Aquarius
Rising overview
Aquarius Rising is a planned research and eco-tourism facility of the First
Millennial Foundation. There are several goals with Aquarius Rising, but
its main purpose is to perform research around a certain set of technologies
and spread the understanding how these technologies can help the world.
The
focus of the research are Ocean Thermal Energy Converters (OTEC), multi-species
mariculture and accretion of what we call sea-cement.
An
OTEC use the temperature difference between cold
deep lying ocean water and the warm surface water to produce emission-less
energy with little impact on the surrounding environment.
The
mariculture research utilises the nutrient rich cold "waste"
water from the OTEC to perform multi-species mariculture in large enclosed
ponds in a lagoon or sheltered by a reef, before releasing the cold water
down to deep ocean again.
An
OTEC can produce a lot of energy. We are planning to use some of the energy
to produce sea-cement. Sea-cement, or as we often call it, sea-ment,
is accreted out of plain ocean water. This is accomplished by applying an
electric current to a metal grid, calcium carbonate and other mineral ions
dissolved in sea water bond electrochemically to the charged metal, forming
a cement-hard coating. One very interesting use of sea-cement is for producing
artificial reefs.
There
are several other possible additions to the planned facility which are currently
being investigated. Primarily we are considering an eco-tourism facility
which combines the traditional attraction values of the tropics with the
possibility to take part in an active research and environmental protection
program. Some other avenues which are being reviewed are a remote faculty
location for a university working in combination with our research
centre and a scuba diving centre which educates in reef and ocean
life preservation beyond the standard scuba diving courses.
An argument for why we are investigating
the Maldives for an Aquarius Rising location.