In 2000, Cornell began pulling water from 250 feet below Cayuga Lake to cool its campus; now its energy use has been reduced by 85%

Cornell is one of the biggest and most esteemed universities in the world, sitting on a hill overlooking the 38-mile-long Cayuga Lake with an area of 2,300 acres. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, most institutions, including Cornell, used CFC chillers. These first-generation Ozone-Depleting Substances (ODSs) were destroying the ozone layer and warming the climate. When the university had to phase out its ageing CFC chillers due to unreliability and CFC bans under the Montreal Protocol, researchers and engineers looked down the campus slopes towards the cold and deep waters of Cayuga Lake.Earlier, the campus relied on conventional refrigeration chillers and cooling towers to cool down its campus, using about 33,000 gallons per minute. However, in 2000, the university launched its lake source cooling system that led to an 85% reduction in energy used for campus cooling, according to its website.Lake source coolingLake source cooling is one of the most important environmental initiatives. With its startup in 2000, Lake Source Cooling (LSC) upgraded the central campus chilled water system to a more environmentally sound design that conserves energy and utilises a renewable resource, ...