DEEP SEAWATER AIR CONDITIONING

In a civilized society, air conditioning is now the norm.  Thinkers and tinkerers have advanced novel ways of sustainably and economically providing cool.


SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Planet Earth reports on some of them, but to summarize:

1.  Stanford University in 1999 installed an ice-cooling system, and figures to have saved $16 million on electricity.  Many sites are following this lead to make ice during the early hours of the morning when electricity is cheaper, then cooling down the building during the daytime. It must have been a quarter century ago when I accompanied then Hawaii Senator Richard Matsuura to Japan, where he learned of this concept, and till his death attempted to convince people that this made sense.  He was ahead of his time.

2.  There have been innumerable attempts to store winter snow, then recovering the cool during summer.  Sweden and Russia have been doing this for centuries.  Recent increases in electricity rates have resurrected this age old tradition.

3.  Cornell University in 2000 spent $60 million on a lake source cooling system, yes, using the cool from the nearby Cayuga Lake.  They report reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 21 million tons.

This logically leads, then, to a larger body of water, like the Pacific Ocean.  Hawaii, led by Joe Van Ryzin of Makai Ocean Engineering, has spearheaded the utilization of deep ocean waters.  Read his article by clicking on his name.

The initial motivation might have come from 85 year old John Pina Craven.  I once golfed with him on occasion, but haven't seen him now for at least a year.  Read about his cold healing concept.  Watch the video for John starring at the first hotel to use cold water air conditioning, the Bora Bora Intercontinental.  As the French invented ocean thermal energy conversion, it was only fitting that this application at any scale occur here in Tahiti.

It must have been at least a dozen years ago when my team discussed with the Four Seasons Hualalai how they could have become this first resort.  The Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority (NELHA, above) was nearby with easy access to natural cold seawater, and the added prospects of drilling for warm water on the slopes of Hualalai, a dormant volcano, should have been enticing.  While we did not think that the temperature would have been hot enough for electricity production, the combination of natural hot and cold would have made for the ultimate spa.  Alas, they had no vision.

Deep ocean water has air-conditioned NELHA for decades now.  As the water is there anyway, of course the system works, and significantly reduces the electricity bill.  However, for a city, say, you need to be located reasonably close to this cold water.  A pipe has to be laid to reach this fluid, and precautions must be taken at the coastline because storms do occur.  This cold water is pumped to the surface, and passed through a network of heat exchangers to supply cool to customers.

Recently, two projects have surfaced in Hawaii.  Honolulu Seawater Air Conditioning is close to securing final funding (total of $240 million anticipated) to begin building a 25,000 ton system for downtown Honolulu.  Watch John King of CNN tout the Hawaii energy evolution, including seawater air conditioning.

Speaking of resorts, Waikiki has entered the picture, as Kyo-ya Hotels & Resorts is spearheading a project to bring cold deep ocean water to this location.  The present plans are to bring this liquid in and out through the Ala Wai Canal.

It occurred to me that just disposing the warmed water back into the ocean would be a waste.  As this fluid is coming from 1800 foot depths, it is very high in all the nutrients to initiate marine growth, up to 200 times higher than the surface in nitrates and 20 times higher for phosphates.  Why not link this and the Honolulu Seawater Air Conditioning efforts to a next generation fishery?  If not a commercial enterprise, then, at least as a means of stimulating the presence of more fish for fishermen, as the shores of Oahu are not quite what it was when I fished as a youth.  

I urge the University of Hawaii Sea Grant program, which is already providing $200,000 in federal stimulus money for this Waikiki initiative, to take the next logical step:  use these nutrients!  Yes, I can imagine all the protests from canoe enthusiasts to marine environmentalists who only wish to protect the seas, but a few experiments to test the concept in the nearshore will at least aid the bigger picture when Lockheed Martin operates a planned 10 MW OTEC floating plantship off Kahe Point.  This is the beauty of deep ocean water, for it provides a cornucopia of opportunities and products.  Wavepower and solar energy only generate electricity.  The deep ocean is Hawaii's greatest resource, and the Blue Evolution has finally begun, for this is not yet a revolution.

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The Dow Jones Industrials fell 55 to 10,644, not too bad, considering that is was down 147 earlier in the day.  Gold went up $4/toz to $1205 and crude oil is at $80/barrel.

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As earlier indicated, in the West Pacific, Tropical Storm Dianmu is now over Cheju Island and turning East toward Japan, that minor storm in the Gulf is affecting BP spill procedures and there are two disturbances in the East Pacific of no current concern.

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