, although they are still not helping you to save money at current oil prices.
The current price of heating oil for 1 kWh is roughly CHF 0.07. If you heat your house electrically, the cost of electricity is roughly CHF 0.22 per kWh. With the geothermal system, you are able to get an efficiency factor of about 3, i.e., you need roughly 1/3 of the electricity for running the heat pump and circulating the coolant through the loop of the amount that you would need for the heat pump alone. Hence you pay roughly CHF 0.07 per kWh, i.e., the same amount as you pay when you use oil.
Taking into consideration that the installation cost for the geothermal system is still roughly twice that of a corresponding oil heating system, it is still not an economic proposition to install a geothermal system in Switzerland.
Why then have these systems become popular in the last two years? The reason is simple: the broad masses finally recognize the peak oil problem and its associated end to cheap oil. Many people here in Switzerland now prefer to be proactive, and do something about the problem. By investing in a geothermal system they help alleviate the fuel dependence of Switzerland, and in that process, they also make themselves less dependent on fossil fuels.
Why shouldn't we wait until the price of oil has risen to a value, where it truly makes economic sense to invest in an alternate technology? The answer to this question becomes obvious as I observe how the drilling is done. First, they came with a big truck that runs on fuel. On that truck sits a big drilling machine that also runs on fuel. The drill itself needs to be greased constantly, which once again consumes oil.
The real problem with peak oil is not that we have to try to resort to alternate types of energy (wherever and whenever this is possible), but that producing these alternate sources of energy itself consumes lots of ... fossil fuels.
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