Crystal Lagoons

Crystal Lagoons is a multinational company based in Dallas that has developed technology that allows for the construction and maintenance of unlimited size bodies of water.^[1] With over 600 projects in 60 countries, Crystal Lagoons has signed partnership deals with real estate companies such as LeFrak, Turnberry Associates, Metro Development Group, Tavistock Group, Medallion Homes (U.S.); PACE Development (Thailand), Hard Rock Hotel (Mexico), Meydan Group (U.A.E.); Citystars Sharm el Sheikh, Hassan Allam Properties y Maxim Real Estate (Egypt) Legacy Properties LLC.

The company has 15 branch offices worldwide: U.S. (Miami, L.A., Dallas), The Netherlands (Amsterdam), The U.A.E. (Dubai), Thailand (Bankok), Spain (Barcelona), Turkey (Istanbul), Mexico (Mexico City), Australia (Sydney) South Africa (Cape Town), Canada (Toronto), China (Shanghai) and Chile (Santiago), soon to be joined by branches in Brazil Egypt and Russia.^[2]

In 2009 after 3 years of operation, Boston Consulting Group estimated Crystal Lagoons’ worth at $1.8 billion, with over 2,000 potential U.S. lagoon projects.^[3]

Applications

Crystal Lagoons creates man-made beaches in places far away from the coast, such as in deserts or at the heart of major cities. Real estate developers have added these amenities to their projects to raise their commercial value. Crystal Lagoons are useful for a variety of recreational activities, such as swimming, kayaking, paddle boarding, and wind surfing.

History

Crystal Lagoons was founded in 2007 by scientist and entrepreneur, Fernando Fischmann. The first project of the company was San Alfonso del Mar's pool. It quickly became a world-class destination and a sales success. In 2007, the 19-acre crystal clear lagoon at San Alfonso de Mar broke the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest man-made lagoon, prompting Crystal Lagoons’ global expansion. In 2015 the company broke its own world record with a new 30-acre lagoon at the Citystars Sharm El Sheikh development, in Egypt. The 98-acre lagoon at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum City District One project – located in Dubai – will be the first of its kind and the project will break six world records once completed by 2020, including the world’s largest man-made lagoon.

Sustainability

Crystal Lagoons just need water to compensate natural evaporation. They consume half the water required by a park and 30 times less water than a golf course. Furthermore, they use up to 100 times less chemicals than traditional disinfection systems and just 2% of the energy required by conventional filtration technologies. Crystal Lagoons' sustainable technology has been internationally recognized. In the U.S., the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) certified Crystal Lagoons’ contribution to the environment through the Green Fast Track Program.

Public Access Lagoons

Crystal Lagoons has entered a partnership with ESJ Capital Partners, who has recently acquired Florida-based theme park Jungle Island (former Parrot jungle), to build its first crystal-clear lagoon open to the public, under a new business model.^[4]

According to the company, this new business model will consist on selling tickets to the public (“pay per use”), getting revenues from a percentage of ticket sales. This will potentially double the company’s current market, thanks over 50 thousand public parks, theme parks, public golf courses, malls, stadiums, university campus, zoos, social clubs, horse tracks, car tracks, etc.^[5]

Social and public lagoons

Crystal Lagoons is in talks with different government agencies to develop crystal clear lagoons of public access. The company has entered a collaborative relationship with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to bring these lagoons to the masses within the U.S. and also worldwide. The MIT concluded that public lagoons will have a significantly positive impact on cities, improving the quality of life of their citizens. A scalable model for the dissemination of these lagoons and the places around the world where they are needed the most are topics under development.

Floating lagoons

Floating crystal-clear lagoons are the company’s latest innovation. They are large bodies of crystal-clear water that are installed floating over bodies of water not apt for bathing due to lacking sanitary, transparency and aesthetics conditions. Crystal Lagoons is currently developing its first floating lagoon project at the EWA Beach complex, in Oahu Island, Hawaii. The company is developing other 20 projects alike in the U.S. and Malaysia.

Industrial applications

Crystal Lagoons’ has focused efforts on developing industrial applications that would help solving key issues, such as water and energy scarcity, as well as environmental damage. Some of these applications are: sustainable close-circuit cooling systems for industrial processes (used in power plants, datacenters, foundries, solar power plants); air conditioning and heating; sustainable sea water purification systems for desalination processes; and mining (infiltration of underground aquifers to mitigate the negative effects of draughts, water treatment for Pump Storage). As result, Crystal Lagoons’ sustainable closed-circuit cooling applications generate high-quality water at very high temperatures. The latter can be potentially used for additional industrial processes, such as thermal desalination, material drying, residential heating, greenhouse heating, and a wide variety of membrane distillation processes that can desalinate water without using additional energy, thus saving water and energy. These applications avoid environmental damage and they are able to capture and later use energy currently wasted. Crystal Lagoons’ sustainable cooling system for thermal power plants was successfully applied to Endesa’s San Isidro combined-cycle thermal power plant for more than a year. The project proved mathematical models, validating sustainability and optimal heat and cold transfer rates. This technology is currently being commercialized. Crystal Lagoons has recently created an alliance with a well renowned European scientific research institution in order to develop its first desalination plant. The latter will dramatically reduce the consumption of energy when obtaining fresh water.

References