Investors are missing an opportunity

The geothermal industry has not been very good at promoting the industry...certainly they haven't done as well as the solar PV or wind industries. Large investment funds have invested millions of dollars to build wind farms and solar PV farms. The only way many of these investments can actually provide a decent return on the investment is because of subsidies and incentives from the government. There are a couple of problems the geothermal heat pump industry has:

• First, the technology is not visible. You could walk right on top of the largest GHX in the country and you wouldn't know it unless someone told you about it. But you can see the huge phallic symbols of the wind generators for miles and the solar PV cells wherever they are built. Out of sight, out of mind.
• Second, a GCHP system doesn't produce energy...it uses energy...but only about 20% to 25% of the energy used by any other space conditioning technology. It's not as sexy. You're conserving instead of consuming when you install a GCHP system. Engineers would rather build something they can point at and say "I designed that!"

That being said, investing in a geo system can produce much better returns on your investment. A kWh of electricity produced by a solar PV cell requires more than 100 times as much as a kWh of electricity saved by a GCHP system. The capital investment required to produce a kWh of electricity using a wind generator costs about 36 times more than a kWh saved by a GCHP system. Even compared to a hydro-electric dam, the investment needed to save a kWh of electricity is less than one tenth of the investment needed to save a kWh of electricity with a GCHP system. (download the information comparing a GCHP system with a hydro-electric dam, solar PV and wind generators)

Now we have to figure out how to build an investment vehicle that you can invest your money in!