SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic – Urging island nations to harness the power of the oceans for their energy needs, development experts have unveiled some of the world’s most innovative technologies using cold sea water.

"We’re talking about using cold sea water to make cold, hard cash," Lelei TuiSamoa LeLaulu asserted, referring to sea water air conditioning (SWAC) and a similar technology, ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC), which generates energy by harnessing the difference between deep ocean water and warmer surface water.

"It does not make sense to import expensive, dirty oil from thousands of miles away when the ocean surrounding us can give us our energy needs," LeLaulu, president of SOS Caribe, a company pioneering the use of cold water technologies, declared.

David Jourdan, a noted ocean explorer featured on National Geographic and Discovery channels and president of Common Heritage Corporation (www.commonheritagecorp.com) which pioneered cold water use in Hawaii, added that both OTEC and seawater air conditioning can also produce fresh water daily by capturing condensation from the cold water pipes.

"SkyWater farms" can produce 50,000 gallons per day, Jourdan, a world renowned deep water explorer involved in the exploration of the Titanic and leader of the team which located the Israeli submarine Dakar, said.

Cold water agriculture which passes cold water pipes underground had made soils extraordinarily productive and reduced the need for surface watering, Jourdan, who operates experimental ColdAg farms, reported.

Many of the technologies promoted by SOS Caribe were developed by the legendary deep sea scientist and Common Heritage Corporation founder, Dr. John Craven, who has been involved in every major ocean innovation in the United States over the past 40 years. Addressing the growing importance of carbon trading, SOS Caribe director Jaime Moreno observed "the use of cold water technologies is not only immensely sustainable but is also a valuable clean development mechanism asset."

Speaking at FUNGLODE, a leading think tank in the capital of the Dominican Republic set up by its President Leonel Fernández, prominent local businessman Moreno, who owns the country’s largest ice cream company, said SOS Caribe wanted to launch the first commercial use of sea water air conditioning in his country "at a time when global warming was increasing the demand for air cooling. Then we’ll expand to other countries in the region."

A key player in the development of competitiveness clusters in the Dominican Republic, Moreno points to unpredictable oil prices on the world market and expensive fossil fuels for the wider Caribbean region: "To be really competitive we have to drastically slash our energy costs and these cold water technologies can cut energy bills by 80 percent."

Charlotte Vick, who serves as ocean content editor for Google Earth, believes that accessibility of bathymetric data now available on Google Earth 5.0 is a significant improvement in evaluating appropriate activity in the ocean: "This new tool provides the opportunity to evaluate our actions in the ocean carefully to be sure we conserve and restore the ocean’s resources.

"These cold water technologies were developed with tens of millions of US and Japanese taxpayer dollars for over 20 years," she noted, adding, "it’s the markets, industries and tourism facilities close to sea water, which have finally matured enough to recognise the commercial value of these systems – and to start using them to cut energy costs and boost profits."

SOS Caribe (Soluciones Sostenibles) specialises in designing and implementing commercially productive sustainable development programs in Latin America and the Caribbean.