text: It was interesting to see the costs that the startup in the article was quoting in Upper New York State, 20,000 dollars to start. Further they were not expecting much cost savings over natural gas due to it's relative cheapness in the market now. The other bit of information that was eye opening was the depth of the piping. Over 500 feet straight down! So deep in fact that they anticipate that the owners of the house will have to procure a mining permit. In New York I'd say that with the environmental regulations, that could be expensive to acquire and time consuming. But all alternatives should be explored. 
  
  One alternative that I tout, which is repressed time and time by the electric/battery crowd, is fuel cell technology. If you look to silicon valley they are very heavy into large fuel cell generators as back up power generators. I could see fuel cells as a viable alternative to provide the electrical needs of electrical forced air systems that a home would require.