Above you see one element of the Swedish renewable energy system. The big one is called Big Glenn and was made by General Electric USA. There are 10 of the smaller ones surrounding Glenn, and Big Glenn produces as much electricity as those 10 in total. This picture was taken March 15 from Silvertärnan, a ferry taking me to Styrsö to stay in a house partly heated by air-to-air heat exchanger as is the neighbor's house. Up the road a bit about half of the new homes have installed Ground Source Geothermal (GSG) systems and somewhere in this blog I have a picture of one such. Important addition: Yesterday we visited the apartment building of the youngest family member, an apartment building heated as are 90 percent of all buildings in Göteborg, by Fjärrvärme, And, while there, the landlord and friend S sang the virtues of the GSG system that heats his home away from the apartment building.
Today my first comment on Thomas Friedman's energy column names all of these types of systems and more. The comment is at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03
I have just seen that some replies have been accepted but do not have time now to look at them. Each is intended to remind readers that there are more ways than one to heat a house or a building.
At various places in this blog there are posts on some of these. Have added a few links below.
This is posted in order to ask any reader in America "How is your home heated?"
You can reply here or to my Gmail address under my picture.
This addition (picture below) made Sunday 23 March after discovering that the post showing this had disappeared. What you see is the home of my friend, Micke, on an island, Styrsö, from which one can see the wind turbines at the top of this post. What you also see is the drill rig that bored a 120 m borehole in a few hours, creating the key element in a "bergvärme" (Ground Source Geothermal) system that would, the same day, be heating Micke's home. The corner of the house you see is where the kitchen is and just around the corner is the back door entrance to a hallway next to the kitchen. In that hallway is the heat pump that runs the system. The heat pump is in what looks like a refrigerator. In Sweden systems like this are installed in a day and have high reliability. My neighbor has one and somewhere in this blog there is a picture of his yard under which there is a similar 120 m borehold. I add this today and have also sent a Letter to the Editor (NYT) since I have learned that Americans just do not understand what this technology can do - anywhere.
Larry
Have heard from several readers, one angry and not interested in learning, the others wanting to know more especially about incineration in Sweden since their experience in America is like mine there-only bad.
NOTE ADDED 21 MARCH 2014. Dagens Nyheter has the Thomas Friedman column in translation to Swedish, and I have written an insändare (Letter to the Editor) for consideration by Dagens Nyheter. Hope to write a Letter to the Editor today about my NYT comment, now recommended by 420 readers. (Now I have sent that letter-8:31 AM Sunday 23d here at Apelgatan.
So here are some URLs to posts in this blog that show elements of the Swedish system.
http://only-neverinsweden.blogspot.se/2014/02/pipe-dreams-keystone-or.html
The following two provide views of the system heating my home
The next one refers to an extraordinary even in the NYT. One line was devoted to Ground Source Geothermal at Ikea in Centennial Colorado.
http://only-neverinsweden.blogspot.se/2013/02/never-in-new-england-only-in-sweden.html
