Kuroshio Science 6-1, 101-113, 2012 Novel Renewable Natural Resource of Deep Ocean Water (DOW) and Their Current and Future Practical Applications Masayuki Mac Takahashi1* and Ping-Yi Huang2 1 Asia-Pacific Ocean Research Center, National Sun-Yatsen University, 70 Lien-hai Rd., Kaohsiung, Taiwan 80424, R. O. C. 2 Stone & Resource Industry R & D Center, No.534, Sec. 1, Nanbin Road, Guanghua Jian, Hualien, Taiwan 97356, R.O.C. Abstract Deep ocean water (DOW) contains a large stock of renewable natural resources, and is unique in having multiple essential resources such as energy, fertilizers, water, salts, metals and minerals. However, low concentrations of most resources, a high construction cost for the pumping system to obtain DOW and limited access to DOW pumping locations have discouraged actual attempts to obtain DOW. Recent developments in technology and practical applications of the DOW resources carried out in USA (Hawaii), Japan, Taiwan and South Korea have been included the followings: low temperature energy for generating electricity by ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC), cooling electric power generators, air-conditioning, holding and handling fish and shell-fish, cold aquaculture and cold agriculture, inorganic nutrients for the culture of seaweed and phytoplankton, ocean fertilization, freshwater, salts, minerals, and metals, among others. Key words: Renewable resource, deep ocean water, DOW, practical application, energy, freshwater, fertilizers, metals, minerals 1. Introduction future as it contains energy as well as various essential materials. A severe hurdle for DOW app- One of the urgent subjects which we are now lications is DOW's low resource concentration. confronting in the world is an increase or is a However, it is quite possible to make this low con- maintenance of the sustainability of our society centration useful in the future as microorganisms while looking towards the future. The Natural Step and plants are capable of absorbing materials (one international NGO) has proposed four system efficiently even at extremely low concentrations, conditions in order to keep up the sustainability of and our knowledge and technology for utilizing society, and the first two are not to increase con- such low concentration of resources has now been centrations of substances extracted from the earth's improved to a high degree. crust, or to increase man-made products (http:// In the late 19 century, DOW resources attracted www. naturalstep. org/ the- sys tem-conditions, the attention of a French physicist, Dr. J. A. d'Ars- http://www.tnsij.org/index.html). Considering as onval, as energy for generating electricity by ocean how presently our society is supported by many thermal energy conversion (OTEC) (Takahashi natural resources obtained from the earth's crust, 2000). During nearly 80 years of research in OTEC, we have to replace those with renewable resources. we have come to recognize that DOW contains a Deep ocean water (DOW) is one of the most great variety of resources in addition to its low promising and unique renewable resources for the temperature, and have investigated them further *Corresponding author: e-mail [email protected] 101 Novel renewable natural resource of deep ocean water for practical applications (Kaiyo-shuppan 2000, This sinking process of surface water takes from Fujita and Takahashi 2006). DOW has been inter- days to months for completion. The cold surface ested not only just energy but also other resources, water sink to the deep and then moves toward lower and some of them have now been applied practically. latitudes, and comes up to the surface at mid or low- The current status of DOW resource applications latitudes due to warming. The whole process from has been reviewed in this paper. sinking to rising will take hundreds to thousands of years. Once the surface water sinks below 200 m 2. Origin and characteristics of DOW where there is not enough solar radiation penetrating for photosynthesis, heterotrophic processes become DOW was defined as the seawater below the predominant in DOW, which consume organic depth of ca. 200m in the ocean for the resource matter and oxygen, and produce carbon dioxide utilization of fisheries although actual depth is and inorganic nutrients. The newly sunk DOW changeable depending upon geographical locations contains rich oxygen and labile organic matter, and the kind of target resource (Deep Ocean Water but the old DOW contains less oxygen and almost Conference for Fisheries 2001). For example, low no labile organic matter, and is rich in carbon temperature DOW can be obtained at shallower dioxide and inorganic nutrients. depths at higher latitudes, but at deeper depths in Carbon-14 dating of carbon dioxide in seawater lower latitudes. at various depths indicates average years since the DOW is formed in nature in the following water sinks from the surface. Actual determinations process. Firstly, the surface seawater is cooled at of average years of seawater in the western Pacific higher latitudes in winter, and then the cooled Ocean showed over 2,000 years at about 2,000m surface water sinks to deeper depths, dissolving in depth around 40oN, gradually becoming of r ich oxygen and carbon dioxide due to the increased young towards the south (Tsunogai 1981). The saturation level at low temperatures (Fig. 1). average year estimated by the carbon-14 dating gave <100 years for the DOW from 320m and Middle & low latitudes High latitudes 344m at the Kochi Deep Ocean Water Research Solar energy Cold air Laboratory (Taniguchi et al. 2000), and 930 years Sea surface for 600m and 2,030 years for 1,400m of the DOW CO 2 Low temperature collected off the Okinawan main island (Ooide CO2 O2 ªTemperature Euphotic zone Rich CO2 & O2 «CO & ª O O 2 2 2 2002). Organic matter D Temperature increase The first resource of DOW is its low temperature, e o o p ªTemperature ªCO & «O Middle & deep zone ranging from -1.8 C to 15 C depending on depth t 2 2 h and geographical location. Temperature is below Organic matter 10oC at ca. 300m in temperate waters and in much Low temperature Low temperature o ªCO2 & «O2 Rich CO2 & O2 deeper water at lower latitudes, and is 5 C or lower below 1,000m in the world's oceans (Fig. 2). 1 ~ 1000s years Days ~ Months Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of DOW formation in the ocean. Fig. 2. Longitudinal temperature (℃ ( section in Fig. 3. Vertical distributions of inorganic nutrients the Atlantic Ocean (Raymont 1980) in the world ocean (Sverdrup et al. 1942). 102 Masayuki Mac Takahashi and Ping-Yi Huang Such low temperatures are originally brought from large as 500x109 tons and 95x109 tons, respectively, higher latitudes to lower latitudes with DOW as which are about 5,000 and 2,500 times that of the mentioned above. respective fertilizers used for agriculture yearly in The second resource of DOW is inorganic the world. nutrients, as shown in Fig. 3. Nutrients are The third resource of DOW is freshwater. Of increased in concentration with depth down to ca. course salts have to be removed from seawater to 1,000m, reaching almost constant high concentr- obtain freshwater. ations. Old DOW contains more nutrients than The fourth resource of DOW is salts, which are young DOW, which can be seen in the Atlantic composed mostly of sodium chloride (77.9% in Ocean where the average nutrient concentrations total weight of salts), magnesium chloride (9.6%), are almost half of the concentration of the Pacific magnesium sulfate (6.1%), calcium sulfate (4.0%) and Indian Oceans. Nutrient concentrations in and potassium chloride (2.1%). DOW are still far lower than the level for agricul- The fifth resource of DOW is metals and min- tural fertilizers. However total amounts of nitrate erals, most of which are in extremely low concen- and phosphate in DOW are estimated to be as trations (Table 1). Table 1. Average concentrations of elements in seawater (Nozaki 1996) . Element Av. Conc. Element Av. Conc. Element Av. Conc. Element Av. Conc. (ng/kg) (ng/kg) (ng/kg) (ng/kg) Cl 19,350,000,000 U 3,200 Re 7.8 Sn 0.5 Na 10,780,000,000 V 2,000 He 7.6 Ho 0.36 Mg 1,280,000,000 As 1,200 Ti 6.5 Lu 0.23 S 898,000,000 Ni 480 La 5.6 Be 0.21 Ca 412,000,000 Zn 350 Ge 5.5 Tm 0.2 K 399,000,000 Kr 310 Nb <5 Eu 0.17 Br 67,000,000 Cs 306 Hf 3.4 Tb 0.17 C 27,000,000 Cr 212 Nd 3.3 Hg 0.14 N 8,720,000 Sb 200 Pb 2.7 Rh 0.08 Sr 7,800,000 Ne 160 Ta <2.5 Te 0.07 B Se 155 2.0 Pd 0.06 4,500,000 Ag O 2,800,000 Cu 150 Co 1.2 Pt 0.05 0.03 Si 2,800,000 Cd 70 Ga 1.2 Bi F 1,300,000 Xe 66 Au 0.02 0.02 Ar 620,000 Fe 30 Yb 1.2 Th Li 180,000 Al 30 Dy 1.1 In 0.01 Rb 120,000 Mn 20 Gd 0.9 Ru <0.005 P 62,000 Y 17 Pr 0.7 Os 0.002 I 58,000 Zr 15 Ce 0.7 Ir 0.00013 Ba 15,000 Tl 13 Sc 0.7 Mo 10,000 W 10 Sm 0.57 In addition, there are several unique character- <1,000 years.The above mentioned resources from istics of DOW. The first is the cleanliness as shown #3 to #5 are not unique only for DOW but also to in Table 2, which is created by isolation from active the surface seawater; however, the cleanliness of biological processes due to poor or no solar radi- DOW is more advantageous for practical applic- ation and less physico-chemical actions compared ations.Within the cleanliness of DOW, dissolved with near the surface.