Geothermal Energy, Heating and Cooling To fully understand geothermal heating and cooling you must first understand what geothermal energy is. Geothermal energy is a form of energy conversion provided by nature that can be used by humans for cooking, bathing, heating and generating electricity. Energy is created by capturing and harnessing thermal energy. This heat forms underground and is created by the radioactive decay of certain elements such as potassium, thorium and uranium on Earth. One way to produce energy from geothermal heat is to use the heat to create steam to drive turbines that turn an electric generator; this method and others like it can create about 1,400,000 terawatt-years, about three times the world's annual consumption (Lund 2014 ). Geothermal heating and cooling is done via a geothermal heat pump, the geothermal heat pump uses the stable temperatures that occur within the first thousand feet of the earth's surface. This area of ​​the Earth's surface is called the lithosphere, and temperatures in this area can be between forty and eighty degrees Fahrenheit. Geothermal heat pumps cannot be more than five hundred feet below the earth's surface, the temperature in this area is between fifty and sixty degrees Fahrenheit, ideal for regulating the temperature of buildings. Geothermal heat pumps are able to heat the building in the colder months and cool it in the warmer months by transferring thermal energy from the ground to the air on the surface through the use of a fluid. There are two types of geothermal heat pump systems: the closed-loop system the fluid is in a system of loop pipes buried in the ground, the other is an open-loop system that uses groundwater as a heat exchanger . In a typical thirty-one household energy consumption is for heating and cooling, geothermal heating and cooling can save energy consumption by up to 50% and the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by up to 40% compared to mechanical heat pump . Mechanical heat pump systems all have some common components: a compressor, a condenser, and an evaporator. The entire system is made up of tubes in which a fluid circulates which allows heat transfer. The evaporator is what transfers heat from the air in the room to the fluid within the piping system. The condenser is what takes heat from the fluid and releases it to the outside air.