Another part of the Econ teams mission involved analyzing locations suitable for a lake source cooling project. Click the image to be redirected to a site with an interactive map showing all potential locations in the U.S.!
The Econ team found that while many metropolitan areas were close to bodies of water, many of them were unsuitable for an LSC project. This is because Cayuga lake has a very specific mixing pattern that not all lakes or coastlines share. Some of the criterion the Econ team used to make their determination was:
- Depth (bathymetry data)
- Water temperature
- School enrollment and endowment size (if available)
- Proximity (10 mile buffer) to water that is sufficiently deep/cold
- Avg annual temperature (Cooling demand)
Out of thousands of lakes analyzed, nearly all of them were unsuitable for an LSC project. However, some areas that were suitable include:
- University of Vermont (arguably the best college in the world)
- University of Chicago
- Northwestern University
In addition to lakes, coastlines near metropolitan areas were analyzed. The Econ team found that most of the waters in the Atlantic were too warm for the LSC to work. However, the Pacific ocean, which is much colder and deeper than the Atlantic, offered cold-enough waters to put a lake source cooling project there. Some of the suitable locations included:
- Seattle area, San Francisco/Santa Cruz, Coast of Maine.
Some of the more questionable or “Borderline” places to put an LSC included:
- Los Angeles area, Boston area