Alphabet’s Dandelion Wants to Water Cool/Heat Your Home – PCMag

Replace your heating and AC energy bills with a $20,000 geothermal system buried in your yard.

Part of the Alphabet (formerly Google) empire is the moonshot factory simply called X. X focuses on inventing and launching "moonshot" technologies to make the world a better place. The latest of those technologies just became an independent company called Dandelion.

Dandelion was an internal project at X for several years with a focus on using geothermal energy to cut down on carbon emissions in the home. This isn't a new idea, but it is an expensive one, which Dandelion aimed to solve. And solve it they have if Kathy Hannun, CEO of Dandelion is to be believed.

Rather than using fuel oil, propane, and lots of electricity to heat and cool your home during the different seasons, it's possible to do the same thing using geothermal systems. For home owners, that means taking advantage of the ground under their yard.

That ground stays at about 50 degrees Fahrenheit all year round. A geothermal system for heating/cooling works by drilling and installing U-shaped plastic pipes and running water through them. In the winter the water takes up the heat in the ground and a geothermal heat pump turns that into warm air pumped into your home. In the summer, the system works in reverse and pumps the warm air out of your home to cool it and deposits the extracted heat in the ground.

The expensive part of such a system is the installation and in particular the drilling, which is what Dandelion focused on solving. What they created was a brand new drill capable of drilling very deep holes with very little waste and completing the required ground loop piping in less than a day. Existing systems requires large machines, create a lot of mess, and take up to four days to complete the work.

According to CNN, existing geothermal system installations cost $60,000 to install. Dandelion cut that price down to just $20,000, which is still a lot of money until you factor in the energy cost savings each year.

Dandelion is now open for business and will initially be offering its system in New York. It wants to partner with local heating and cooling installers to help roll out the service and there will be a financing program through Collaborative Fund in the near future to help with the cost.

Matthew is PCMag's UK-based editor and news reporter. Prior to joining the team, he spent 14 years writing and editing content on our sister site Geek.com and has covered most areas of technology, but is especially passionate about games tech. Alongside PCMag, he's a freelance video game designer. Matthew holds a BSc degree in Computer Science from Birmingham University and a Masters in Computer Games Development from Abertay University. More

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Alphabet's Dandelion Wants to Water Cool/Heat Your Home - PCMag