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Neywinytoday at 12:00 AM1 replyview on HN

Is geothermal not the opposite of that? My understanding was that the geothermal MO is that there's virtually infinite thermal mass in the earth so it won't heat/cool, not that you heat/cool your local chunk


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syntaxingtoday at 12:05 AM

To a certain extent, yes. The reason why the water is there is because the thermal flux of the ground is low, so the large mass of water provides a strong buffer. But you can’t cheap physics. You would need a crap ton of salt hydrate to accommodate a whole season of heat needs, even if you don’t factor in thermal loss from the container.