Over one half of all domestic energy consumed in the US is used to heat or cool homes. Roughly one third of all energy consumed by Comercial buildings is used for heating or cooling.
Climate Control is one of the largest uses for energy in the United States, what can be done to reduce this cost?
This was moved over from the Aqua thread where it became terribly off topic.
It was suggested that the old freight tunnel system in Chicago be used to funnel cool lake or river water to the major buildings downtown where radiators and/or thermal transfer plates would be used to create cool air. This cool air would be used to air-condition the highrises.
Someone suggested that there already was a water cooling system like this in Chicago run by Unicom Thermal Technologies. However this is not a river or lake based water cooling system, but rather a "Chilled Water System." A chilled water system basically does the following:
Ice is made durring off-peak hours and stored in large quantities around a large grid of pipes, sorta like a radiator. Water is pumped through the pipes and chilled to about 34 degrees and pumped to buildings where it collects heat from another radiator system in the building. The building's radiator has a fan that blows air over it, cooling the air. The air is then used to cool the building.
Here is a picture of Unicom Thermal's flagship plant on State Street:
Other Info on Unicom Thermal:
http://www.bellgossett.com/Articles/files/case_10.pdf
http://www.kennyconstruction.com/underground/unicom.htm
http://www.aiachicago.org/special_fe...s/dba_005.html
There are some examples of river based water cooling systems both planned and already in existance.
There are several buildings that already use a system like this along the Chicago River, I am not sure which building utilize this technology however. If anyone knows or can find out, please share.
300 N. Lasalle, is planned to have a river-based water cooling system.
The EPA has, for at least a few years, refused to approve aplications for river based water cooling systems in Chicago because the amount of heated water dumped back into the river may have an adverse effect on the river ecosystem (and the green dye on St. pattys day will not?).
I have also heard rumors of buildings that do the same thing using lake Michigan water.
The only specific example I know of is soon to be demolished, it is the Jesuit Residence at Loyola University Chicago.
The only city wide lake, river, or ocean based water cooling system I know of is Toronto. It is currently still small, but is undergoing a massive expansion as ordinary bussiness has caught on that lake-cooling is much cheeper than paying the electricity bill.
Here's a picture of one of the new pumping stations being built for this system in Toronto:
An article about the system:
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/na...d388ed&k=89467
Discussion about any other heating or cooling technologies is welcome in this thread, some examples include:
Lake, river, or ocean cooling
Geo-Thermal cooling
Geo-Thermal Heating
Any other non-fossil fuel based cooling or heat source