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Cool Waters for Cooling Buildings
Going Green
Going Green: Cool Waters for Cooling Buildings
There is a plan in the works to use water from Lake Ontario to air condition buildings in the city of Syracuse. Dr. James Hassett is the Director of the Central New York Chilled Water Project.
"We are looking at the potential for taking naturally chilled water from deep within Lake Ontario, bringing it to Central New York and using it for cooling to replace mechanical chillers. It's an idea based on what's been done at Cornell University, using Cayuga Lake water to cool campus buildings, and a similar project in Toronto. We think there will savings in terms of energy, in terms of emissions and there will be economic benefits to the community," Hassett said.
"Cornell's lake source cooling project has shown great success taking naturally chilled water from Cayuga Lake to meet the University's cooling needs. It's proven a cost-effective and reliable cooling method that provides significant environmental benefits at the same time. This project is on a scale eight times larger than Cornell University," said former Congressman Jim Walsh.
Walsh obtained the money to see if it makes sense to bring 40-degree water from about 250 feet deep in Lake Ontario, pump it 30 miles to Syracuse where it would be circulated through a number of major buildings replacing mechanical air conditioning. It's not an unrealistic concept since that's almost exactly, where much of Onondaga County's drinking water comes from.
"Exactly as long as the Metropolitan Water Board pipeline which takes drinking water from Lake Ontario and brings it to the northern part of Onondaga County. One possibility is to put in a parallel pipe to bring the chilled water along that same right of way," said Hassett.
Once the chilled water has cooled the buildings, it will be returned to Lake Ontario by way of Onondaga Lake where it will add oxygen-rich water, and improve the habitat for desirable fish species in the once heavily polluted lake.
