For those of us who live in the blistering cold during the winter and want to eat local produce, it isn’t easy. Traditional greenhouses are one way to meet the demands for year-round local produce, but they are energy guzzlers and are heated with fossil fuels. In the Midwestern region of the U.S., greenhouses are changing thanks to a new system that uses the Earth’s own internal heat to warm and cool greenhouses. They dig the floor of the greenhouse four feet below the surface, and use the warm air taken from a perforated plastic tubing buried underground to cool and heat the greenhouses. As the air circulates in a loop from the underground to the greenhouse, it picks up heat from soil to keep the greenhouses warm enough at night to grow produce all year round. And by using geothermal energy, the energy costs at these greenhouses are about a $1 a day. If more of these kind of greenhouses can be placed around the world, then it will help reduce our need to transport produce and the emissions that come with it.
Citrus in the snow: Geothermal greenhouses grow local produce in the winter
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