1 00:00:01,733 --> 00:00:03,633 GEOFF BENNETT: Now the story of an unlikely partnership between a 2 00:00:03,633 --> 00:00:06,866 utility company and climate activists and how they worked together to help 3 00:00:06,866 --> 00:00:10,700 one community switch its heating and cooling to a cleaner source. 4 00:00:10,700 --> 00:00:13,600 Science correspondent Miles O'Brien has the story, 5 00:00:13,600 --> 00:00:18,366 part of our Tipping Point coverage on energy and climate. 6 00:00:18,366 --> 00:00:23,366 MILES O'BRIEN: Retired schoolteacher Carol Canova has lived in this tiny little house in Framingham, 7 00:00:25,433 --> 00:00:29,066 Massachusetts for 30 years. From this humble perch, she has experienced firsthand a historic 8 00:00:31,666 --> 00:00:36,666 energy transition. She started with an oil-burning furnace, then switched to gas, 9 00:00:38,633 --> 00:00:42,266 and now heats and cools with an electric heat pump attached to a geothermal well. 10 00:00:44,366 --> 00:00:46,300 CAROL CANOVA, Framingham, Massachusetts, Resident: I was told it would be even heat. 11 00:00:46,300 --> 00:00:49,933 I was told it would be efficient and so forth. But seeing is believing. I'd 12 00:00:49,933 --> 00:00:53,766 never been in a house that every place in the house was the same temperature. 13 00:00:53,766 --> 00:00:58,166 MILES O'BRIEN: Canova is part of a first-in-the-nation pilot by utility 14 00:00:58,166 --> 00:01:03,133 giant Eversource. It's a one-mile network of underground pipes connecting three dozen 15 00:01:04,633 --> 00:01:08,633 homes and municipal buildings to a shared geothermal well. 16 00:01:08,633 --> 00:01:11,433 It's called networked geothermal, 17 00:01:11,433 --> 00:01:16,433 and if it works here, it could be a blueprint for utilities nationwide. 18 00:01:17,900 --> 00:01:20,300 CAROL CANOVA: So I thought, oh, electricity is expensive. So I'm 19 00:01:20,300 --> 00:01:25,300 expecting it's going to be more expensive. What I find out is, it's overall cheaper. 20 00:01:27,300 --> 00:01:30,400 MILES O'BRIEN: Heat pumps live up to their name. They move heat. In the summer, 21 00:01:30,400 --> 00:01:35,400 they pump heat out of your home. In the winter, they bring it in. How hard they 22 00:01:37,266 --> 00:01:40,666 have to work and how much electricity they use depends on the temperature 23 00:01:40,666 --> 00:01:45,633 difference between inside and outside. The greater the gap, the more energy they need. 24 00:01:47,466 --> 00:01:52,200 Shallow geothermal wells tap into the earth's steady underground temperature, 25 00:01:54,200 --> 00:01:57,233 about 55 degrees year-round. Water with antifreeze circulates through buried pipes, 26 00:01:59,433 --> 00:02:04,100 absorbing or releasing heat at that consistent temperature. A heat pump paired with a geothermal 27 00:02:06,000 --> 00:02:10,733 well has less work to do and is far more efficient no matter the weather above. 28 00:02:12,233 --> 00:02:17,233 The catch? Drilling a geothermal well is very expensive, but none 29 00:02:19,266 --> 00:02:22,600 of the volunteers in this project paid a dime for either the well or the heat pump. 30 00:02:23,800 --> 00:02:25,366 CAROL CANOVA: When Eversource offered it, 31 00:02:25,366 --> 00:02:27,700 I thought, you know what, this is like winning the lottery. 32 00:02:27,700 --> 00:02:29,900 NIKKI BRUNO, Vice President, Eversource: Everything else is buried in underground, 33 00:02:29,900 --> 00:02:31,300 except for the heat pumps. 34 00:02:31,300 --> 00:02:34,466 MILES O'BRIEN: Nikki Bruno is an Eversource V.P. 35 00:02:34,466 --> 00:02:38,133 NIKKI BRUNO: So, right outside this building is what we call the main bore field. 36 00:02:38,133 --> 00:02:42,400 MILES O'BRIEN: She showed me the pump house, which controls the entire system. 37 00:02:42,400 --> 00:02:46,300 It's the only visible sign of the geothermal network. 38 00:02:46,300 --> 00:02:49,700 NIKKI BRUNO: Those bores are 600 to 700 pipes that 39 00:02:49,700 --> 00:02:54,666 allow the water-based fluid to circulate and exchange energy with the underground. 40 00:02:56,933 --> 00:03:00,600 MILES O'BRIEN: Besides many homes like Carol's, heat pumps attached to the geothermal network 41 00:03:02,933 --> 00:03:05,933 are in use at a school administration building, a fire station, and a public housing development. 42 00:03:08,233 --> 00:03:13,000 It's an $18.6 million project that comes amid significant changes in regulations. Massachusetts 43 00:03:16,466 --> 00:03:21,466 and the other states in the Eversource territory have aggressive climate goals and mandates. 44 00:03:23,400 --> 00:03:26,800 NIKKI BRUNO: How do we start offering something different? How can we produce 45 00:03:26,800 --> 00:03:31,033 a decarbonized product for our customers, while keeping safe, 46 00:03:31,033 --> 00:03:35,433 reliable and I will say as affordable as possible service to customers? 47 00:03:35,433 --> 00:03:40,433 MILES O'BRIEN: The idea was born of an unlikely partnership between utility executives and 48 00:03:42,533 --> 00:03:46,100 climate activists, among them, Zeyneb Magavi, the executive director of the nonprofit HEET, 49 00:03:48,400 --> 00:03:53,400 the Home Energy Efficiency Team. It's a grassroots group that started out by 50 00:03:55,533 --> 00:03:58,733 banding together to insulate their homes. They were looking for a way to make a bigger dent. 51 00:04:00,566 --> 00:04:02,666 ZEYNEB MAGAVI, Executive Director, HEET: We really became aware of kind 52 00:04:02,666 --> 00:04:06,733 of a rock-and-a-hard place problem, where we have a gas system that actually we have 53 00:04:08,033 --> 00:04:10,933 pipes in the ground from President Lincoln's time. 54 00:04:10,933 --> 00:04:12,700 MILES O'BRIEN: Their focus on creaky, 55 00:04:12,700 --> 00:04:17,700 leaky gas pipes led them to a moment of insight and inspiration. 56 00:04:19,700 --> 00:04:22,633 ZEYNEB MAGAVI: The ground, the bedrock, the water all around us is thermal energy, 57 00:04:22,633 --> 00:04:27,633 which we can tap. And that's kind of an exciting awakening thing to realize. 58 00:04:29,733 --> 00:04:33,133 We could potentially build a utility street by street that was pipes filled with water, 59 00:04:35,833 --> 00:04:40,800 maintained and managed by the gas utility, who -- becomes a thermal utility. 60 00:04:40,800 --> 00:04:45,800 This infrastructure would be in a way like the roots of our new energy system, right? 61 00:04:47,833 --> 00:04:50,633 MILES O'BRIEN: Even federal researchers are bullish. A study by the Oak Ridge National 62 00:04:50,633 --> 00:04:55,633 Laboratory found that mass adoption of geothermal heat pumps could reduce the 63 00:04:57,666 --> 00:05:00,700 demand for electricity by 13 percent in the next 25 years. But the idea isn't new. 64 00:05:03,100 --> 00:05:07,700 Let's go down in the boiler room. Here we go. You got people down here shoveling coal, right? 65 00:05:07,700 --> 00:05:10,100 JEFF TESTER, Engineering Professor, Cornell University: This is our living laboratory. 66 00:05:10,100 --> 00:05:14,533 MILES O'BRIEN: Cornell University engineering professor Jeff Tester built his home in Ithaca, 67 00:05:14,533 --> 00:05:19,333 New York, as a living lab of efficiency, solar thermal, 68 00:05:19,333 --> 00:05:24,333 photovoltaics, and a heat pump that taps into a geothermal well buried in his backyard. 69 00:05:26,300 --> 00:05:31,300 He's been advocating for ways to tap the heat beneath our feet since the 1970s, 70 00:05:33,400 --> 00:05:36,900 when he helped pioneer a novel geothermal energy concept at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. 71 00:05:38,766 --> 00:05:42,000 JEFF TESTER: One method of extracting heat or 72 00:05:42,000 --> 00:05:46,400 mining heat from under the surface of the earth is to create a reservoir. 73 00:05:46,400 --> 00:05:50,133 MILES O'BRIEN: He looks back on those days with nostalgia. 74 00:05:50,133 --> 00:05:51,900 JEFF TESTER: They were very supportive 75 00:05:51,900 --> 00:05:55,566 of trying new things in those days. We weren't afraid to try something. 76 00:05:55,566 --> 00:05:59,333 MILES O'BRIEN: For about 25 years, Cornell has harnessed a natural 77 00:05:59,333 --> 00:06:04,333 thermal engine to keep its campus cool. A district-chilling system taps 39-degree 78 00:06:06,066 --> 00:06:11,000 water from the depths of Cayuga Lake to cool more than 100 buildings. 79 00:06:13,300 --> 00:06:16,666 Now the university is looking to go deeper and warmer. Jeff Tester is the principal investigator 80 00:06:18,766 --> 00:06:23,066 on a groundbreaking project to introduce geothermal heating to the campus. In 2022, his 81 00:06:25,366 --> 00:06:30,266 team drilled a nearly two-mile-deep test borehole to assess the available heat resources here. 82 00:06:33,100 --> 00:06:35,666 JEFF TESTER: I feel like I have been training all my life for the 83 00:06:35,666 --> 00:06:39,433 day when we actually would see this happen on a campus like Cornell. 84 00:06:39,433 --> 00:06:41,400 MILES O'BRIEN: But he's still waiting, 85 00:06:41,400 --> 00:06:45,666 looking for money to build a geothermal network of pipes filled with hot water 86 00:06:45,666 --> 00:06:50,666 to heat the campus. He says society places great value on fossil fuels and electricity. 87 00:06:53,333 --> 00:06:55,733 JEFF TESTER: But heat is not viewed that way in the same way, 88 00:06:55,733 --> 00:07:00,766 and I think we need a fairer system of what I refer to as an equivalent way to actually 89 00:07:02,800 --> 00:07:07,800 look at the benefits from clean heating versus clean electricity versus clean 90 00:07:09,833 --> 00:07:13,000 fuels. And we're not doing that right now. So we need a new value system for energy. 91 00:07:14,933 --> 00:07:18,066 MILES O'BRIEN: The Trump administration apparently does value geothermal. Energy 92 00:07:18,066 --> 00:07:22,933 Secretary Chris Wright consistently emphasizes it as a priority, 93 00:07:22,933 --> 00:07:27,500 making it the only renewable energy source currently in favor. 94 00:07:27,500 --> 00:07:29,266 ZEYNEB MAGAVI: It's something we can agree on. 95 00:07:29,266 --> 00:07:32,833 It's the ground beneath our feet. Turns out we have common ground. 96 00:07:32,833 --> 00:07:36,400 MILES O'BRIEN: And it appears to be growing. Plans are now in place 97 00:07:36,400 --> 00:07:41,400 to double the size of the Framingham geothermal network starting next year. 98 00:07:43,533 --> 00:07:47,066 Common ground may be hard to find these days, but perhaps it's not far beneath the surface. 99 00:07:49,500 --> 00:07:54,500 For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Miles O'Brien in Framingham, Massachusetts.