A Complete System for the Revitalization of Haiti

From COMMON HERITAGE CORPORATION and ENERGIES NATURELLES:
A paper outlined at the January 1999 Blue-Green Renaissance Seminars and presented here in its entirety for the first time.

Energies Naturelles (Energinat, S.A.)

A COMPLETE SYSTEM FOR THE REVITALIZATION OF HAITI

by Dr. Gerard P. Pereira, President and CEO
Email: gerard.pereira@sympatico.ca

During the 19th century the world had decided to change and the Industrial Revolution was in full swing. But Haiti (the new nation of liberated slaves), having been denied the accessibility provided by the industrial society, was not able to undertake the change and was forced to choose the path of exclusion. The Haitians thus missed the train of industrialization ! And on the edge of the 21st century, they still suffer from the lack of potable water (which is accessible to only 37% of the population in the capital Port-au-Prince, to 47% in the small cities and to 23% in the villages). They also suffer from the scarcity of electricity and natural gas, and of telephone lines and other forms of telecommunications. They still suffer from the ecological degradation of the land made largely arid by centuries of deforestation and erosion; every year some 15 000 acres of arable soil are swept along toward the sea as a result of the annual cutting of some 30 million trees for the production of charcoal and firewood. They also suffer from a lack of suitable roads for motor vehicles and from a perilous marine mass transportation system. There is thus an urgent need for rapid action to improve the economic situation and quality of life of all Haitians while preserving the environment and their cultural identity, especially in this era of globalization which does nothing for local communities and local ecosystems.

Haiti lies just south of the Tropic of Cancer and at the same latitude north of the Equator as the Big Island of Hawaii. It is the leeward half of the trade wind Caribbean island of Hispaniola which it shares with the Dominican Republic and which the Windward Passage separates from Cuba's Guantanamo Bay. The great majority of Haitian cities and villages are located along the coast and, like the

Hawaiian islands, most of the topography of Haiti is characterized by coastal deserts and mountains.

The country has very few terrestrial resources. It has a few mineral resources, including some gold and copper in the North, lignite (brown coal) in the Central Plateau, bauxite (from which aluminum can be obtained) in the South and marble here, there and everywhere, but they remain undeveloped and the people continue to regress.

Fortuitously, however, as can be seen in maps which reveal the differences in water temperatures in the world's oceans, Haiti lies in a band from latitudes of about 15° to 20° north of the Equator and, therefore, is bathed in waters which are warm at the surface and very cold, pure and rich in nutrients a scant 1000 meters below, with a temperature difference of 22-24°C, a variation which can be exploited in various ways. Indeed, whereas in the Bahamas it is only at a distance of 15 km from the shore that the temperature difference between the surface sea water and the water at a depth of 1000 meters is about 21°C, in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Haiti it varies between 21 and 24°C at only 1km from the shore. Therefore, these four Caribbean islands have access to deep ocean water.

Unlike these islands, however, Haiti is blessed with deep ocean water (its most valuable natural energy resource) in close proximity to its entire coast. This is evident in a conventional map of Haiti on which the 1000 meter isobath has been superimposed. One can identify five geographic sites, each of which is a promising location for a deep ocean water development project:

Mole St. Nicolas
St. Marc's Bay
La Gonave Island
the northern coast of the Southern Peninsula (near Jeremie)
a coastal zone east of the city of Jacmel

All five sites lie close to deep ocean water and are characterized by a flat plain on the water's edge. This is attested by bathymetric surveys made by the US Navy. Indeed, the Mole St. Nicolas region is characterized by a large bay, called Mole's Bay, which leads into an inlet or smaller bay named Careenage Bay at the entrance of which lies the small city of Mole St. Nicolas. Mole's Bay is of historical interest since it is the place where Christopher Columbus, coming from the Bahamas and Cuba at the head of his caravels, first entered the island of Hispaniola on the sixth of December 1492, a place he called St. Nicolas Bay. This bay is delimited by two capes: Mole's Cape and St. Nicolas Cape. The former lies in very close proximity to the 1000 meter isobath.

Similarly, St. Marc's Bay, in particular St. Marc's Point, lies close to the 1000 meter isobath line. La Gonave Island off Port-au-Prince Bay is another promosing location for a deep ocean water project; its coastal zone known as West Point lies in close proximity to the 1000 meter isobath line.

Additionally, the northern coast of the Southern Peninsula near the city of Jeremie lies very close to deep ocean water. The same situation prevails on the southern coastal zone near Jacmel. Thus Haiti, by virtue of its land-sea configuration and its 200-mile exclusive economic zone, is the most favored nation in the Caribbean for access to deep ocean water.

DOWER SYSTEMS

The Common Heritage Corporation (CHC) and the Haitian corporation Energies Naturelles (Energinat, S.A.) have negotiated a joint venture agreement leading to the formation of a new joint corporation, which will be named Energies Naturelles International (ENI). This joint corporation proposes to establish a small, self-sufficient, environmentally sustainable Deep Ocean Water Energy Recovery (DOWER) system in each of the five appropriate geographic sites identified and to seek sponsorship for these projects from the Government of Haiti.

Each sustainable self-sufficiency facility or system whose parameters have been defined by the CHC will consist of:

two 25-inch diameter pipes for deep ocean water recovery and distribution;
capability for use of 10 megawatts of air conditioning and industrial cooling;
100 acres for agriculture and 16 acres for aquaculture ponds;
reservation of space and allowance for deep ocean water supply for a one-megawatt Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) electricity plant.

Each system will utilize the cold deep seawater sequentially for three temperature regimes in three subsystems: the Electrical Power Generating System (4-8°C), the Cold Utilization System (8-11°C) and the Nutrient Utilization System (>11°C). We shall focus initially on the more affordable cold and nutrient utilization systems. The cold deep seawater will first be employed for air conditioning of homes, hotels and businesses and for fresh water production by condensation from the humid tropical air and by desalination through simulation of nature's hurricanes in a Hurricane Tower developed and tested by the CHC; it will also be utilized for industrial cooling and for cold water agriculture for the production of a wide assortment of tropical and temperate climate fruits, vegetables, herbs and even flowers. After the deep ocean water has been employed in one or more cold utilization applications, it will be utilized again for the nutrients, the residual cold (14°C) and the purity in aquaculture farms in which the cold water can be combined with the warm surface water to produce environments acceptable to many species of marine life, including macro- and microalgae, sea vegetables, fin fish and shell fish. Lastly, the temperature difference between the warm surface seawater and the cold deep seawater will be exploited to generate electrical power, referred to as Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion(OTEC) electricity, and to produce desalinated water as a by-product. Ocean thermal energy conversion into electricity is technically feasible and will be as economical as it is ecological if the costs of fossil fuels continue to rise and their continued supply grows more uncertain.

To paraphrase Science Editor William Broad of the New York Times who wrote a superb article in 1993, these multiple applications of deep ocean water, either alone or in combination with surface ocean water, have flowed from the idealistic vision of John Craven who had the original idea of bringing the deep ocean onto dry land. This idea is vividly symbolized by the fountain at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority (NELHA) at Keahole Point on the Big Island of Hawaii in which warm tropical water and cold arctic or antarctic water coexist, a phenomenon that has amazed me and countless other people. The warm and cold water of this fountain, which have done miracles (small and big) at Keahole Point , can be expected to work the same miracles in the small coastal village communities of Haiti.

Indeed, the properties of the water of this fountain are such that the inhabitants of these villages will be able to use for consumption and community growth fresh water produced by condensation or ''rained'' in a hurricane tower. They will be able to feel in the oppressive heat of a tropical desert the beneficial effects of air conditioning generated by a system similar to the one installed in the main building of the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii, which has proven to be both simple and economical and which uses aluminum or titanium heat exchangers that transfer heat from the fresh water circulating in the building(s) to the cold seawater. Moreover, they will be able to store and preserve their fresh farm produce and the fisherman's catch on shelves made up of pipes supplied with cold deep ocean water in a cooling facility or chill house, and supplement the fisherman's catch with temperate fin and shell fish grown in aquaculture ponds. The villagers will also enjoy the temperate and tropical climate fruits, vegetables, herbs and flowers grown in cold-water agriculture beds in coastal areas where fresh farm produce is difficult to find. Isn't it miraculous that the deep blue sea can be utilized to transform a sea of ancient lava in Hawaii or a sea of limestone in Haiti into a sea of greenery? And eventually the villagers will come to enjoy the benefits of electricity generated by OTEC plants which take advantage of the difference in temperature between the warm surface seawater and the cold deep ocean water and which produce as a bonus large quantities of desalinated water, which is pure and potable.

We have heard of a fountain of youth, and in 1993 Betty Friedan wrote a book entitled ''The Fountain of Age''. With all these major economic and other quality of life benefits that can be derived from the warm and cold water of this fountain, it would be fitting to christen it the ''Fountain of Revitalization''.

Thus, each self-sufficient DOWER system will cause a coastal village, having access to deep ocean water and presently capable of supporting only a small isolated and poor community, to develop into a vibrant self-sufficient habitat which is economically, culturally and environmentally sustainable. It is evident that the small, self-sufficient, environmentally sustainable DOWER systems are not just limited to make rich people richer, but can benefit ordinary people in Haiti by making a paradise of their small village. And in this tropical paradise, like the female gleaners depicted in Millet's ''Les Glaneuses'', the female villagers (some of whom are portrayed in action in Simeon Michel's Haitian painting ''Les Femmes Laborieuses'') will be able to gather grains and fruits from fields that, thanks to cold water agriculture, can be harvested many times a year.

It is generally agreed that ecotourism will continue its rapid growth during the 21st century which is going to be the ecological century. It is to be expected that such environmentally sustainable villages will be very popular with ecotourists, especially that they will be staying in hotels on the water's edge which are air conditioned with deep ocean water and supplied with electricity generated by non-polluting OTEC plants and where they will drink pure desalinated water and be fed a wide assortment of fresh organically-grown fruits, vegetables and herbs as well as temperate climate fish grown in ponds of pure, nutrient-rich deep ocean water. This will undoubtedly contribute to breathe new life into the moribund Haitian tourist industry.

However, the five coastal villages, which will have these systems and which are now remote from each other, will remain to some extent isolated unless action is taken to meet the sea transportation and telecommunication challenges facing Haiti today.

MARINE TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM

The total number of motor vehicles in Haiti has gone up from 90 000 to 120 000 in just a year. Yet, because of the bad conditions of the roads outside the capital, 75% of the vehicles are located in the Greater Port-au-Prince area where huge traffic jams are frequent. Indeed, out of a road network of some 4000 kilometers, only 950 km are paved, the remainder being gravel or small country earth roads which are often impassable during the rainy season. For this reason, many Haitians have become chidren of the sea and use the sea as their main highway for travel and commerce.

The maritime fleet of Haiti is estimated at 500 wooden sailing boats of which 400 are less than 24 meters in length and built in Haiti, 150 motor boats, and 95 imported steel boats of less than 500 tons. These vesssels are involved in both inshore and seagoing navigation. However, the majority of them are coastal navigation vessels which ply along the coast between the capital and the coastal cities; they are usually in very poor condition and, echoing Ralph Nader, ''unsafe at any speed''.

During the last few years thousands of Haitians were lost at sea in the wrecks of unreliable and slow ferryboats on journeys between Jeremie, Port-au-Prince and La Gonave Island, in a triangular region which is analogous to a mini-Bermuda Triangle. Thus there is an urgent need to forestall such disasters, and the way to do it is to have affordable, reliable and fast marine mass transport, either the Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull (SWATH) ships (for which there are many builders) or the high speed SLICE ships (Lockheed Martin Corporation), both of which give a smooth and stable ride even in rough seas. The SLICE vessel is characterized by four lower minihulls which act as minisubmarines which minimize wave making resistance and allow very stable operations at speeds above 30 knots. It can be configured with a passenger-only module carrying up to 400 passengers and used as a high speed ferryboat.

Therefore, we propose to have the five sites with DOWER systems and the ports of the country connected by either SWATH ships or high speed SLICE ferryboats.

FIBER OPTICS SYSTEM

The telecommunication challenges facing Haiti today include a scarcity of telephone lines; there are only about 70 000 telephone lines for a population of more than 7 million people and only 10 telephone lines on La Gonave Island (the Big Island of Haiti). Haitian children cannot, in their respective schools, enjoy the benefits of the Computer Science Revolution; and it is generally agreed that technical training and higher education ought to be given in front computers via the Internet and data banks. Indeed, the integration of Haiti into the global market will inevitably go through exchanges and technologies which imply a good command of computer science.

There are more than a dozen banks in Port-au-Prince which are connected with each other by fiber optics but not with their branches in other cities. This is attributable to the fact that fiber optics installation is too expensive in central regions while it is cheap in coastal zones. The solution is the placement of fiber optics in the water on the coastline. We therefore propose to connect all sites with DOWER systems plus all coastal villages and cities with a necklace of fiber optics.

SUMMARY

A complete system that will help revitalize Haiti is proposed. This system comprises three subsystems: five Deep Ocean Water Energy Recovery (DOWER) systems, a marine mass transportation system and a fiber optics system. If all five small DOWER systems are built at the same time, the cost of each will be greatly reduced. It is estimated that the five DOWER systems can be built for about US $20 million total. The initial units of the marine transportation system will cost about US $20 million as will the fiber optics system.

Each DOWER system is a seed of education, commerce, and self-sufficiency for five locations which are now remote from each other. These economic, environmentally sustainable, self-sufficient community habitat systems can quickly spread and merge through the land grid leading to the revitalization of the whole nation , a process which will be facilitated by the acquisition of reliable marine mass transport and the installation of an underwater necklace of fiber optics, making each community a gem on the necklace. Such a revitalization project will not solve the country's problems overnight, but can be a most important step in Haiti's development of a Haitian system of management of the nation's resources and the establishment of the independence of Haiti in the determination of its own destiny.

To emphasize the hold of man over the oceans but also the risks of a bad utilization of marine resources, the theme of Expo 98 in Lisbon, Portugal, was '' The oceans, a heritage for the future''. Also, as decreed by the United Nations, 1998 was the international year of the oceans. Let us make the wish that 1999 will be Haiti's year of the oceans during which the country will begin to receive its equitable share of the valuable natural resources of the sea. In the 19th century Haiti missed the train of industrialization provided by the Industrial Revolution; let us hope and pray that in the 21st century it will not miss the boat of revitalization that can be brought about by the '' Blue-Green Revolution''.

Contact:

Dr. Gerard P. Pereira, President and CEO
Energies Naturelles (Energinat, S.A.)
Email To: gerard.pereira@sympatico.ca