McDonald's Puts Geothermal on the menu
A McDonald’s restaurant in Pensacola, Florida, will use one of the most efficient and environmentally friendly resources for heating and cooling: the latent heat within the earth. Commonly called geothermal, this “fuel” source is actually a geo-exchange process that uses a heat-pump to circulate a medium within the constant temperatures in the ground.
Like air-to-air heat pumps, geo-exchange systems work as reversible refrigerant systems. The ground can be both a heat source and a heat sink. In cooler months, a medium of either water or antifreeze is circulated in tubing to gather the latent heat from within the earth and use it to warm buildings. In summer, the process is reversed drawing heat from buildings and “sinking” it into the ground.
This isn’t the first time the fast food chain will use this renewable resource for heating and cooling. GreenBiz reported that McDonald’s also used this technology in a Michigan restaurant in 1997.
I had no idea McDonald’s had any sort of eye on earth friendly, energy efficient technologies. I’m a big fan of geo-exchange systems and currently researching this option for a house I’m designing for a client in CT. I am psyched to see this idea catching on and especially with a business as mainstream as McDonald’s.
- GeoExchange How it Works at the Geothermal Heat Pump Consortium
- McDonald’s Restaurant Taps Into Geothermal at GreenBiz