technobabbler

Ok, this may sound like a totally stupid idea, but I was contemplating just how hot it is out here, and how much I don’t care for it. :)

It occurred to me, what if we used the temperature in the deep earth to help alleviate it? For instance, we all know about underground houses, how they sustain their temperature even when it’s extremely hot outside. I was watching a documentary the other day about an entire village in Australia that is built underground. So obviously the ground underneath us is cool – is there any way to equalize the temperature between the surface and underground?

Ok, the next part of my idea came from when I was growing up. My family was in a 2 story house, but we didn’t have air conditioning. Instead, we had this enormous ‘water cooler’ in the kitchen. It consisted of a squirrel cage fan about two feet in diameter and a radiator that the air blew through into the house. It was loud, but it did it’s job – it kept the kitchen at a manageable temp while my mom cooked. Eventually though, we were forced to get an air conditioner to take care of things. Why? Because a housing addition just down the street moved in. Their air conditioners, transferring heat to the outside, significantly raised the temp about a tenth of a mile away. It was rather surprising.

So you can probably guess where I’m going with this… Is there a way to build an enormous cooling system that uses water pumped down to a sufficient depth to cool the outdoors?

Bear with me here… We would start with a cooling tower that would hold a radiator for air transfer. It would be big enough to make a difference, but not so huge that it’s an eyesore. A ground transfer unit would be buried deep below. A pump would be used to constantly circulate water through the entire system.

The tower portion wouldn’t have fans on it, ideally, so that it was quiet. So we would rely on wind to take care of distributing the cool air. These towers would be installed throughout an area with the intent of specifically bringing down the temperature as a whole.

So I’m curious what you guys think. Silly idea, or does it have legs?