Saipan Deep Ocean Water Technologies

Beginning in 2006, Common Heritage Corporation moved beyond demonstration projects to rigorous scientific testing of its Cold Agriculture thesis. While earlier tests at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii had shown that our techniques work on more than sixty varieties of temperate and tropical plants, those tests were never designed to produce testable data on specific crops. CHC's subsidiary, Saipan DOW Project, won a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to take it to the next stage. We chose the western Pacific island of Saipan for our tests to prove that Cold Agriculture can successfully produce temperate zone crops in real-world, hot and arid tropical areas. The tests were carried out at Marpi Point on Saipan's northern tip as a simulation of what might be accomplished in a full-size commercial application. The plants tested were lettuce and broccoli. These may seem mundane if you live in the developed temperate world, but these are products that must currently be flown to Saipan at great expense. Local chefs asked us to make these our highest priorities.

There is no deep pipe currently installed off Saipan, so our first task was to establish that one could be installed. That accomplished, we turned to the scientific tests using chilled fresh water to simulate the cold deep ocean water we would use in a full-scale operation. We built multiple test beds to see what happens with varying temperatures and other variables. The results were profound, establishing that - with Cold Agriculture - we can successfully grow crops in tropical areas that had never before been grown there in such quantity and of such quality.

We are currently pursuing additional financing to allow us to expand and extend the Saipan tests to other crops over longer time periods.

The DOE grant also allowed us to further develop our SkyWater designs for commercial-scale production of condensed fresh water from the atmosphere using cold sea water as the condensing agent. While the grant was insufficient to build a test rig, our designs and refinement of the materials needed are much further developed than before.

For more information:
Full report to the U.S. Department of Energy
Executive Summary
DOW Economic Analysis
Cold Agriculture
SkyWater

This material is based in part upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under Award Number DE-FG52-06NA27211. This report was prepared, in part, as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof.