THE STORY OF THE BLUE REVOLUTION

The Blue Revolution Hawaii board met today, with some sorrowfulness, as one of our members, Guy Toyama (left), earlier this week passed away at the age of 42.  Three days earlier, a key inspiration for the Blue Revolution, Paul Yuen (right), also suddenly died.  Blue Revolution Hawaii is the synthesis of half a century of efforts validating Hawaii as the headquarters of the Blue Revolution.

Ostensibly, there is no real beginning for the Blue Revolution, as innumerable marine pioneers over the past century have contributed to this progress.   Let us begin in 1972, forty years ago, when Hawaii ocean engineer John Craven (left above) and Japanese architect Kiyonori Kikutake built a model of a floating city and towed it to Kaneohe Bay.  Alas, it sank, and remains rusting away.  John went on to found the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii in 1974, while Governor George Ariyoshi the adjacent Hawaii Ocean Science and Technology Park in 1985.  In 1990 the two were combined into the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority (NELHA):

There are a few who wonder if this was wise, as now NELHA needs to assure that every project is self-sufficient.  For a field so formative, there has to be a vibrant R&D component to solidify the science and engineering, and cultivate new ideas and pathways.  The Pacific International Ocean Station, described in a 3June2012 posting, is the open ocean extension of NELHA, except that the early focus will be on technology transfer, with opportunities for free enterprise activity.

Imaginative early insights came from Spilly Spilhaus (left), founder of the Sea Grant Program, with his thoughts about colonization of the ocean, and Joe Vadus (right), chief ocean technologist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration, who had the courage to dream about what could be.

The first real piece of hardware that actually worked on the open ocean was Mini-OTEC off NELHA at Keahole Point, Hawaii, in 1979.  Jim Wenzel and his Lockheed crew were the first to attain net positive for ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC).

I had just joined the staff of U.S. Senator Spark Matsunaga, and helped draft the original bill for OTEC R&D.  The legislation was enacted in 1980.  The language suggested 10,000 MW by 1999.  During this same period, U.S. Senator Dan Inouye also succeeded in passing legislation to stimulate the commercialization of the technology.  Well, advancements have been elusive, for there is exactly zero MW operating today.  However, click on the current state of development, for there is newfound reason for some optimism.  Of course,  while OTEC is the necessary natural energy source, it is only an element of the Blue Revolution.

Chapter four of SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Planet Earth is on the Blue Revolution, while the Huffington Post has published three articles on the subject:

  The Dawn of the Blue Revolution

  Blue Revolution

  The Blue Revolution is the Optimal Solution for Japan

In a nutshell, while the Green Revolution merely led to an expansion of grain production, the Blue Revolution shows promise as the next major opportunity to produce clean energy, marine biomass plantations, next generation fisheries and other co-products, while remediating global warming and preventing the formation of hurricanes.

So back to the history, in the early to mid-80's, Paul Yuen and I enlisted the assistance of Fujio Matsuda (left), who was then president of the University of Hawaii, and George Ariyoshi (right), who was governor of Hawaii, to create the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research (PICHTR) as a partnership with Japan to establish in Hawaii a clean technology transfer organization to complement university research for the benefit of the Pacific Islands and World.  PICHTR succeeded in attaining net positive in 1992 with a 210 kW open cycle OTEC experiment at NELHA.

In 1991, I co-authored a presentation on the Blue Revolution by Hawaii Senator Richard Matsuura (left) to the The First Very Large Floating Structures Conference held in Honolulu.  In 1992 Senator Dan Inouye (right) published in SEA TECHNOLOGY The American Blue Revolution.  During this period, Joseph Vadus and I co-chaired a workshop in Kona, where the participants came to a conclusion that a 100,000 square foot (one hectare) floating platform could be built for $500 million, half the cost of one B-2 bomber, with a target date of the Year 2000.

The notion of half a billion dollars scared funding agencies and congressional staffers.  So a decision was made to pursue specific marine bio-product and ocean enhancement pathways, which someday in the future could be integrated unto a floating platform.  It was left to the private sector to develop OTEC.

Stan Dunn, then chairman of the Ocean Engineering Department at Florida Atlantic University, and I co-chaired a workshop at the headquarters of the Department of Commerce in D.C. in 1993 to prepare a feasibility plan for the design, construction and operation of a fleet of OTEC-powered plant ships to retard the formation of hurricanes.    With some colleagues, we published a paper entitled Artificial Upwelling for Environmental Enhancement, which was presented at a conference in Singapore.

The University of Hawaii was selected as the National Science Foundation Marine Bioproducts Engineering Center in 1998 with funding of $12 million.  The primary focus was on marine microorganisms to produce high value biopharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals.

In 1999, a team led by Fujio Matsuda, Joe Vadus and I wrote in SEA TECHNOLOGY on The Ultimate Ocean Ranch.  PICHTR hosted several next generation fishery workshops and summits, in Honolulu (1997), Tokyo (2004) and Bergen (2005), the latter resulting in the Bergen Declaration for Next Generation Fisheries.

In 2003 I was invited by the United Nations to address the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission to gain international cooperation for the Blue Revolution.  While interest was high, funding proved difficult, and the operative term then was something closer to the Blue Evolution.

Integrating the above, the timing was ideal to create an organization with the vision and capability to take all this knowledge to the next level, as indicated in my tribute to Guy Toyama:

Guy's legacy might well be Blue Revolution Hawaii and the Pacific International Ocean Station.  A couple of years ago, we were having lunch in Kona when he mentioned how billionaire Gordon Moore had provided funds to initiate the Thirty Meter Telescope Project.  As Guy had an office at Keahole Point at the entrance of the NELHA, why not the Blue Revolution with support from a billionaire?  Thus was born Blue Revolution Hawaii, which proposed the Pacific International Ocean Station.  Guy created the presentation for PIOS, which I presented at the Seasteading Institute's conference in San Francisco.

Leighton Chong came on board as the third Blue Revolutionist.  He and Guy took on the leadership role to organize Blue Revolution Hawaii.  The two made presentations in Japan and China and met with potential partners in those two countries.  The original board included Fujio Matsuda and John Farias.  Our two annual dinners with advisors:

The Board meeting today of Blue Revolution Hawaii at the Plaza Club:

Clockwise from the bottom left:  John Farias, Dante Carpenter, Patrick Takahashi, Matt Matsunaga, Leighton Chong, Kaiu Kimura and George Ariyoshi.  Fujio Matsuda had the flu.

So the story of the Blue Revolution can only be introductory and the mission of Blue Revolution Hawaii is only beginning.  Space became passe when the Cold War ended.  The next great opportunity for humanity is to develop the riches of the seas in harmony with the marine environment.  Hawaii is in the middle of the largest ocean, and the ideal site for the Pacific International Ocean Station (PIOS).  For only 1% the cost of the International Space Station (left, ISP, which has expended $150 billion), PIOS can serve as the platform from which can come sustainable fuels, ultimate ocean ranches, marine biomass plantations, Disney-at-Sea and, someday, floating cities.  Pictured below is Shimizu Corporation's Green Float, a future phase which could well begin with PIOS:

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EVOLUTION OF THE BLUE REVOLUTION

Day 96 of the Lower Puna Eruption, and the lava flow from fissure #8 has dramatically dropped, while activity at the summit of Kilauea Volcano has almost stopped.  The end?  Nope, according to the USGS, for like most government agencies, they are obligated to show over-caution.

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I have been retired from the University of Hawaii for almost two decades.  I still retain an office on the Manoa Campus, primarily to establish an academic foundation for the Blue Revolution.  Progress has been so slow that this effort could better be termed the Blue Evolution.

Full commercialization of the cornucopia of potential sustainable products could well be a quarter century away, but the fundamental R&D to maximize long term success needs to be initiated today.  There is no better economic future, certainly for Hawaii, being in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, but also too, for the entire world, as the next frontier for human progress will not be in outer space, it will be in the open ocean in harmony with the marine environment.  The International Space Station cost $150 billion and will crash into the ocean within the next decade without selling one major commercial product.

Much of our oceans between the 20 north and south parallels surrounding the equator is a sea with warmer waters (up to 35 C or  95 F) at the surface and pathogen free and nutrient rich fluids at 4 C (39 F) at a depth of 1000 meters.  This temperature differential can be utilized to create electricity.

These deeper waters are also very high in nutrients, at the exact composition (Redfield ratio) desirable for bio-growth near the surface in the photic zone.

Thus after you extract the heat for power, this fluid is akin to bringing up free fertilizer to feed biomass plantations and initiate phytoplankton growth to support next generation fisheries through the ultimate ocean ranch.  So that is the Blue Revolution:  a sustainable marine system powered by OTEC to produce clean energy, food, future habitats and a range of other benefits, while remediating global warming and eliminating the formation of hurricanes.

The Seasteading Institute (SI) with headquarters in San Francisco and Blue Revolution Hawaii  (BRH) have similar ultimate outcomes:  floating cities.  We are perfectly matched, for SI wants to immediately create a profit environment for their enterprises and has already succeeded in gaining funding from Peter Thiel.  More recently, they have formed a floating island partnership with French Polynesia.

BRH has proposed a $1.5 billion (1% of the International Space Station) Pacific International Ocean Station to develop the technology and systems to support what is to come.  We all agree that the key to success will start, not with traditional governmental or business financial support, but from an enlightened billionaire, or more, with a dream to Save Humanity and Planet Earth through something like the Blue Revolution.

What exactly is the Blue Revolution?  Watch my SI presentation on PIOS and OTEC (ocean thermal energy conversion).  Here are three Huffington Post articles further explaining the concept, all published about a decade ago:

• The Coming of OTEC
• The Dawn of the Blue Revolution
• Blue Revolution

For the genesis of the Blue Revolution, you will need to go back nearly 40 years when Lockheed first succeeded with Mini-OTEC  in Hawaii, immediately leading to the first OTEC legislation I helped draft when I worked for the U.S. Senate.  

Returning to the University of Hawaii in 1982, I helped create the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research, where my staff succeeded in a 210 kW open cycle OTEC experimental plant.   All this history is summarized in THE STORY OF THE BLUE REVOLUTION.

While the Seasteading Institute has maintained a commendable rate of progress, the rest of the world is in some state of coma, partly affected by the relatively low price of oil:

While current oil prices are up to $70/bbl, this is still far below the average of a few years ago.  But the blessing is that this current period is conveniently available for R&D.  To ratchet up development, something like the Pacific International Ocean Station will cost $1.5 billion, a sum out of the reach of governments and companies.  The only solution is an enlightened billionaire, and there are 2208 of them from 72 countries:

Numerous researchers at the University of Hawaii participated in many of the above efforts.  As I'm not a billionaire, the best I could do was endow my apartment to the University of Hawaii to initiate a Blue Revolution program.  Previously, Tadashi Matsunaga a quarter century ago served as the initial International Professor for the Blue Revolution.  He went on to become president of Tokyo University of A&T.  Today, Hiroaki Eto from Nihon University is using my office on the Manoa Campus to further internationalize this crusade.  His interest is in offshore structures and hydrogen.   

However, assignment in Hawaii is not all work, so Hiro and I had a Blue Revolution lunch under a coconut tree on Magic Island with a view of the Pacific Ocean and Diamond Head (and that's me on the bottom):

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Hurricane Hector remains a Category 4 at 140 MPH, but is expected to weaken into a 2 by Wednesday when south of Hawaii.  However, you look at where it is and you can't help but worry a bit about exactly where he will go:

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THE BIRTH OF THE BLUE REVOLUTION

The notion of a Blue Revolution to develop the riches of our oceans in harmony with the marine environment is hardly new.  My first acquaintance probably occurred in 1979 when I was asked by U.S. Senator Spark Matsunaga to help draft the original legislation for Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC).  This was during the heat of the Second Energy Crisis, and sustainable electricity was the primary  interest for this technology.

Over time it became clear that the cold deep ocean fluids had special qualities, also being pathogen free and high in those nutrients in the exact proportion necessary to promote new biological growth near the surface in the photic zone where the sun shone.  Almost magically, the combination of OTEC and the seas could produce a cornucopia of natural products:  electricity, biofuels, hydrogen, freshwater, next generation fisheries, marine biomass plantations, and more.  The platform on which the facility rested could in time function as ocean industrial parks, future Disney at Seas and floating cities.  As fossil fuels cause the Greenhouse Effect and nuclear power carries deadly consequences, a particularly monumental benefit to enhance the environment emerged:

• As these ocean pods would be placed in the warmest portion of the sea, with a sufficient number of them, the potential of preventing or minimizing the effect of hurricanes became a possible reality.  
• With the chemical balance of biological growth and the prospects of augmenting the effect with iron, could global warming be remediated?

But how could the above effort best be initiated to benefit humanity?  Governments seemed incapable and industry was not equipped to take on the risks of this billion dollar venture.  A stage one open ocean experiment, the Pacific Ocean International Station (PIOS), was advanced by Blue Revolution Hawaii, at a possible cost of $1.5 billion.  Our federal government built 21 B-2 Stealth Bombers at $2.2 billion EACH.  If the funds for just one of them had been applied to PIOS a decade ago, I wonder where the world would be today?  The cost of these recent Middle East wars has been speculated to be $6 trillion.  PIOS would be 0.025% of that estimate.  

There is a third option:  the super rich.  There are nearly 2,000 billionaires.  Surely there must be an enlightened individual or two out there seeking a legacy as the founder of a concept to pioneer this clean and sustainable marine pathway for our future society?

I felt so strongly that this was the ideal opportunity for Hawaii leadership that I endowed my penthouse apartment to the University of Hawaii to kick-off the challenge.  Mind you, this was not only charity, as tax laws are written such that:

• I could have been saddled with up to $200,000 of capital gains tax.
• Instead of being so burdened, the nature of the gift is such that I  won't need to pay any taxes for the next six years.
• Finally, I gain a monthly income that in total would equal the original investment in 10-14 years, depending of the growth of the stock market.

In other words, this original sum would always be there until I pass away.  We can't wait that long, so the campaign now is to seek cost matching to initiate the program.  Jana Light and Tim Szymanowski of the University of Hawaii Foundation are spearheading this effort, and produced the following announcement:

Blue Revolution 

Humanity is facing combined energy and environmental crises. While limited funds are being invested into finding sustainable and renewable solutions, most of the applications are land-based. It’s time to expand our focus to the vast expanse of yet untapped energy and resources covering more than 70% of Planet Earth– the ocean. 

It is time for a Blue Revolution. 

Blue Revolution seeks to do what the Green Revolution did for farming 70 years ago: revolutionize the way we harvest, utilize, and reinvest our energy resources to support human life, while this time enhancing the environment. The scope of Blue Revolution is much greater, however. Harnessing the riches of the ocean would allow us to: 

• Develop next-generation, sustainable fisheries to restock declining fisheries and create new ones. 
• Meet the increasing seafood needs and demands of a growing global population shifting away from red meat. 
• Satisfy the increasing energy needs of a growing global population. 
• Grow marine biomass plantations for biofuels, hydrogen, green chemicals, and freshwater. Ocean microalgae, for example, can be five times more efficient in converting sunlight into biomass than any land crop. 
• Remediate global warming. 
• Prevent the formation of hurricanes. 
• Spur the development of floating industrial parks. 
• Create future cities at sea. 

To accomplish all the above, we first need to optimize a system powered by ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) to support a floating experimental Pacific International Ocean Station (PIOS). The facility would use the temperature differential between cold deep water and warmer surface water to produce sustainable, renewable energy, while re-utilizing the cooled effluent to stimulate biological growth in the surrounding sea. 

The University of Hawaii (UH), located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, is ideally situated to become the world headquarters for the Blue Revolution.  In addition to its geographic advantage, UH also is home to the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute (HNEI), which can be ideally partnered with various elements of the School of Ocean and Earth Technology, plus associative programs throughout the State. HNEI is a leader in renewable energy research and technology, and focuses on identifying technically sound, cost-effective solutions and practical strategies that can be implemented to deliver commercially viable sustainable options for Hawaii and, by extension, the world. The intellectual capital and research infrastructure is here; what we need now are resources to take the Blue Revolution to the next level. 

We are seeking support to cost-match an initial Blue Revolution fund secured by the University of Hawaii Foundation to initiate our stage one initiatives. Your assistance will enable us to: 

• Fund public lectures on the Blue Revolution, featuring local, national and international speakers. 
• Initiate a variety of K-12 programs to introduce the concept to the next generations, and, more so, gain their assistance in developing future pathways. 
• Gather together interested sectors of the local community—environmentalists, Hawaiian organizations, the full range of decision-makers from government and industry, and others—to help plan for our future. 
• Co-host with Blue Revolution Hawaii (a community-led organization to stimulate development of this concept) a symposium of potential partners to discuss how best to plan for, construct and operate the Pacific International Ocean Station. 
• Host a distinguished gathering of prospective contributors to catalyze interest in securing the funds for PIOS, estimated to cost, by 2020, $1.5 billion.

Feel free to contact:
Tim Szymanowski

     tim.szymanowski@uhfoundation.org  

         808 956 0843

Jana Light

     jana.light@uhfoundation.org

        808 956 2276

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Speaking of preventing hurricanes, there are today six ocean storms in the Pacific Ocean:

Go to Weather Underground to view them all, but let me focus on two.  Typhoon Nangka is at 95 MPH, but will strengthen into a Category 3 and head straight for Japan:

As feared, Typhoon Chan-hom made landfall at 90 MPH over Zhoushan City, where Zhejiang Ocean University is located, the strongest such event within 200 miles of Shanghai in 35 years.  

Next stop, Korea.

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