Taiwan is bounded by ocean on all sides. The Taiwan Strait to the west is quite shallow at an average depth of 60 meters, while not far from the eastern coastline, where mountains abut against the Pacific, the waters reach depths of around 1000 meters, offering a mother lode of deep-sea water. This inexhaustible water source has attracted the interest of local governments and businesses. But why? What's the big deal about deep-sea water?
This summer, the bottled water market belongs to deep-sea water.
You can see them displayed in the refrigerated sections of convenience stores and supermarkets: bottles of drinking water, priced around NT$30 apiece, proclaiming "100% deep-sea water." Whether taken from hundreds of meters deep off the coast of Hualien or imported from Japan by Uni-President Enterprises "with deep-sea water condensates," they display statements such as "containing over 90 trace elements and minerals" including aluminum and magnesium compounds, claiming to promote good health through good water.
An inexhaustible supply
What exactly is deep-sea water? How does it differ from ordinary seawater?
"Altogether 97% of the water on the earth's surface is seawater, with depths ranging from a few meters to several kilometers deep. The average depth is 4,000 meters, with water below 2,000 meters defined by oceanographers as 'deep-sea water.' Seawater flows with the rotation of the earth, and temperature differences between the polar regions and the tropics cause ocean currents," explains long-time deep-sea water researcher Chen Jen-chung, who sees a bright future for the deep-sea water industry. Chen retired this year from the Energy and Environment Research Laboratories (EEL) at the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), and is the founder and general manager of Aqua Lohas Water-Tech Service Company. After icebergs from Greenland melt in the Arctic Circle, the heavier cold water sinks and begins to flow in a deep-sea current, slowly making its way southward through the Atlantic toward the Indian and Pacific Oceans. When it reaches the continental shelf along the Pacific rim, the collision causes an upwelling before the water eventually begins to flow back to the Atlantic. It's estimated that one cycle takes several thousand years.
Seawater from two to three kilometers down rises to shallower levels, bringing with it nutrients such as minerals and trace elements. Large populations of fish congregate in these areas, and for this reason, most major fisheries in the world are distributed around these upwellings in the Pacific Ocean, including the Peruvian coast, the west coast of the US, and areas around Taiwan such as Pengchia Islet off Keelung, Chihsingtan in Hualien and Chihpen in Taitung.
Unlike limited petroleum and mineral reserves, deep-sea water, constituting 80% of all ocean water, is practically inexhaustible, since it's constantly replenished by rain and fresh water from the land.
Chen notes that, in theory, extracting seawater from a depth of several thousand meters is not a problem technologically, but due to excessive costs and little economic benefit, nobody has attempted it. Japan, with over two decades' experience studying deep-sea water, has set the bar lower, defining "deep-sea water" as seawater below 200 meters in depth. Sunlight can't penetrate to such depths, so there's no photosynthesis and in turn no plant life; there's no plankton there either. That and a year-round temperature averaging 6-10°C keeps the water in a stable, clean, inorganic state. The Japanese have even called it "holy water."
A swig of ancient water
Located at the rim of a Pacific Ocean trench, Taiwan has a fine geographical advantage. But until recently past the government hasn't been keen on the deep-sea water industry.
In 2002, the Water Resources Agency commissioned the EEL to conduct an industry study, based on the idea that nothing is possible without water. At that time Chen and the ITRI researchers brought along sampling equipment and a pump, hired a boat, and went to various locations off Hualien and Taitung to collect seawater from 300 meters down, and tested the quality of the water at Taiwan Fertilizer's nearby Hualien plant. This drew the interest of companies including Taiwan Fertilizer, the Lucky Cement Corporation, Kung-Lung Enterprise Company, and Young Energy Source Company (owner of the YES mineral water and beverage brand).
Deep-sea water is like a wellspring, offering Hualien-area businesses a new chance for pollution-free business. But getting at that endless supply of seawater in our backyard isn't an easy task.
The Hualien plant, which completed its pipe-laying project this May, experienced first-hand the problem of unstable marine conditions.
"In May 2006, a typhoon formed near Hualien, the first of a string of 13. The storm damaged previously completed work. And though the other typhoons didn't hit Taiwan, they generated large waves near Hualien, as high as 30 meters in some cases, despite being as far away as Guam. For marine construction to be carried out, the waves need to be less than a meter high," says Tina Huang, general manager of Taiwan Fertilizer's Hualien plant. Construction at sea is 27 times riskier than on land. Maeda Construction Co. of Japan, which was in charge of the pipe-laying, has an international patent for a deep-sea welding technique; however, the company had laid intake pipes at Kagoshima, which is on the Sea of Japan, not the Pacific, with vastly different marine conditions. This was a great challenge and learning experience for the Japanese construction company. Maeda ended up spending about double the original construction budget of NT$400 million because of repeated postponements.
Live near the sea, live off the sea
Despite the adage "Those who live near the sea live off the sea," Taiwan had a late start in deep-sea water research. Most of those pursuing this "blue gold" nowadays have something of an adventurous spirit.
In June 2005, the Lucky Cement Corporation completed Taiwan's first 710-meter-deep pipe-laying project, and then built a biotech park at the mouth of the Sanchan River in Hualien's Hsincheng Township, in a 50-hectare area near Chihsingtan, with the aim of entering the deep-sea drinking water, cosmetics, food and tourist recreation businesses.
Three years ago, Taiwan Fertilizer, which owns more than 600 tracts of land around Taiwan, started up a new project to make good use of a 46-hectare parcel of land of their Hualien plant which had lain idle for years. Last year they entered the water market by setting up Taiwan Yes Deep Ocean Water Company jointly with Young Energy Source.
Kung-Lung Enterprise, which started out 40 years ago quarrying stone in Hualien, began diversifying into the tourism industry 20 years ago when it foresaw diminishing prospects in quarrying. The company opened a 25-hectare tourist park along the coast of Chihsingtan in Hsincheng Township, complete with restaurants, a mineral museum and a monkey show. But when the SARS crisis struck in 2003 and tourism plummeted, they looked once again at changing course.
"We watched and waited with doubts for three years. Nobody had done this before in Taiwan, and we wondered if we would succeed," says Tseng Yu-chi, who heads Kung-Lung's deep-sea water department and is the daughter of company chairman Tseng Hsin-hsiung. To appraise market prospects, they went on about a dozen inspection tours to Japan, learning about pipe-laying, equipment, water allocation, back-end applications and other issues.
After their first successful pipe installation early this year, Kung-Lung pumped 4,000 tons of water a day, 1,000 tons of which was allocated for drinking water. But the bottling facility was still being built and they were unfamiliar with the marketing procedures for bottled water, so during their first half-year of operation they had the food companies Vedan and Taisun do this for them. This summer they will start bottling and shipping themselves. As for the remainder of the water, it will be used for raising salmon and Taiwan abalone.
Learning from others' experience
Right now the US and Japan are the only countries that have successfully commercialized deep-sea water, and the US had an earlier start than Japan.
During the oil crises of the 1970s, the US was compelled to start searching for alternative sources of energy.
To this end, the Hawaii state government founded the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute in 1974. Researchers made use of the 20oC temperature difference between deep-sea and surface water, installing a miniature offshore oceanic heat exchanger. In 1980 they laid an intake pipe to pump up seawater from below 2000 feet (around 600 meters), drawing up 30,000 tons per day. It's only in recent years that they began investing in the commercial potential of deep-sea water.
Now, after much planning, Hawaii has developed the natural energy lab area into an 870-hectare biotech park and leased space to 36 companies, producing drinking water and raising abalone, pearls, and algae for use in health food products like Spirulina tablets. The combined annual profits amount to US$40 million (about NT$1.3 billion).
In 1989, the Japanese government set up a deep-sea water research center in Kochi Prefecture on the island of Shikoku. After laying its first pipeline, Kochi Prefecture became a pioneer for other Japanese prefectures and Taiwanese businesses to learn from.
In 2005, Professor Masayuki Takahashi of the Graduate School of Kuroshio Science at Kochi University pointed out during a speech in Taiwan that after years of research, in 1996 Kochi Prefecture became the first to develop goods made of or processed with deep-sea water, including drinking water, cosmetics, shower gels, sake, beer, soy sauce and baked goods. That first year, eight competitors jumped into the fray, generating a business volume of ¥160 million. Come 2000, the number of companies was 120, with 384 patented technologies and an output value exceeding ¥10 billion.
Taiwan is bounded by ocean on all sides. The Taiwan Strait to the west is quite shallow at an average depth of 60 meters, while not far from the eastern coastline, where mountains abut against the Pacific, the waters reach depths of around 1000 meters, offering a mother lode of deep-sea water. This inexhaustible water source has attracted the interest of local governments and businesses. But why? What's the big deal about deep-sea water?
