Not true.
You can use a heat pump to boost the heat out put of geothermal systems and for the most part this is how most of the systems in the north are set up.
But a 176 degrees F you wouldn’t need the heat pump. That is more than sufficient to heat a building if there is enough water to circulate.
What I do notice in the article there was no mention of the pay back period for this system.
With that kind of money just for drilling the hole I would imagine it will be in the range of 15 years or more depending on the size of the building and future energy cost.
This is more or less a demonstration project and a political stunt aimed at the Green Party.
From the video the bore appeared to be approximately four inch, that would allow a 1½ NPS supply and return.
80-100 gpm
With a 15° drop at the exchanger and 100 gpm perhaps 7500000 btu/hr.
Service life on a typical geothermal well, about 300’ with plastic is 40 years.
One million dollars would pay for a large supply of natural gas.
Need to keep the source load high to maximize payback. An interesting project.
The Merchandise Mart Chicago second largest area next to the Pentagon uses a huge valve that only feeds steam to two opposite sections at a time. No way to actually provide heat to the whole thing at once.