00:00This water sucks up heat to generate cooler air.
00:03A super El Nino is set to make the coming months unusually hot in Singapore this year.
00:08But this 19th century technology could be the answer to beat the heat.
00:13This sprawling basement of pipes in Pungol is part of what is called a district cooling system.
00:19Cold water gets fed into them and sent to multiple buildings.
00:23There, warm indoor air is cooled when it passes against the liquid.
00:27The cooler air can then be blown back out through air vents in buildings.
00:32At least seven other neighbourhoods in Singapore, like the Marina Bay area, have installed such systems.
00:39Air conditioners can do a similar job to the district cooling system and are already hugely prevalent on the island.
00:46But individual ACs use a lot of electricity.
00:49And Singapore imports nearly all of its energy.
00:52As the US-Iran war persists, gas supplies are top of mind for Singapore right now due to the Strait
00:59of Hormuz closure causing a supply crunch.
01:02With the combined effects of the war, a super El Nino and global warming, systems like this that can reduce
01:09electricity usage by up to 50% could become more common.
01:13But one of the trade-offs is the immense amounts of water these systems use, which means data centres and
01:21communities will have to compete for the resource.
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