Friday, August 1, 2008

Boise City Hall Fountain - Geothermal

This is the fountain in front of Boise City Hall. It runs year-round, even in the icy-cold winter. It uses geothermal water, although, I'm sure not so much in the summer because we put our hands in it and it felt cool. A geothermal aquifer runs under Boise and the naturally-hot water is used to heat several buildings, including some of the Capitol. Congress is looking at giving Boise some money to expand geothermal use, including to heat buildings at Boise State University. While the water itself is "free" from the earth, it does take electricity to pump it up, and then pump it back into the aquifer after it's been "used."

8 comments:

  1. The geothermal water thing sounds interesting, especially if it allows the fountain to run during the winter. I like the pastel colors of the fountain — very sweet.

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  2. I like the fountain and your capture of the water stopped.

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  3. Despite your seeming hesitations about the geothermal fountain... it's still a cool conversation piece, no? ;)

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  4. At a city I used to work for, the well water came up very warm. I used to tell them we could use it to heat the buildings. But everyone was skepical.

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  5. Geothermal used to heat buildings ?
    How ?

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  6. Cool picture and story.
    I love that you can use the geothermal water!

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  7. Beautiful fountain. Klamath Falls uses geothermal heat in buildings. We do have interesting things under us!

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  8. Warm Springs Avenue has several homes that are completely heated by geothermal water as well as some of the sidewalks in that area. It's great when the snow falls because they are always clear of snow and ice. Check into the shrimp farms around that area.

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