REMOVING ALGAE Workers load bags of cleared green algae in Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province, on June 29, 2010. Local authorities and residents in Qingdao City have been struggling to remove a large mass of green algae that has come ashore on the beaches of the popular coastal tourist (XINHUA)

In early 2008, air conditioners running on seawater became available to residents of Qianxilong, a residential community in Huangdao District in Qingdao, a coastal city in east China's Shandong Province. It is only 10 minutes on foot from Qianxilong to the seaside of Huangdao's Tangdao Bay next to the Yellow Sea.

Compared with common air conditioners, seawater-driven air conditioners are environmentally friendly and save energy, while still keeping people cool.

"They don't consume such nonrenewable resources as coal, oil or natural gas," Wang Yunlong, deputy head of the Huangdao Environmental Protection Bureau, said in an interview with Beijing Review. "Seawater-driven air conditioners also have obvious ecologically friendly effects compared with traditional heating equipment like boilers."

Moreover, the new product costs only 22 yuan (about $3.25) per square meter of footage in a building when it provides heat in winter and air conditioning in summer, lower than the 30.4 yuan (about $4.49) it costs for central heating in winter alone, according to Yang Song, an engineer on the seawater-driven air conditioner project.

Currently, seawater-driven air conditioners are available at the two landmark buildings of the Qingdao Olympic Sailing Center—the theater and the museum—and will gradually become a popular appliance in other communities in the city.

An expanding role

In recent years, the marine economy, represented by making use of seawater, has shifted gradually from the scientific research phase to production and begun to enter ordinary people's lives.

The annual oceanic output value grew at an average rate of 16.3 percent from 2001 to 2009, 1.4 percentage points higher than the average growth rate of the gross domestic product, according to a report from the State Oceanic Administration (SOA) on May 12.

"The total output value of the marine economy has grown higher than the growth of GDP almost every year since 2000," said Han Limin, head of the Marine Development Studies Institute (MDSI) at the Ocean University of China. "That means the ocean industry has played a driving role in the growth of gross national product."

Despite the impact of the global financial crisis, in 2009 the total output value of the marine economy in China reached 3,194 billion yuan ($471.78 billion), accounting for 9.53 percent of the country's GDP, and 15.5 percent of the total output value in coastal areas.

"The ocean serves as a gold mine, with only a small part being exploited," said Liu Shuguang, deputy head at the MDSI. "The marine economy, an important part of the national economy, is expected to develop into a leading industry in China, despite great challenges it is facing at home and abroad."

Bottleneck

Compared with some large ocean nations, China has a lower proportion of sea area than land territory. The United States faces the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans, while Japan is surrounded by water. China faces only the Pacific Ocean through the Bohai Sea and the marginal sea areas of the Yellow Sea, South China Sea and East China Sea.