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One of the hallmarks of living in a technologically advanced society is even the little details of life that seem mundane end up being astonishing,
生活在一个科技发达的社会，其中一个标志就是生活中看似平凡的小细节最终都会令人惊叹。
like the fact that it takes five gallons of water to produce a walnut, or that half the plastic that's ever been made has been made in the past 15 years.
比如生产一个核桃需要5加仑的水，或者有一半的塑料都是在过去的15年里制造出来的。
My favorite of these examples is what it takes to keep a room room temperature.
在这些例子里，我最喜欢的是如何保持室温。
Allow me to explain. Heating is generally done by combusting a fossil fuel.
请允许我解释一下。加热通常是通过燃烧化石燃料来完成的。
So first, we have to find the fuel.
首先，我们得找到燃料。
Unfortunately, it tends to be buried more than a kilometer under the earth's surface, and all too often, in inconvenient places, like the Arctic Circle, nations in conflict or under the bottom of the ocean.
不幸的是，燃料往往被埋在地表以下一公里以上的深度，而且通常被埋在不方便的地方，比如北极圈、处于冲突中的国家或海底。
Then there's the fact that the substance takes 60 to 600 million years to form from dead plankton.
还有一个事实是，燃料需要死去的浮游生物花上6千万年至6亿年的时间来形成。
So there's that issue. We drill these incredibly deep holes to get it.
这就是问题所在，得到它我们要钻非常深的洞。
Then we pipe it, truck it and ship it in tankers across the world to refineries, which are these incredibly expensive industrial facilities
然后用管道、卡车进行运输，之后用油轮运往世界各地的精炼厂，这些精炼厂都是非常昂贵的工业设施，
that take in crude oil and gas, which are just a bunch of different hydrocarbon molecules, in order to sort those molecules into refined products.
它们接收只是一堆不同的碳氢化合物分子的原油和天然气，将它们分拣成精炼产品。
Refined natural gas is then delivered to homes and businesses via an invisible interstate highway system millions of miles long.
然后，精炼天然气通过数百万英里长的隐形州际高速公路系统输送到家庭和企业。
It's invisible because it's underground. There's so much pipeline in this system that entire steel mills have been built only to produce pipeline for this system.
它是看不见的，因为在地下。这个系统中里有非常多的管道，整个钢铁厂都是为这个系统生产管道而建的。
And because there are millions of miles of gas getting pumped beneath us at high pressure at all times, engineers send these intelligent robots called "smart pigs" through the pipelines to check for safety defects.
因为在我们的下面每时每秒都有数百万英里的高压气体被输送，工程师们让那些被称为“智能猪”的智能机器人通过管道来检查安全漏洞。
Doing this is called "pigging the pipeline." Yeah, that's a real thing.
这就叫“清管”。是的，这都是真实的事情。
But even with these precautions, there are accidents.
但即使采取了这些预防措施，事故还是会发生。
In 2010, the San Bruno natural gas pipeline exploded in California. Eight people died.
2010年，加州圣布鲁诺天然气管道发生爆炸，8人死亡。
Eyewitnesses reported the blast looked like a wall of fire 1,000 feet tall.
目击者称爆炸看上去就像一堵1000英尺高的火墙。
More recently, in 2018, excess pressure in natural gas pipelines in Massachusetts resulted in explosions that killed somebody and forced 50,000 others from their homes.
2018年，马萨诸塞州天然气管道因压力过度而导致爆炸，造成多人死亡，5万人被迫离开家园。
But, you know, despite all of this, we're actually jealous of people who live close enough to these insane pipelines to get gas into their homes, because everyone else is stuck with even worse options, like fuel oil and propane.
但是，你知道，尽管发生了这些可怕的事情，我们其实还是嫉妒那些住在这些疯狂管道附近的人，因为其他人都被困在更糟糕的选择当中，比如燃油和丙烷。
These fuels don't have pipelines in place for delivery, so instead, tens of thousands of trucks go from home to home in neighborhoods throughout the country, pumping these fuels into tanks in homeowners' basements and yards.
这些燃料没有管道输送，因此，成千上万辆卡车在全国各地的社区挨家挨户地运送它们，把它们注入房主的地下室和院子里的油箱里。
And regardless of what heating fuel you use -- gas, propane or oil -- you better have a carbon monoxide detector so your heating system doesn't accidentally kill you in the night, because hundreds of Americans die in exactly that way each year.
不管你用的是什么加热燃料——天然气、丙烷还是石油——你最好有一个一氧化碳探测器，这样你的加热系统就不会在晚上意外将你杀死，因为每年都有成百上千的美国人以这种方式死亡。
So that's the system we have today. Safe to say, it has some downsides.
这就是我们今天要讲的系统。可以肯定地说，它有一些缺点。
Don't get me wrong -- it's a marvel of human ingenuity, but with some pretty serious drawbacks.
别误会，该系统是人类智慧的奇迹，但它也有一些相当严重的缺点。
And the rigamarole of conventional heating feels even more over the top when you consider that every home is already sitting right on top of a vast reservoir of renewable energy: geothermal energy.
而且，当你考虑到每个家庭都正坐在一个巨大的可再生能源水库的顶部时，传统供暖的冗长程序就显得更加夸张了。
Let's talk about geothermal energy. Starting a few feet under the earth's surface, the ground is awash in thermal energy.
我们来谈谈地热能。从地表以下几英尺处开始，地面就充满了热能。
This is why caves and wine cellars, they never get too hot or too cold. They're just bathed in this low-grade heat.
这就是为什么洞穴和酒窖不会太热或太冷的原因。他们只是沐浴在这种低温度下。
Geothermal heating systems draw on this heat, using what are called "ground loops," which are just simple plastic pipes buried under the yard.
地热供暖系统利用这些热量，通过所谓的“地面回路”，也就是埋在院子下面的简单塑料管。
These ground loops are then connected to a heat pump that sits inside the home, typically where a furnace once was.
然后，这些地回路连接到室内的热泵，通常是曾经安置火炉的地方。
More and more homeowners are choosing geothermal over fuel-based options.
越来越多的房主选择地热而不是基于燃料的选择。
I see this shift up close every day, because I cofounded a company to create a new kind of ground-up utility by making it as easy and inexpensive as possible to switch from conventional heating to geothermal.
我每天都能近距离地看到这种转变，因为我与人合伙创办了一家公司，致力于创造一种新型的地面公用事业，使得人们能够尽可能简单、廉价地从传统供暖转向地热能。
We've done this by creating a service where homeowners can fill out a form on our website, we design a geothermal heating system for them, and then we install that system using purpose-built tools and equipment.
我们通过创建一项服务来做到这一点，房主可以在我们的网站上填写一份表格，我们会为他们设计一个地热供暖系统，然后使用特制的工具和设备来安装这一系统。
Once the installation is done, that home will have moved on from fossil heating forever, because those ground loops, they'll last as long as the home itself.
安装一旦完成，这个家将永远不再使用化石供暖，因为那些地面回路，它们将和房子本身一样延存下去。
As each home switches over, a new kind of utility is taking hold -- a distributed utility, made up of homes exchanging renewable energy with the ground.
随着越来越多的家庭进行了这一转换，一种新的公用事业正在占据主导地位——一种分布式公用事业，由与地面交换可再生能源的房屋组成。
This new infrastructure is simple, local and inexpensive to operate, and it represents a permanent and wholesale shift away from fossil fuels.
这种新的基础设施简单、本地化且运营成本低廉，象征着对化石燃料的永久的、大规模的转移。
The groundwork is being laid, so to speak, for the idea that maybe we don't need to destroy the world in order to keep our rooms at a comfortable temperature.
可以这么说，“或许我们不需要毁灭世界就能让房间保持舒适的温度”这一想法为该事业奠定了基础。
Let's leave the Arctic Circle and the seafloor alone, bypass the refineries and the pipelines and stop worrying that our families will accidentally be poisoned in the night.
让我们远离北极圈和海底，绕过炼油厂和输油管道，不用再担心我们的家人会在夜里意外中毒。
Instead, let's use the massive amounts of energy that are already right there for the taking, right beneath every building on earth. Thank you.
而是，我们来使用已经存在的大量能源吧，就在地球上每座建筑的下面。谢谢！
