Deep in the bowels of the U.N. headquarters, a pump sucks in huge amounts of water from the East River to help cool the complex with an old but energy-efficient mechanism.
As more and more people want to stay cool in a planet that is steadily heating up, energy experts point to this kind of water-based system as a good alternative to air conditioning. But in many cases they are hard to set up.
The system has been part of the New York complex since it opened in the 1950s, chief building engineer Michael Martini said during a tour of the cooling equipment.
The system, overhauled with the rest of the complex from 2008 to 2014, cools the U.N. center using less energy than a conventional air conditioning system. U.N. policy is to bring the air temperature down to about 24 degrees Celsius, or 75 degrees Fahrenheit.
In summer in New York, the river running beside the U.N. headquarters — it is actually a salt water estuary — stays much cooler than the surrounding air, which can reach 100 degrees. So cooling the building eats up less energy.
As many as 26,000 liters per minute (7,000…
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