IKEA and Geothermal Energy: Skyping with Ms. Anderson

IKEA is in the process of building a giant store about five miles from my school. This is no ordinary store construction, however, as they are putting in a geothermal energy system to help heat and cool the store. When I saw the article about it, I thought this would be another good opportunity for my students to Skype with someone, so I tracked down the contact info of the engineer from NREL that was mentioned in the article. She kindly agreed and the Skype session will happen this Wednesday.

You can read the background info we provided to my students on the class blog, and here are the questions we'll be asking:

1.  How do you define “math?” How would you describe what “math” is to non-engineers? Me
   
   
2. What is the difference between geothermal energy and other forms of energy? Grant
   
   
3. How does the temperature change from the winter to summer underground, and how effective is the water being pumped to control the temperature of the building, especially due to the bipolar weather of Colorado? Alex
   
   
4. Do you think that this system could one day be in the average American home? Why or why not? Jordan
   
   
5. When you were in school getting all those different degrees, did you know that you would be doing everything you are? Did you ever want to start all over? Becca
   
   
6. Two part question: Out of everything you have done and will do in your life, what would you want a youth to remember out of it all? With all your work with renewable energy/heat pump technology what are you most happy about doing and what are some ideas you have to work on in the future? Jessica

If all goes well, I'm hoping to ustream it as well, so you're welcome to tune in on our ustream channel. We'll be skyping from approximately 9:35 - 10:00 am Mountain Time (PLC day for us, so late start) on Wednesday, September 29th.

Update 9-29-10: Archive of the ustream.