The story of Common Heritage Corp is a fascinating one that started with John Craven who was a major force in modernizing the US Navy. Known for his work on things like the Polaris this scientist and inventor made a dramatic shift in his life in the 70s. He came upon a realization that humanity was facing unprecedented challenges and that to him the ocean held the key especially for tropical environments.
The key to his work and contribution to the Ecological Design movement has been his promotion of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Technologies or OTEC for short. Cold Water Power (AKA Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion) is being pioneered by Makia Engineering in Hawaii and Common Heritage Corporation.
Common Heritage has planned a integrated approach that includes a novel approach to use ocean water that includes:
Generating power that includes producing a high enough carnot efficiency ratio to generate electricity by combining cold subsurface ocean water 2000 feet below the surface with warm surface water which is around 80 degrees. This has the effect of stimulating a hurricane if the right conditions are incorporated in the design;
It also turns out that the cold ocean water can enhance the growth of plants in gardens;
Elements can be extracted from the ocean water as a form of mining;
Pumping cold ocean water for district cooling is now being planned for Toronto and Currently Cornell University uses lake cold water to power its site.
In 2004 the founder of CHC – John Craven – met with ZERI NM to discuss the possibilities for applying the approach they developed to enhance plant growth in Hawaii in NM.
Incorporating the CHC approach in small island nations in the Pacific as part of a Integrated Farming approach might also provide synergistic benefits that would not otherwise be realized if they were designed as separate approaches.
References:
Wikipedia page on OTEC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_thermal_energy_conversion