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UAE To Drag Iceberg From Antarctica To Solve Water Shortage Set To Last 25 Years (express.co.uk)

schwit1 quotes a report from Daily Express: The UAE, which is among the top 10 water-scarce countries in the world, hopes to help ease the stress of a drinking water shortage by towing an iceberg from the freezing Antarctica in order to create more drinking water. The National Advisor Bureau Limited's (NABL) managing Director Abdullah Mohammad Sulaiman Al Shehi says an average iceberg contains "more than 20 billion gallons of water" which would be enough for one million people over five years. Up to four-fifths of an iceberg's mass is underwater, and due to their vast density, they would theoretically not melt in the boiling climate of the Middle Eastern coastal line. Mr Al Shehi says it could take up to a year to drag the huge body of ice up to the UAE, and the project is set to begin in 2018.

350 comments

  1. climate problems,.. by Selur · · Score: 1, Troll

    climate problems aren't man made and it's probably a good idea when countries start to directly melt the pols,...

    1. Re:climate problems,.. by AutodidactLabrat · · Score: 1

      Right

    2. Re: climate problems,.. by Type44Q · · Score: 1

      Whoosh... to you as well as to all the "high functioning" autistics who modded it troll; it was obviously sarcastic.

  2. Salvage I Reboot? by Scarletdown · · Score: 1

    Wow! This sounds very similar to the plot of what was the last episode of Salvage I that I can remember seeing.

    Now time to go see if Netflix has it; and if not Netflix, see if anyone has ever uploaded episodes to YouTube.

    --
    This space unintentionally left blank.
    1. Re:Salvage I Reboot? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was thinking more along the lines of None Like it Hot.

    2. Re:Salvage I Reboot? by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

      "The UAE hired Earth's handsomest scientists..."

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    3. Re: Salvage I Reboot? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Same thing came to my mind. Let me know if you find the episodes!

    4. Re:Salvage I Reboot? by quantumghost · · Score: 4, Informative

      It was one of the ideas pitched to Montgomery Brewster (Richard Pryor) in the movie Brewster's Millions, execpt the guy wanted to tow it from the Arctic.

    5. Re: Salvage I Reboot? by quantumghost · · Score: 1

      Let me know if you find the episodes!

      Savage 1 - 2x1 Hard Water, Part 1>/P

      and

      Savage 1 - 2x2 Hard Water, Part 2

    6. Re:Salvage I Reboot? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      the guy wanted to tow it from the Arctic.

      Bad idea. Arctic glaciers hive off from land glaciers and are irregular in shape. As they move through warm water and melt, they can become unstable, and roll over. Antarctic glaciers tend to be flat and stable. They also tend to be much bigger. Of course the route to the Persian Gulf is much more direct as well.

    7. Re: Salvage I Reboot? by Type44Q · · Score: 1

      Thanks; I learned something new, though it's self-evident in retrospect. Perhaps Project Habakkuk would've been more viable on a larger, [Antarctic] scale...

    8. Re:Salvage I Reboot? by lsatenstein · · Score: 1

      One bizzare thing they are finding with defrosting icebergs. They contain antrax and other viral diseases that were present around the time the bergs were created. Some iceberg cores are several hundreds of years old.

      --
      Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
    9. Re:Salvage I Reboot? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      .. and they probably stole it from Niven & Pournelle's "Oath of Fealty".

  3. Director Abdullah Mohammad Sulaiman Al Shehi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    Wow.

    That's a mouthful ...of Camel Semen.

  4. Dense by nastyphil · · Score: 5, Informative

    ".. and due to their vast density, they..."

    Uhhhh, Icebergs are *less* dense that's why they float. I think the author means mass.

    --
    Dialectician. Archology.
    1. Re:Dense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Right, and can density be vast?

    2. Re:Dense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      They mean the mass to surface ratio.

    3. Re:Dense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It can if we're talking about a neutron star.

    4. Re:Dense by pixelpusher220 · · Score: 1

      density can refer to many things. like the density of fresh water...which an Iceberg certainly is in a salty sea...

      --
      People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
    5. Re:Dense by Nehmo · · Score: 1

      ".. and due to their vast density, they..."

      Uhhhh, Icebergs are *less* dense that's why they float. I think the author means mass.

      The author meant size, not density. And while we're criticizing, the sentence is poorly constructed. "Because of" is preferable to "due to". "Due to" should only be used after a linking verb, like "was".

      --
      (||) Nehmo (||)
    6. Re:Dense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ".. and due to their vast density, they..."

      Uhhhh, Icebergs are *less* dense that's why they float. I think the author means mass.

      That and/or melting enthalpy. They'd be both have a lot of mass take a lot of energy to melt [per unit of mass]

    7. Re:Dense by Deadstick · · Score: 1

      Well, if you want to pick nits, you should have corrected "would not melt" to "would not melt very fast"...

    8. Re:Dense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But in Spanish mas means "more", so mas mass means more dense? Where were we again?

      And guess what; today's captcha is grater

    9. Re:Dense by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      My newswriting prof always said that you should never use "due to" except when talking about owing an actual debt to someone. I would tend to argue that it is acceptable, but only in very limited contexts where its meaning is unambiguous, which basically means it is only okay after an action verb, and never after a linking verb.

      • "The rain was due to him" could mean either that he seeded the clouds to cause the rain or that he deserved it.
      • "The concert was cancelled due to rain" can have only one meaning because the action verb forces the word "due" to be interpreted as part of the compound preposition "due to" instead of as a standalone adjective.

      Either way, it depends on your style guide. AP says it's fine; Chicago says it isn't.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    10. Re: Dense by Type44Q · · Score: 1

      It's all relative (as they say in Arkansas and Afghanistan); perhaps they're denser than the author's head.

    11. Re:Dense by epine · · Score: 1

      My newswriting prof always said that you should never use "due to" in formal news reporting except when talking about owing an actual debt to someone.

      FTFY.

      "due to" and "owing to" are bog-standard street English.

      Strunk's junk:

      as a result of by reason of by virtue of for the reason that on the grounds that seeing as as a result of in view of the fact that

      Seriously, you need the tin ear of a Tin Woodsman to prefer any of those.

      In other news, any "boiling" sound you hear is sensitive ears boiling away.

    12. Re:Dense by Nehmo · · Score: 1

      My newswriting prof always said that you should never use "due to" except when talking about owing an actual debt to someone. I would tend to argue that it is acceptable, but only in very limited contexts where its meaning is unambiguous, which basically means it is only okay after an action verb, and never after a linking verb.

      • "The rain was due to him" could mean either that he seeded the clouds to cause the rain or that he deserved it.
      • "The concert was cancelled due to rain" can have only one meaning because the action verb forces the word "due" to be interpreted as part of the compound preposition "due to" instead of as a standalone adjective.

      Either way, it depends on your style guide. AP says it's fine; Chicago says it isn't.

      Although your example sentence using “was due to” is ambiguous, it doesn’t mean every sentence with the construction is. It isn’t hard to make unambiguous language using “was due to” (or, more generally, a linking verb followed by “due to”):

      The lower density of solid water relative to liquid is due to the further-apart arrangement H2O molecules take when water crystallizes into a solid.

      The sentence you approve of, “The concert was canceled due to rain” would sound better substituting “because of” for “due to”: The concert was canceled because of the rain.” But I would also dump the passive voice: “Unlike what occurred at Woodstock, rain caused the promoters to cancel the concert.”

      Not everybody agrees with me http://www.perfect-english-gra... .

      --
      (||) Nehmo (||)
    13. Re:Dense by michael_wojcik · · Score: 1

      That and/or melting enthalpy.

      There's no way to know what the author meant. After "the freezing Antarctic" (was it liquid recently? just letting us know it's cold there?), I think it's safe to say this is not someone you'd be looking to for any sort of technical accuracy. We're probably lucky the article doesn't claim elves will keep it cold. (And what they hell is the antecedent of the plural pronoun "their" in that sentence - "fifths"? Yes, the vast density of those fifths!)

      In any case, it's really water's enthalpy of melting that matters here, as you say. My guess is the author of the article has never heard of enthalpy.

    14. Re:Dense by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      The lower density of solid water relative to liquid is due to the further-apart arrangement H2O molecules take when water crystallizes into a solid.

      It certainly would be hard for something to be owed to an arrangement of molecules. I'll grant you that. Though somehow, I feel like some smart aleck will try....

      The sentence you approve of, “The concert was canceled due to rain” would sound better substituting “because of” for “due to”: The concert was canceled because of the rain.” But I would also dump the passive voice: “Unlike what occurred at Woodstock, rain caused the promoters to cancel the concert.”

      I never said it was a good sentence, just unambiguous. :-) That said, yours is still passive voice, just in the form of a passive infinitive construction. I'd go with "The promoters canceled the concert because of (or due to) rain to avoid another Woodstock '94." That said, I'm starting to think that this is ambiguous again, because the concert could be due to rain. Nah. Nobody would be crazy enough to interpret it that way, right? Right? :-/

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  5. Two Words by Dracos · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Desalinization plant.

    1. Re: Two Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They don't have the money er I mean intelligence for that. Oh and it's not huge ugly and grandiose so why would they do that.

    2. Re: Two Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yep, desalinization is too practical, and too Israeli...

    3. Re:Two Words by Sarten-X · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I did some math. Previously, I've considered similar absurd ideas, and the cost just didn't fall in their favor.

      I feel I should start with a disclaimer: It's currently a very late (or early, depending on one's perspective) hour of the evening, and my physics skill isn't what it used to be. I invite and encourage you all to review my work, and if I'm wrong, please tell me how.

      Based on the figures provided, we can work out the magnitude of the problem. The first computation is simple: Our speed will be .3m/s, to travel the (roughly) 10000 kilometers between Antarctica and the UAE in one year.

      20 billion gallons of water corresponds to roughly 80 million cubic meters of ice. Cut into a sphere for ease of transport and calculation, it would have a radius of about 300 meters, with a cross-sectional area of about 200,000 square meters. We'll ignore the air resistance of the 10% above water, which falls within the error of my rough calculations. Calculation for the force of drag is ugly*, but works out roughly to C*9*10^6 newtons. That "C" is a coefficient simplifying the effect of the iceberg's shape, ranging from 0.5 for a sphere to 2 for more troublesome shapes.

      Considering that range, the water's drag is between 4 and 20 meganewtons. A power source (tugboat, added motors, etc) will need to supply that much force just to maintain speed. If I remember my physics correctly, at 0.3m/s, that's between 2000 and 7000 horsepower.

      There are tugboats with that much power. I haven't found much information on the annual cost to operate such a beast, but one tugboat operator gives price estimates per hour. For the purposes of this discussion, we can assume that the quoted price covers the operator's expenses well enough to also cover the overhead of running such a large operation, and the benefits of scale will cover the higher costs of an ocean-going expedition. Those are some very large assumptions, but I don't have information to clarify it further.

      With those assumptions, the cost to pull an iceberg for a year is only about $20 to $100 million. That's surprisingly cheap, putting the cost of mostly-fresh water at under $0.001 per liter ($0.005 per gallon). In comparison, a desalination plant supplies water at about $0.0005 to $0.003 per liter ($0.001 to $0.01 per gallon).

      In short, it's expensive, but it's in the same ballpark as regular desalination for that much water, and if the losses due to melting and evaporation can be controlled, it might just be feasible. As noted in TFA and elsewhere, it would also be quite the spectacle, promoting yet more tourism to the area.

      * The formula I ended up with is F[drag] = C*.5*1g/cm^3*(.9*pi*(80000000 m^3/(4*pi/3))^(2/3))*(0.3m/s)^2.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    4. Re: Two Words by thegarbz · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      You're a racist idiot claiming that the country with the larger number of desalination plants in the world doesn't have the intelligence to build a desalination plant. 96% of the water consumed in the UAE currently comes from their 70 desalination plants. The major cities are fed by 100% desalinated water. Crops and farming is done from 100% desalinated water.

    5. Re:Two Words by thegarbz · · Score: 3

      You would think a country that already has 70 of them and currently gets 96% of it's drinking supply from desalination would have considered your suggestion. Maybe, ... just maybe they have reasons to look at an alternative.

    6. Re:Two Words by religionofpeas · · Score: 2

      How about cutting the ice in pieces and using regular supertankers for transport ? Seems like it would cut down on the drag, and also introduce more efficient engines. Tugboats are optimized for short powerful port manoeuvring, not long haul traffic.

    7. Re:Two Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If the water shortage is anticipated to be relatively brief then an iceberg may be more cost effective. If it later looks like it may be longer term then desalination may make more sense. In the case of Israel, navigation of an iceberg to its shores would be more complex, and the water concerns are already long term.

    8. Re: Two Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If they're so smart why are they out of drinking water? And why is their best idea to harvest an iceberg from Antarctica?

    9. Re: Two Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > 100% desalinated water
      Get. Out.

    10. Re:Two Words by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Good idea. If, and only if, you didn't pollute the water near your shores.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    11. Re: Two Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If they wrap the iceberg in a giant hefty bag it would reduce drag and melting rate.

    12. Re:Two Words by nospam007 · · Score: 2

      "With those assumptions, the cost to pull an iceberg for a year is only about $20 to $100 million. That's surprisingly cheap,"

      Especially if you don't have to buy the oil from Arabs if you _are_ those Arabs.

    13. Re:Two Words by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Calculation for the force of drag is ugly ... We'll ignore the air resistance

      Wind loading is especially going to be a pain on top of that water drag since the thing has to go through the roaring 40s, furious 50s and screaming 60s. I don't even know where to start on working that out since it's going to be very shape dependent and assuming a sphere is around the same as ignoring the wind loading entirely.
      However, if the wind is behind it to propel it through the southern ocean there's some huge savings there.

    14. Re: Two Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Have you ever heard of sea tractors,specially designed to tow/push very large loads long distance..
      They could also possibly try using a couple of hulls similar to the ocean slave sink/rise hulls,that would also help with drag..
      Boats/barges take huge amounts of grunt to start them moving but once moving motive energy need drops massively.
      That's why a 130lb person like me can hand pull a 21 ton canal narrow boat and why a one horse power horse can move a pair of loaded narrow boats with an all up weight of 70+ tons,the early industrial revolution in the UK depended on that capability before usable steam engines,which also took up lots of valuable load space/capability..

    15. Re:Two Words by MiniMike · · Score: 2

      They may be able to reduce the transport costs by moving the iceberg into a favorable ocean current, if one is available, and just letting it drift until it gets close.

    16. Re:Two Words by DRJlaw · · Score: 1

      Cut into a sphere for ease of transport and calculation

      Immediate fail. Any competent engineer would select and/or shape a object intended for transport into a rough hull shape, with a L/B ratio of ~6. I'd expect some change because there'd be less desire to conform to conventional L/D ratios, but there's no way that you'd select a sphere.

      "Assume a spherical cow on a frictionless plane..."
      Um... no.

    17. Re: Two Words by markdavis · · Score: 2

      He might be an idiot, but calling him a "racist" is really pushing it.

    18. Re:Two Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How does 20 billion gallons of water correspond to 80 billion cubic meters? I think that some of the numbers are off, but I don't know which because I also think that there are some unstated assumptions.

    19. Re: Two Words by bigpat · · Score: 1

      The idea of sculping the iceberg to reduce drag is interesting... perhaps less like a sphere and more like a hull would be a bit more efficient. Though it might happen naturally in warmer waters as the iceberg is pushed North and the rougher edges melt away.

      Also, the melting ice itself might reduce drag.

      Would need to just go ahead and do it once with the ice berg as-is to practically baseline the efficiency.

    20. Re:Two Words by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 1

      With most of the volume below the surface, ocean currents become a primary factor. If they can choose a path with favoring ocean currents, they can save a lot of energy.

    21. Re: Two Words by kenai_alpenglow · · Score: 1, Insightful

      "racist": Generic insult that rarely has anything to do with race. Usually used by people of lower intelligence when they have lost an argument.

    22. Re:Two Words by Deadstick · · Score: 1

      It's been proposed once or twice in the past, and not carried through. Perhaps some of the variables have changed enough to revisit the idea.

    23. Re:Two Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      OK, so you're going to throw most of the ice away to shape it.

      Tell me, in the time it takes you to form a streamlined hull, you're still paying people and the ice is still melting, and the drought continues. And then a lump unexpectedly falls off because, and this is the thing about icebergs, they calve off because they have random planes where it's weaker.

      At what point do you say fuck it and decide to run with what shape it is and pull all the ice immediately?

      The calculation of a sphere is a reasonable estimate of any sane shape such a berg would be naturally, and artificially shaping it is dumber even than the idea of towing the ice in the first place.

    24. Re:Two Words by justthinkit · · Score: 1

      How does 20 billion gallons of water correspond to 80 billion cubic meters? I think that some of the numbers are off, but I don't know which because I also think that there are some unstated assumptions.

      Good catch. This is an error of a factor of 250. Thus driving the final price down by a factor of 250. Making this 125 times cheaper than desal.

      --
      I come here for the love
    25. Re:Two Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Desal is a Zionist, kuffar plot!!

    26. Re: Two Words by markdavis · · Score: 1

      Exactly. The word is so overused and misunderstood it is losing all meaning.

    27. Re:Two Words by RackinFrackin · · Score: 1

      I think that the number of pieces/supertanker trips required to move an iceberg would be intractably large.

    28. Re: Two Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The moment you brought up racist is the moment that Hitler fucked you up the arse.

    29. Re:Two Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      subdividing it will cause it to melt very quickly, the volume to surface area ratio is the only thing keeping it from melting before it's even reached it's destination.

    30. Re:Two Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They may be able to reduce the transport costs by moving the iceberg into a favorable ocean current, if one is available, and just letting it drift until it gets close.

      This is a pretty neat idea

    31. Re:Two Words by Cederic · · Score: 1

      The calculation of a sphere is a reasonable estimate of any sane shape such a berg would be naturally

      You and I appear to have very different definitions of the word sane.

      Could you perhaps link to some photographs of these naturally spherical icebergs? I mean, if it's so natural and sane then they must surely outnumber all the jagged ones I normally see in pictures.

    32. Re: Two Words by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2

      That's why a 130lb person like me can hand pull a 21 ton canal narrow boat and why a one horse power horse can move a pair of loaded narrow boats with an all up weight of 70+ tons,the early industrial revolution in the UK depended on that capability before usable steam engines,which also took up lots of valuable load space/capability..

      Now do it in Sea State 8 or 9.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    33. Re: Two Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The arabs don't build anything. Western companies and nations build the infrastructure, the arabs just use petro dollars to pay for it.

      Once the oil runs out the arabs will be back to eating sand and fucking camels.

      They produce nothing.

    34. Re:Two Words by DRJlaw · · Score: 1

      OK, so you're going to throw most of the ice away to shape it.

      So we're going to assume that you're only selecting from spherical icebergs that are already sized for your needs, rather than splitting off ice from a larger iceberg, selecting from elongated icebergs, etc. Because?

      Also, good to know that some AC has declared that fracturing a "sphere" into two or three more elongated shapes is completely impossible....

      The calculation of a sphere is a reasonable estimate of any sane shape such a berg would be naturally, and artificially shaping it is dumber even than the idea of towing the ice in the first place

      Let's pretend that mining engineering and stonemasonry doesn't exist, hat we don't artificially shape rock every day, and that we literally cannot be bothered to reduce drag when we push large objects through water...

    35. Re:Two Words by vtcodger · · Score: 2

      Might want to check the currents in the Indian Ocean. Presumably they would drag the ice North a bit -- far enough to get i picked up by the counter-clockwise flowing West Australian Current, then near the coast of Africa, they will drag it North a bit to pick up the clockwise currents in Arabian Sea, and finally drag it North a bit as it drifts by on its way toward India. It's surely nowhere near that simple, but the point is that they probably don't have to drag it all the way. OTOH, there's a lot of really warm water in the equatorial Indian Ocean. I wonder how much ice you need to start with to deliver 20,000,000,000 gallons to the UAE?

      --
      You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
    36. Re:Two Words by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      How about cutting the ice in pieces and using regular supertankers for transport ?

      An idle supertanker costs $75,000 per day, just for the storage space, before fuel costs are calculated. Given that UAE probably has access to many supertankers and could have a nuclear ice melter designed-build for them if they wanted to, one can presume that they've run the numbers on hauling water from Antarctica.

      TBH, all that fresh water locked up in Antarctica is a huge problem, and while this is just a drop in the bucket towards reclaiming some of it, until the atmosphere warms up a bit it's probably the best that humans can do.

      I'm not even sure The Boring Company could build a water tunnel from Antarctica to Africa, given the centripetal forces involved (assuming a curved tunnel, given problems with drilling through magma and all).

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    37. Re:Two Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      but with desalination, according to the famous Nick Rivers,
       
        They'd have enough salt to last forever!

    38. Re:Two Words by Sarten-X · · Score: 1

      In my defense, I didn't do that conversion myself.

      Regardless, I don't see the issue here. Yes, 20 billion gallons is a volume equivalent to about 75 million (not billion) cubic meters. However, since we're also want to know the volume of ice, which is about 90% as dense as water, it becomes just over 84 million cubic meters. Using only one significant figure, that approximates to 80 million cubic meters.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    39. Re:Two Words by ProudParanoid · · Score: 1

      So you correct your error -- you meant to say 75 million, not 75 billion -- and then you say you don't see the issue. "I was wrong...but I don't see I was wrong." Alrighty then.

      Pro tip...don't enter all those zeroes into the Google calculator. Enter 20 and remember it is billions. Then you get a more modest (i.e. reasonable or intuitive) answer, that is harder to get wrong by a factor of a thousand.

    40. Re:Two Words by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      subdividing it will cause it to melt very quickly

      Not a problem in a supertanker, though.

    41. Re:Two Words by Sarten-X · · Score: 1

      Originally, I picked a sphere thinking it'd make the math easier. While that did hold true (somewhat), it also has the interesting effect of reducing that C coefficient.

      The drag coefficient C is 0.5 for a spherical object and can reach 2 for irregularly shaped objects according to Serway.

      I haven't seen nearly enough information on icebergs to narrow it down more than that, so I figured the estimate would get me within an order of magnitude of correct.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    42. Re:Two Words by Solandri · · Score: 4, Informative

      You forgot to subtract the fraction of ice which would melt during that 1 year journey.

      And we're doing desalination plants wrong. Right now they're usually reverse osmosis using electric pumps to generate the pressure needed force water through the filters. This is because the electric cost of reverse osmosis is less than the electric + heating cost of distillation. Water has a very high specific heat, so it takes a lot of energy to evaporate it.

      We need to be adding desalination to power plants. Nuclear and fossil fuel power plants generate heat as a waste product. They get rid of it by heating up seawater or river water, or by evaporating water in big cooling towers. Instead of throwing that heat away, using it to distill seawater ends up being cheaper than reverse osmosis.

    43. Re:Two Words by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      I think that the number of pieces/supertanker trips required to move an iceberg would be intractably large.

      You don't need the whole iceberg at one time. A supertanker can do a round-trip in 1 month, and can carry enough water for 1 million people for one day. So you need a fleet of 30 tankers to supply 1 million people. That's hardly intractable.

    44. Re:Two Words by MiniMike · · Score: 1

      With those assumptions, the cost to pull an iceberg for a year is only about $20 to $100 million.

      Another idea- they could buy a used container ship and strengthen the frame for towing for less than that. They'd get higher horsepower and lower annual costs. Plus might not want to take a tugboat on the open ocean for a year.

    45. Re:Two Words by sunking2 · · Score: 1

      Ya, get your chainsaw out and start chopping away. I think you are missing the immense size. Even with explosives this would be a daunting not to mention dangerous act.

    46. Re:Two Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "So we're going to assume that you're only selecting from spherical icebergs"

      Are you? Go ahead, be my guess. But I never said anything like that. Go read it again. Then tell me where I said it was to be made spherical or WAS spherical.

      Hint: never.

      I said the calculations using a sphere were a reasonable mid-line estimate of what would be possible, given you can select from the available bergs rather than have to make do with whatever turns up first.

      But if YOU want to wait for spherical bergs, be my guest.

      "Let's pretend that mining engineering and stonemasonry doesn't exist"

      If you want, feel free. Doesn't have bugger all to do with what you quoted, though.

      Tell me, do you "think" stonemasonry looks a lot like when you played with putty this morning in remedials class? Because it doesn't.

      Moreover, stone is a lot less fractured and doesn't melt, meaning it doesn't get weaker in structure in various ways. Unless you're suggesting we tow it to Venus... Which given your other assumptions is not all that unexpected.

      "we literally cannot be bothered to reduce drag when we push large objects through water"

      Tell me, do people eat boats? Do boats ablate, say, 10% of their mass in a year? Are boats just found from driftwood on beaches and you just get to select from the best shaped ones, with maybe some chiselling off to get it perfect? Or are they not anything like an iceberg?

      Hint: it's nothing like an iceberg.

      So here you are complaining that we have to select spherical bergs, then complaining that we can't use stonemasontry to guess as to what will happen when we want to shape things, then ignore 100% that stone shaped from a completely unsuitable form for drag (and a sphere isn't a bad shape to aim for, it's just not perfect) into a hull shape much better than a sphere (which has to be a lot more different in shape to be usefully better than a normal berg shape) loses most of its mass, the mass of which IS THE POINT OF THE FUCKING BERG TO BEGIN WITH.

      You sit there whining that we could do it because we can shape ice, then completely ignore that I said why that was a fucking stupid idea because you're too fucking busy complaining to bother to think.

      THAT is why this fucking lunatic idea has legs: morons like you and the other twat don't bother to think beyond "do I like this idea or not" and then totally 100% invest into it one way or the other, ignoring everything that they can't fit into their heroic quest to support their idiotic belief.

    47. Re:Two Words by SuperKendall · · Score: 2

      This is because the electric cost of reverse osmosis is less than the electric + heating cost of distillation. Water has a very high specific heat, so it takes a lot of energy to evaporate it.

      Hmm, I wonder what a desert environment has a lot of for free...

      I always wondered why desert cities didn't pipe water into huge desalination (distillation) plants just driven by the desert heat.

      --
      "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    48. Re:Two Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

        figuring a gallon of water (ice) at roughly 1/3 kiloWatt hour and 1.3 horse power hour/kiloWatt hour and
        8766 hours/year thats about 1,000,000 horse power

        if 100 gallons of water (ice) is worth 1 gallon of oil thats 200,000,000 gallons of oil
        (assuming heat of fusion/gallon of ice is 1/100 the heat value of the oil and 33% efficient heat engine driving
        air conditioning with a coefficient of performance of 3)

        200,000,000 gallons of oil is about $214,000,000 at $45/barrel

        sounds like you could cover your costs and get the liquid water for free if you can use that much AC

        (assuming I haven't dropped a decimal point or three)

    49. Re: Two Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It will never run out. God has put it there never ending. This is in the Koran. I wonder how they knew to write it before it was discovered.

    50. Re:Two Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oddly enough, I would anticipate a "dead zone" around the iceberg due to the drop in natural level of salinity due to the melting ice and the lower temperature of the water.

    51. Re: Two Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Always promoting big plastic! But ammo!

    52. Re: Two Words by careysub · · Score: 1

      The idea of sculping the iceberg to reduce drag is interesting... perhaps less like a sphere and more like a hull would be a bit more efficient. Though it might happen naturally in warmer waters as the iceberg is pushed North and the rougher edges melt away.

      Also, the melting ice itself might reduce drag.

      Would need to just go ahead and do it once with the ice berg as-is to practically baseline the efficiency.

      Your guesses here are very good. Iceberg towing has been studied a lot (though if you look through the many reports about this online there is a curious tendency for people to think they are analyzing this for the very first time and approach it with a blank slate).

      Yes, icebergs do naturally assume a hull-shape as they are being towed, and yes melting does reduce drag (if only because it keeps a clean smooth surface).

      Shaping an iceberg with a little blasting is straightforward - ice is really easy to drill through to set blasting charges.

      A lot of people posting thoughts on this seem to be looking for ways to save the water loss - neglecting the fact that the ice source is free, abundant, and constantly renewed, and thus the only cost associated with any melting is the towing cost incurred thus far for that fraction of ice that melts. As long as the loss rate is tolerable (fairly easy to estimate really) then there is no problem that needs to be "fixed' with more complicated schemes. Most of the suggestions to 'improve' the process drive up costs dramatically (cutting it up and putting it in a supertanker, wrapping it in plastic for the journey, etc.).

      Once in place at Dubai the iceberg would be surrounded by a floating plastic containment curtain and seawater pumped out and replaced with fresh as it melts, forming a reservoir.

      --
      Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
    53. Re:Two Words by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      How about cutting the ice in pieces and using regular supertankers for transport ?

      Because that requires tremendous amounts of expensive infrastructure and labor. Duh.
       

      Tugboats are optimized for short powerful port manoeuvring, not long haul traffic.

      Um, that depends on the type of tug - and heavy ocean going tugs are in fact designed around precisely this kind of long haul.

    54. Re:Two Words by Sarten-X · · Score: 1

      I never said 75 billion, or 80 billion. I have only ever discussed millions of cubic meters. The AC's correction was incorrect, but I was trying to be nice about it.

      Pro tip: Never try to remember your scale or units. That makes it far too easy to forget a conversion or miss an order of magnitude. Instead, set out a big and ugly formula in small pieces, then plug in the numbers. Google will keep track of units for you, no matter how complicated they become. That provides a check at each step that you're actually calculating something that makes sense.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    55. Re: Two Words by careysub · · Score: 4, Informative

      I just did some googling, looking for more information about their plans and found this which is quite interesting. It puts the plan in a somewhat different light, and answers many of comments made here.

      A key reason for this iceberg towing plan is specifically local environment modification. All those desalinization plants are pumping bring into the coastal waters, and the icebergs are going to be allowed to melt in open water to counteract the increased salinity and restoring the ecological balance in those coastal waters. And through feedback effects they anticipate that is will modify the local climate, creating a cool air layer (basically an artificial inversion effect) and increasing rainfall.

      --
      Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
    56. Re: Two Words by careysub · · Score: 1

      ... pumping brine into the coastal waters...

      --
      Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
    57. Re: Two Words by Sarten-X · · Score: 1

      Iceberg towing has been studied a lot (though if you look through the many reports about this online there is a curious tendency for people to think they are analyzing this for the very first time and approach it with a blank slate).

      Any particularly useful resources you recommend? I looked briefly, and didn't find much with actual measurements. I ended up taking a pure-math approach, assumed a spherical cow, and ultimately stopped caring about the shape when I found that there actually are tugboats powerful enough. Once the idea is deemed reasonable, improvements like ideal shape can be computed by the folks getting paid to do it.

      ...the ice source is free, abundant, and constantly renewed, and thus the only cost associated with any melting is the towing cost incurred thus far for that fraction of ice that melts.

      That's one of my unstated early assumptions, that whoever is doing this is smart enough to cut off more than they need to deliver. Again, I figured that once you get into the "reasonable" area, those problems fall away with an economy of scale.

      Considering in-transit melting as an example, we can consider that melting will be on the surface. and the majority of the volume won't be subject to such effects. Similarly, drag is mostly related to cross-sectional area, so this is one of the few situations where the square-cube law works in our favor. We can increase the towed volume (and thus the benefit) by a cubic rate, while only increasing the melting and power needs (and thus the costs) at a quadratic rate.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    58. Re: Two Words by Half-pint+HAL · · Score: 1

      No, it lost its meaning when science decided there was no such thing as race. However, I do think that calling a country run by people with different pigmentation from you stupid probably counts as racism.

      --
      Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
    59. Re:Two Words by Half-pint+HAL · · Score: 1

      Then why transport it as ice at all? Ice is less dense than liquid water, so you're wasting a lot of space in you supertanker. Also, at the end of the road, you're now going to have to store it somewhere, whereas the iceberg is intended to be self-storing, as they have judged the loss to melting and evaporation as acceptable and they're just going to let it bob about in the gulf until they need it.

      --
      Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
    60. Re:Two Words by Sarten-X · · Score: 1

      The largest container ship in the world holds 20,000 TEU, and each TEU is roughly 40 cubic meters. To carry the same amount of ice as one towed iceberg, you'd need to have 100 such ships, and the Antarctica-side infrastructure to load them.

      The biggest factor that makes a towed iceberg reasonable is just how little structure is needed. A significant amount of cable, of course, but nothing that makes the logistics unmanageable.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    61. Re:Two Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And stillsuits. They should always remember to wear stillsuits on the desert.

    62. Re:Two Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Simply put, the desert heat doesn't do anything useful. The heat required to vaporize water is about four times the heat required to bring that same volume of water from the freezing point to the boiling point. Distillation is just as energy-intensive no matter the starting temperature.

    63. Re:Two Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Many water producing plants combine low-pressure vaporization with reverse osmosis. It fits in nicely with a combined cycle power plant. For maximum effect, the steam turbine in the cycle will be an "extraction" model, meaning a significant quantity of the steam is removed at the point of maximum thermodynamic economic effect for boiling seawater at reduced pressure, and generating power. The power generated is used for running the plant and for sale to supplement income.

    64. Re:Two Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unless you park it where your desalination plants are releasing the brine, which is causing the reverse problem...

    65. Re:Two Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      MiniMike did not suggest loading the ice onto container ships; rather the suggestion was to convert a container ship into an ocean-going tug.

      I've no idea whether that makes economic sense (dammit Jim, I'm a software engineer, not a naval architect). I do know the UAE would have no trouble affording a purpose-built ship if such was needed for this project.

    66. Re:Two Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oddly enough, I would anticipate a "dead zone" around the iceberg due to the drop in natural level of salinity due to the melting ice and the lower temperature of the water.

      Someone above suggested the combination of melt off from the iceberg with brine discharged from their existing reverse osmosis desalination plants to reach normal salinity.

    67. Re: Two Words by markdavis · · Score: 1

      You are assuming the OP's comments were based on or motivated by race (or color or location or whatever you want), and you don't know that.

    68. Re:Two Words by Half-pint+HAL · · Score: 1

      Maybe they're expecting to get a below average sized iceberg, and they're probably accounting for very significant losses to melting and contamination around the edges. A lot of the ice may never make it into the water supply.

      --
      Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
    69. Re:Two Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      With all that money, why don't they just GTFO of the damn dessert?

    70. Re:Two Words by nukenerd · · Score: 1

      Then why transport it as ice at all?

      I thought you were going to suggest sending the population of UAE to Antarctica instead. Not a bad idea.

    71. Re:Two Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because if poor people can afford to drink, real people aren't as special by comparison.

    72. Re:Two Words by slew · · Score: 1

      Desalinization plants aren't a panacea. You need energy (currently, the largest UAE desalinization plant Jebel Ali M-Station runs on natural gas), and a place to store the output brine (and sink for the thermal energy of hot water effluent assuming you aren't just dumping it back into the ocean and polluting it.

      Like everything, it's a tradeoff.

    73. Re: Two Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If the oil industry is doomed to become obsolete, what will become of the oil tankers? Perhaps repurposed for water transport?

    74. Re:Two Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why don't they use a concentrated solar still? Mirrors are cheap, and can heat the water to it's boiling point easily enough.

    75. Re:Two Words by SirCowMan · · Score: 2

      Living in a place which actually does harvest icebergs, it's done with excavators to a barge. This would be a better route than dragging the whole thing up. You'll lose less water to melting en-route, have less resistance on the tow, can use smaller tugs, it's a lot easier to figure out the rigging, etc., etc., ultimately - lower overall OPEX. I'm also not sure an iceberg will sit up in the hot gulf for very long; northern icebergs do last years, but once they get down into the open ocean, and particularly once they cross the gulf stream, they simply don't hang around for a second season.

      Shotguns or explosives are often used though, btw, depending on size - to ensure the iceberg in question is stable enough to take apart.

      --
      !Equality through palindromes semordnilap hguorht ytilauqE!
    76. Re:Two Words by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Major math error in your calculation, you forgot to depreciate the ice berg being towed. Although you start with a lot, the further you tow, the less you have and a huge amount of energy is wasted on nothing. So you have to take into account thermal exchange, the amount of warm water flowing over the iceberg shrinking it. To realistically tow an iceberg you need to treat it as a liquid mass and completely enclose it or tow nothing a very long way (the nothing being ice you towed that melted before you got there and faster makes it worse not better). The most energy efficient is to use tidal pressures to power reverse osmosis.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    77. Re: Two Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yet ...just say nibber-jabber and be done-with-it

    78. Re:Two Words by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 2

      Let's pretend that mining engineering and stonemasonry doesn't exist, hat we don't artificially shape rock every day, and that we literally cannot be bothered to reduce drag when we push large objects through water...
      Lets pretend, you are not such an idiot as you try to display to us.
      Please calculate the amount of energy/fuel needed to drag a hull shaped ice berg from Antarctica to UAE.

      For fuck sake, the parent calculated down what the minimum energy is if you assume "an impossible" spherical shape.

      How dump can one be to make an argument about the "sphere"????

      Your turn, give us your numbers or be silent.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    79. Re:Two Words by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

      P Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney!

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    80. Re:Two Words by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 2

      As I pointed out in a raciest post years ago in another thread, people in those regions are pretty dumb.

      Dumb in a very special way:
      1) they often have very high education, e.g. Oxford or Cambridge.
      2) they are not innovative
      3) business only is done in traditional areas: tourism, banking, oil, etc.
      4) business is only done with relatives or 'friends' or 'friends' of relatives

      No one is sitting there and thinking: "oh, how could we solve this problem?".
      To make them build a solar powered desalination plant in the desert, you need to go there and "befriend" one of the Sheiks. Make him a business proposal. Explain him how it benefits him, etc. p.p.

      A typical rich Aristocrat there will simply buy a gold plated iPhone in diamond dust to show you: "I'm to dumb to know what to do with my money, but see: this is a 'one of a kind'. I payed a million so that the guy making it, makes never again such a thing"

      I could go on and go on ...

      They are intelligent in the sense that they are as intelligent as normal people are, and have an education and also knowledge and probably even phantasy like everyone else, well education top of the pop. But: they have no clue how to use that, unless it is running the old business that they inherit, oil, banks etc.

      If I was born there, I mean with my mind and knowledge, I had started 30 years ago to literally transform the arabic peninsula into a paradise. It is so damn easy and the people there are so damn dumb, it is unbelievable.

      It is probably about power ... the mighty have the power and the poor have not ... probably such simple.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    81. Re: Two Words by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      There's a difference between long term doomed (to only supply the chemical industry) and doomed in the life of the tanker fleet. If and when the price deltas get low enough, they will build fewer tankers.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    82. Re:Two Words by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Purpose built, ocean going tugs exist. You'd want more than one to tow a giant antarctic iceberg. I'd guess two on, one on maintenance/fueling. One fuel tanker. Cable rigging and likely end of cable floats. Cabling that much force to ice is a non-trivial engineering problem.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    83. Re:Two Words by HornWumpus · · Score: 2

      Natural gas is INXS in the oil producing parts of the middle east. It's free to the people that run desalination plants.

      If they perfect natural gas liquefaction and transport, that might change. But the oil wells produce a shitload of natural gas.

      Brine wouldn't be an issue, if they had deep oceans with strong currents, but the arabs don't, they should discharge brine into the Indian ocean.

      Capturing a huge iceberg/year could put their desalination plants out of business. Get extra tugs for the last 50 miles, _all_ of them, get that sucker up to max speed and slam it into the sand, create a bay, like in the old Pornelle books.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    84. Re:Two Words by LunaticTippy · · Score: 1

      Interesting math, but you are ignoring a very large factor. There are ocean currents that are an order of magnitude larger than your target velocity. If you simply towed the berg into favorable currents and let it sit there riding the free movement you could cut fuel costs to a tiny fraction. I'd wager there is a route you can find from the general berg zone to the general target dropoff where you are riding currents pretty much the whole way.

      --
      Man, you really need that seminar!
    85. Re:Two Words by LunaticTippy · · Score: 1

      If you are interested in learning about hull shape effect on drag through water, a good starting place would be hull speed

      --
      Man, you really need that seminar!
    86. Re:Two Words by VisceralLogic · · Score: 1

      While that may have been the minimum energy necessary to drag a sphere, a sphere is not the least-drag shape. Reduce by a factor of 10 for a streamlined shape. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      --
      Stop! Dremel time!
  6. Deja View by aevan · · Score: 1

    Wasn't this one of the ways to waste money in Brewster's Millions?

    1. Re:Deja View by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      And it turned out to make a huge profit

    2. Re:Deja View by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Set sail... the "Brewster-Berg #1" to Mecca!

  7. Vast Density by chuckugly · · Score: 5, Funny

    Vast density is what the guy who wrote that craptastic article has.

  8. Re:WTF IS UAE??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    The UAE. Like where Dubai is, which has the worlds tallest building?

    How fucking retardedly stupid are you? You're from redneck america, aren't you?

  9. Wouldn't just buying water from other countries be by TheOuterLinux · · Score: 4, Funny

    Or, are we trying to solve the polar ice melting by drinking it? Get rid of the evidence! Flushing ice cubes down the toilet.

  10. Iceberg huh? by mentil · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The water shortage is expected to last 25 years, and the average iceberg contains enough water for 5 years (for 1 million people). According to Google, the UAE population is currently ~9.16Million, meaning if all of the water were recovered, it would last about half a year if all water came from the iceberg. And they're planning on starting this project next year. They'd have to tow two average icebergs a year to supply everyone from it. Ok, maybe only like 10% of water will come from the iceberg, but it has to go through a water-treatment plant before it'll be used, presumably displacing capacity for processing other water that'd be run through it instead.

    Source looks like a tabloid, by the way.

    --
    Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
    1. Re:Iceberg huh? by Harold+Halloway · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I wonder why the water shortage is expected to last 25 years? What is going to happen in 25 years to ameliorate this problem?

    2. Re:Iceberg huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      There is more detailed info here:

      http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/uae-icebergs-drinking-water-from-antarctica-towed-united-arab-emirates-a7715561.html

      They plan to tow multiple icebergs over the course of time and state that icebergs have microclimate effects, including increasing rainfall. As to how they will extract the water:

      "Blocks will be chipped off the iceberg above the waterline and then crushed into water, before being stored in large tanks and filtered through a water processing plant."

    3. Re:Iceberg huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, towing away all these icebergs will increase global warming (black water absorbs heat, white ice reflects heat back into space). So if we start actively melting the ice caps along with all the other idiocy, humans ought to be extinct by then.

    4. Re:Iceberg huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      People will abandon the UAE after the religiously induced collapse of the economy. No people, no water shortage.

    5. Re:Iceberg huh? by bughunter · · Score: 1

      I wonder why the water shortage is expected to last 25 years? What is going to happen in 25 years to ameliorate this problem?

      The UAE will be inundated by rising sea levels, and then they will no longer have a shortage of water.

      --
      I can see the fnords!
    6. Re:Iceberg huh? by Carewolf · · Score: 0

      Why would it need to go through a water treatment plant? I don't see the need.

    7. Re:Iceberg huh? by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      They will run out of oil and no longer be able to sustain their lifestyle built entirely on the excessive consumption and sale of energy.

    8. Re:Iceberg huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wonder why the water shortage is expected to last 25 years? What is going to happen in 25 years to ameliorate this problem?

      Nuclear war and the end of everyones troubles with things like water shortage, global warming. Donald Frump, Vladimir Poutine and all the other problems created by our inability to get along and share and protect the resources of this planet. While, at the same time we destroy nature and each other in the name a false gods, nationalism, tribalism and all the other primitive aspects of human understanding and abilities. We are not evolving socially fast enough to avoid our own demise and who knows maybe this is how we were intended to have been eliminated from existence as a species. Perhaps when we were told to "go yea forth and multiply, even unto the ends of the earth" it was just some ancient aliens telling us to fuck off and die.

    9. Re:Iceberg huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd imagine that 25 years is the limit of the regional projections. Whilst I'd be surprised that things would then change, in terms of funding projects it might be the horizon.

    10. Re:Iceberg huh? by jjon · · Score: 2

      Because they're not going to be handling the iceberg in sterile conditions, and even if they did the iceberg isn't pure water to begin with. There will be dirty boots from the people moving around on the iceberg, seagull poop, germs because germs get everywhere, seawater and whatever germs and muck are in the seawater, the odd dead fish that got frozen in the iceburg when it formed, etc. If a bit of muck gets in with the ice, that's fine, the water treatment plant will filter it out.

    11. Re: Iceberg huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Ever think about how long it takes to bring desalination plants online?

      So they have some number of plants presently, those plants are running at capacity, thet need to build new ones, maintain and or retire/replace the old ones. You can relatively easily plot out production year by year vs need (population * usage plus fudge factor) and see that it will take 25 years for the prodiction to exceed demand.

      To those that cpmlain that their water usage is too high, then compare it to places like Sweden, let me remind you that your body requires much more water in the desert than it does in the high latitudes forest/ mountainous areas. So even if they were not wasting water they could be averaging 4L of water a day just on survival. Remarkably that is close to the usage levels we see. 365 days x 4 Litres a day = 1460 L a year awfully close to the 1550 they are using 94.2% in fact.

    12. Re:Iceberg huh? by dbIII · · Score: 1

      I wonder why the water shortage is expected to last 25 years? What is going to happen in 25 years to ameliorate this problem?

      The local oil is going to run out so the place turns into a ghost town?

    13. Re:Iceberg huh? by allcoolnameswheretak · · Score: 2

      Yeah. They better treat that water. Nobody wants to open the tap and have a frozen mammoth come out of it.

    14. Re:Iceberg huh? by Cederic · · Score: 1

      But the iceberg will be taken from the polar regions with weak sunlight to the middle east which gets more heat from the sun. So until it melts it will actually be reflecting away more heat than it would without being moved.

    15. Re:Iceberg huh? by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      I wonder why the water shortage is expected to last 25 years? What is going to happen in 25 years to ameliorate this problem?

      The Rapture.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    16. Re:Iceberg huh? by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      They will run out of oil and no longer be able to sustain their lifestyle built entirely on the excessive consumption and sale of energy.

      That's pretty much it. Because unless some diety is going to create mote oil, it is over time simply going to become more difficult to get until there just isn't enough to support the uses it is put to now. Oil, coal production - unless physics is wrong, they are one time events. The UAE is definitely unsustainable as it is now.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    17. Re: Iceberg huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...and maybe turn off some of those elaborate outdoor water fountains they're using and save that water?

      They should also be working on reclamation from waste water, and reuse for agricultural or even drinking.

      There are just so many options better than pulling icebergs.

      Not to mention no one has talked about what the changes to the local sea will look like when you park a huge low temperature, melting fresh water berg there--what will that due to local wildlife?

    18. Re:Iceberg huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're assuming it's for anyone other than the ruling class who can afford to pay for it. Did you think these backwards sand n|ggers were just going to share it with those who are less fortunate? No. They're going to sell it, make back all their money and a healthy profit in the process. These are not, and never will be decent people.

    19. Re:Iceberg huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or frozen reindeer, with ANTHRAX

    20. Re:Iceberg huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wonder why the water shortage is expected to last 25 years? What is going to happen in 25 years to ameliorate this problem?

      Presumably all Western infidels will be dead at the hands of the influx of Muslims from that part of the world. Probably the hand of George Soros is involved too.

    21. Re:Iceberg huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The oceans start to boil an we all die because they stole whats left of the ice accelerating global warming *cough* "climate change"

    22. Re:Iceberg huh? by careysub · · Score: 1

      ...Ok, maybe only like 10% of water will come from the iceberg, but it has to go through a water-treatment plant before it'll be used...

      Umm... why? Water is treated to bring it up to quality standards - amount of dissolved salts, concentrations of bacteria and so forth. It isn't a ritual required to bless the water for drinking. If water is already up to standards no treatment is necessary. Glacier water is already eminently potable. You can buy glacier ice in stores (a fancy luxury item) and it meets all standards for human consumption.

      --
      Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
    23. Re:Iceberg huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nobody wants to open the tap and have a frozen mammoth come out of it.

      I do.

    24. Re:Iceberg huh? by barc0001 · · Score: 1

      As long as they don't name one of the ice towing ships the Cantebury I don't see any issues with the plan.

    25. Re: Iceberg huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As mentioned above, the local wildlife is already being threatened by increased salinization from the brine effluent of the desalinization plants. The fresh water is expected to help offset that.

  11. Re:WTF IS UAE??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Cock holsters?

    Windows 95 access fault?

    United Arab Emirates?

  12. What???? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We let the chinese sreall out Sunlight and the They already stole our oil now we are going to let thm steall OUR water !!

    Bomb them back into the stone age USA #'1!!

  13. So the UAE bought Antartica and the world climate? by elcor · · Score: 2

    I didn't know it was that easy to steal a world resource.

  14. Re:WTF IS UAE??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    American detected.

  15. Another disaster avoided thanks to global warming by frovingslosh · · Score: 2

    Normally that hunk of ice would be frozen in place in Antarctica, but thanks to the miracle of global warming those thirsty rich Arabs will have plenty of water.

    --
    I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
  16. Re:WTF IS UAE??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Would you have said the same if it was the UK or the USA? I know that many abbreviations might be unknown to people since they are highly domain specific, but the UAE (United Arab Emirates) should be pretty common knowledge to anyone having attended school or following media. Especially since it is one of the biggest and certainly riches countries in the middle east, quite controversial in several areas and ally to the USA.

    So even if it is poor form to not write out abbreviations, what is next? The question "WTF IS s.?" as a followup to "Usain Bolt beat his previous record on 100 meter sprint. New world record 9.56 s." C'mon...

  17. Re:Wouldn't just buying water from other countries by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    They're buying it from the jews. Iceberg, Goldberg, what's the difference?

  18. Not the first time by AutodidactLabrat · · Score: 5, Informative

    Australia proposed exactly this suggestion about 25 years ago.
    Then they started looking for ships powerful enough to move such a drag
    Project died.
    Surprise.

    1. Re:Not the first time by Harold+Halloway · · Score: 1

      I remember reading about towing icebergs as a potential solution to water shortages when I was a kid, probably mid-to-late 1970s.

    2. Re:Not the first time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We did thinking of building an ice berg battleship. I think this situation would call for the same solution, forget towing the block of ice, install motors on it at key locations and drive the entire thing where you want it.

    3. Re:Not the first time by sheramil · · Score: 1

      They were silly. The obvious solution is to mount the engines on the icebergs.

    4. Re:Not the first time by inflex · · Score: 1

      DickSmith was the chap who floated it:
              http://hoaxes.org/af_database/...

    5. Re:Not the first time by CaptnCrud · · Score: 1

      I christen the: Icey McIceberg face.

    6. Re:Not the first time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's too stupid to be considered funny. You are stupid.

    7. Re:Not the first time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If Isaac Asimov suggested mounting engines on the ice (asteroid), then I'd say it's not too stupid to be considered. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martian_Way

    8. Re:Not the first time by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Australia proposed exactly this suggestion about 25 years ago.
      Then they started looking for ships powerful enough to move such a drag
      Project died.

      Yes, but the UAE is the poster child for massive capital projects which make no sense. They have enough slave labor they can probably do it with ropes ;)

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    9. Re:Not the first time by dpilot · · Score: 1

      I was about to mention that story, but did a quick check to see if someone else had. I'm sure the late Dr. A. would be pleased to hear about this, though saddened to hear of the path leading to it.

      --
      The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
    10. Re:Not the first time by allcoolnameswheretak · · Score: 1

      Arthur C. Clarke suggested sticking huge icebergs to the front of interstellar spaceships as a shield from the cosmic dust and debris.
      I think it was this book
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    11. Re:Not the first time by hey! · · Score: 1

      Actually, I believe it was an aircraft carrier and the material was composite of ice and wood pulp. The idea was to provide complete aerial coverage of the North Atlantic; the project was shelved when a combination of longer-range aircraft and small escort carriers became available. The project was delayed both by engineering problems and by feature creep, which ballooned the required hull size to a staggering 610m long, almost 2.5x as long as the largest aircraft carrier class in WW2.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    12. Re:Not the first time by Cederic · · Score: 1

      Of course, because there's no difference at all between writing science fiction and marine engineering.

      Shit, at a minimum you'd have to keep adding to the driveshaft as the thing melts, causing the propellers to rise out of the water. Or did you mean jet engines, because I'd large myself silly watching someone try and shift an iceberg using a source of extreme heat.

    13. Re:Not the first time by Koen+Lefever · · Score: 1

      Or did you mean jet engines, because I'd large myself silly watching someone try and shift an iceberg using a source of extreme heat.

      We need an iceberg mod for KSP.

      --
      /. refugees on Usenet: news:comp.misc
    14. Re:Not the first time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This guy gets it...

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svKq044qrYU

    15. Re:Not the first time by zippthorne · · Score: 1

      Ice air-base, actually, and they were planning to cast the thing in place first rather than carve out an existing iceberg because they wanted to mix the ice with sawdust? to make it tougher.

      I'm not sure what the benefits would've been of installing the machinery inside other than that it woudl be as protected enemy attack as anything else behind the pykrete armor.

      --
      Can you be Even More Awesome?!
    16. Re:Not the first time by AutodidactLabrat · · Score: 1

      Did anyone re-do the math on drag coefficient for icebergs?
      In sea water, not in the vacuum of space?
      That plus ocean currents = why it won't work

    17. Re:Not the first time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or process the berg into a stick. Much better drag coefficient.

    18. Re:Not the first time by AutodidactLabrat · · Score: 1

      Yeah. It was repeated (as a proposal) in the early 90's by some twit or other

    19. Re:Not the first time by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      And the arabs had that idea actually 40 years ago ...
      I learned that as a child and I wonder if I actually was 10 already or learned it before.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    20. Re:Not the first time by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Exactly, me too! Just answered to a different post.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    21. Re:Not the first time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Done.

    22. Re:Not the first time by AutodidactLabrat · · Score: 1

      I missed that one.
      Any citations? I'm interested in the history

    23. Re:Not the first time by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Other posters posted similar statements.
      But ... I googled :) Fourth hit on first page:
      https://phys.org/news/2011-08-...
      You have to read the article, first paragraphs ...

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    24. Re:Not the first time by AutodidactLabrat · · Score: 1

      it was possible for a 7 ton block.
      Whereas the size needed is two full orders bigger
      Hmm, so much for "is possible", absent really HUGE engines.

  19. Re:So the UAE bought Antartica and the world clima by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They hired Carmen Sandiego to help figure out the logistics.

  20. Re:WTF IS UAE??? by whoever57 · · Score: 0
    --
    The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
  21. Re: WTF IS UAE??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think the point was to get an acronym expansion, like was done for NABL.

  22. Nice by NormanHaga2580 · · Score: 0

    Quite an ambitious project. I hope they are successful.

  23. Re: WTF IS UAE??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Do we need to expand UK or USA every time? No. So same shit here.

  24. Meh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Just let 'em die of thirst.

    1. Re:Meh by hey! · · Score: 1

      Oh, well then I expect they'll give up, because your opinion is bound to be more important to them than water.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  25. Nuclear Winter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've heard that should help restore the glacial masses at the north and south poles quite well, as well as lower temperatures worldwide and help return (acid) rainfall to many parts of the world. I've heard it will also lower the population strain on existing freshwater resources.

    I could of course be DEAD WRONG :)

  26. Why isn't Pepsi or Coke bottling this prestine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    pure water for sale

    distilled water would be the next best thing except the stupid bottlers put the hot water directly into the bottles cooking the plastic taste into it

  27. Bout Damn Time by Crashmarik · · Score: 1

    People have been talking about doing this since the 1800s, . Nice to see this finally getting it done.

    P.S. California take a note, it's almost certainly cheaper than building desal plants but 5 will get you 10, you'll still have to fight your loony environmentalists.

    1. Re:Bout Damn Time by Gavagai80 · · Score: 1

      California has ridiculously more water than we could ever use, even in drought years. It's just at the opposite end of the state from where the people who want to use it are. Transporting across the state is a lot cheaper/easier than towing an iceberg (or desalinization) though.

      --
      This space intentionally left blank
    2. Re:Bout Damn Time by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Opposite end of the state and only available for the wrong six months of the year. Storing water is not cheap or easy. Though to the extent storage is available, it's cheaper than desalination.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  28. Worlds Stupidest Idea by Kuruk · · Score: 0

    Well UAE likes to have world records. With all the money they are not able to build a desalination plant to cover drinking water ? I would think they could afford several.

  29. Sure by John.Banister · · Score: 1

    they could start the project after that chunk of Larsen C ice shelf breaks off. Maybe they could hire the Russians (attempt) to tow it with their nuclear powered ice breaker.

  30. Vast density? by aglider · · Score: 2

    In that case an iceberg would sink. Its density is close to that of salt water, that's why it floats! Idiot!

    --
    Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
  31. Average size iceberg? by sl149q · · Score: 1

    Who knew there was an average size iceberg. Well presumably there is. But who knew that the actual average size was so well known.

  32. Is Wile E. towing it? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    Gotta be from the ACME Think Tank.

  33. How about NO? by ohnocitizen · · Score: 0

    Why should a country that contributes so much to global warming (in possession of 94% of the world's oil reserves) get to take water from a global resource? How about they invest in renewable energy and THEN we talk.

    1. Re:How about NO? by Nehmo · · Score: 1

      Why should a country or a person "own" the resources beneath them? Do people get mineral rights when they are born? The custom or system of allocating riches on this basis needs to change. It's clearly unjust.

      BTW, I don't approve of inheritance either.

      --
      (||) Nehmo (||)
    2. Re:How about NO? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They are investing in renewables, and also have 5.6 GWe of nuclear under construction.

      At least they are using their oil profits to build out carbon-free energy infrastructure. What others do with purchased oil is not their responsibility. Don't like that it is being burned? Support cheaper forms of energy, like nuclear. Advanced reactors producing high temperature heat will also enable economical synthetic fuels as well as desalination.

      If you are only advocating renewables and not nuclear, you are a part of the problem.

    3. Re:How about NO? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

      The UAE contributes _nothing_ to global warming, pollution, and waste production, when compared to f.ex. the U.S., the biggest glutton and waste-producing PoS on the face of the planet. You don't get to talk or have any say when it comes to what the UAE wants to drink.

    4. Re:How about NO? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why should a country that contributes so much to global warming (in possession of 94% of the world's oil reserves)

      94%?? You gotta be kidding.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      The UAE certainly has a lot of oil, but they rank below Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Iran, Iraq and Kuwait in terms of reserves.

      In terms of actual oil production, the UAE ranks below Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, China, Iran and Canada

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  34. Re:WTF IS UAE??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Same thing USA means to others.... Usurped Arabic Emirates... hey... select the letters, rightclick, and if you have a decent browser... it should show up with "look this word up with a search engine" kind of menu item...

    It's not the first time they do this (transporting an iceberg; I do not remember exactly... I think it was Spain for some world-fair...)... so it is proven feasible. There was a loss of mass during transport though, so form and drag were important.

    They should just invent some stillsuits... want some water? it was my grandmother's...

  35. Re:WTF IS UAE??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sorry, but what do you mean by 'WTF'?

  36. Hold up one second by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    While I normally applaud efforts to solve large problems I have serious reservations about this operation. It seems like a fleet of ships will be in constant operation for 1 year to provide 5 years worth of fresh water. How can that be the most ecologically sound solution to this problem at that price point? This seems to be an effort to grab at straws and likely set off confrontations over who gets to control the remaining sea ice (as if we will ever see an increase in the lifetimes of ourselves or our direct descendants).
     
    The carbon footprint IS TOO DAMN HIGH!

  37. If you ever played video games... by Gabest · · Score: 2

    You know that more food creates more people. Then more people need more food.

    1. Re:If you ever played video games... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You know that more food creates more people. Then more people need more food.

      That's why the US population is exploding then... Oh sorry, s/population/waistlines/

      Improved quality of life - food, water, healthcare/, ducation etc is the surefire way of getting birthrates down to about 2 children/woman

    2. Re:If you ever played video games... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      because sex ass pussy butt

  38. Snowball's chance by Bodhammer · · Score: 1

    This has a snowball's chance in hell of working... or something.

    --
    "I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
  39. Why 25 years? by mentil · · Score: 4, Funny

    a ) Emergence of New Tech(tm) to solve the problem!
    b) The managing director expects to tire of playing golf in the desert within 25 years, and will reluctantly relinquish the water.
    c) After 20 years of delays in the construction of desalination plants due to graft, the corrupt ministers will retire, thus leaving only a new generation of completely honest ministers, and the plants will be finished up within 5 years.
    d) Everyone will have left the UAE due to other countries moving away from ICEs, regional strife, etc.
    e) Mandatory 25-year water shortage. Sorry, they'd LOVE to fit it into their schedule next century, but darn, it's just too FULL.
    f) Aliens. Somehow.
    g) The Rapture will happen in 25 years so it'll be moot.

    --
    Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
    1. Re: Why 25 years? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wonder what shape America will be in in 25 years time ?
      A population of curved spine folk who move by rolling along due to the dominance of breeding by folk with their heads up their own arses,but it won't matter because they will have become so parochial that they never go further than the nearest pizza place at the end of their street ?

    2. Re:Why 25 years? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      h) every one working on the project is expected to retire in the next 25 years, after that it's some one else's problem.

  40. Re:Can you get water from rag-heads? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    Ain't no shortage of rag-heads proudly wasting water in the United Ayrahb Emirates.

    http://chartsbin.com/view/1455

    UAE - 916.1 m3/year/capita
    USA - 1,550

    Let's compare with some 3rd world shitholes like
    Sweden - 285.6
    Denmark - 120.9
    Finland - 309.3

  41. Re:Another disaster avoided thanks to global warmi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Anthrax and other nasty bugs that currently live in the ice will be happy to move to the Arabic Paradise.

  42. Re:WTF IS UAE??? by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1

    This one is funny!!

    --
    Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
  43. Thus solving the problem... by TeknoHog · · Score: 1
    --
    Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    1. Re:Thus solving the problem... by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      +1.25 Funny, +3.75 Informative.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
  44. Re:Can you get water from rag-heads? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The water-heads using 1550 m3 per year... no wonder

  45. Re:WTF IS UAE??? by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 2, Informative

    How fucking retardedly stupid are you? You're from redneck america, aren't you?

    Funny how someone might become aggressive and full of contempt when faced with a simple mistake - I'm used to the acronym in another language since, like you, I'm not American.

    --
    Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
  46. UAE has many different types of desalination plant by raymorris · · Score: 1

    Yes, they have many desalination plants, using several different technologies, and invest heavily in researching new desalination technology.

    Desalination takes a lot of energy aka money. It should cost maybe 50% or 70% to tow the ice than to desalinate seawater.

  47. Re: WTF IS UAE??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    A country isn't some niche errata. You've also had nearly a half century to catch up. Not to mention that it's either older than you, or its birth represents news you obviously were not paying attention to.

  48. Re:WTF IS UAE??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It's that arab country with cities that make New York and others look like third world shitholes in comparison.

  49. Why by DrXym · · Score: 0
    The UAE isn't landlocked and has plenty of sunshine. It shouldn't be difficult to build some desalination plants and run them off solar power. I'm sure there is also some potential for capturing water from the air (Dubai is incredibly humid), lots of potential for recycling water for crops & sanitation, plus agricultural & building code regulations, etc to minimize waste.

    Or they could bet the farm on dragging an iceberg to their country and watch as that plan fails for any number of reasons.

  50. Ice pirates by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Welcome ice pirates of Somalia
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ice_Pirates

  51. "I'll believe it when i see it" category by rkordmaa · · Score: 1

    Smells of BS. I Highly doubt it would be practical. Then again they are known for burning money just because and nearly anything can be done provided enough money.

  52. Re:WTF IS UAE??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Take a look at your subject line. Then imagine trying to respond to that with Zen calmness.

  53. Re:WTF IS UAE??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Especially since it is one of the biggest and certainly riches countries in the middle east

    Biggest? Seriously? You're making fun of the original poster's ignorance?

    The UAE is tiny:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    The UAE certainly is wealthy, but it is smaller than Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, and Yemen.

  54. Re:Another disaster avoided thanks to global warmi by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    And now you know why they predict that the problem will simply go away in 25 years. With a spot of luck, in way less than that.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  55. The climate has changed. Duh. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Or did you miss that news?

  56. Re: WTF IS UAE??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Er,I agree with most of your post,but the UAE, is certainly not one of the largest states in the mid-east,it's tiny..
    I've always found most of them pretty well educated,pleasant people,I had an open ended,everything paid for trip offer from a UAE resident who I had worked for and counted as a friend not a boss,I wish circumstances had allowed me to take up his offer,many folk have told me it's an eye opening experience,specially compared to many other states in the region..

  57. Drinking water? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Isn't an iceberg made of salty sea water?

    1. Re:Drinking water? by Deadstick · · Score: 4, Informative

      No. Only a small part of an iceberg is generated by freezing of seawater; most of the water arrives in the form of snow. Even the freezing of seawater is a natural salt-removal process involving the behavior of crystal lattices.

    2. Re:Drinking water? by hey! · · Score: 4, Informative

      Nope. You're thinking of sea ice, which forms in salt water. Icebergs are formed by glacial calving or ice sheets that originate on land.

      But even sea ice is less saline than seawater, because the freezing process expels brine. But because sea ice is flat like a pancake it has a larger surface area to volume ratio.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  58. Re:Wouldn't just buying water from other countries by tomhath · · Score: 1

    Or, are we trying to solve the polar ice melting by drinking it?

    No, this is to solve the problem of rising ocean levels.

  59. sure just let em drink it, bathe in it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the idea that the oil states could profit in this way from global warming is one of the most repugnant ideas I've ever heard.

  60. Re: Can you get water from rag-heads? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In other shocking news, countries that grow a lot of food use a lot of water.

  61. It's the liability stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This project simply won't happen. An iceberg taken into tow instantly becomes the responsibility of the UAE, even if they change their minds and abandon the previously towed object. The UAE would be responsible for chunks that have separated from the iceberg, again even if they abandoned the project after initially towing. This will release iceberg bits into ocean waters where icebergs are not usually present. All this together will result in huge potential liability payments. The UAE will likely need international consent. This iceberg would have to pass through other national waters. It would have to be at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. I just don't see other countries supporting the UAE in this proposed endeavor. Since this has never been done and could be considered something of a publicity stunt, if there is any damage the UAE could face credible assertions that they were irresponsible. Cutting the iceberg where it is cold and transporting the chunks on ships would be much more practical. Of course it would be more expensive than just more desalination plantsso this iceberg project would be more expensive than that.

  62. Re: Can you get water from rag-heads? by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 1

    In other shocking news, countries that grow a lot of food use a lot of water.

    Also, countries that have more water use more water.

  63. PROBLEM SOLVED !! by thygate · · Score: 1
  64. Re:WTF IS UAE??? by kenai_alpenglow · · Score: 1

    or none-English speaker, who might use a different acronym? But it gave you an excuse to express your bigotry. Hope it made you feel good.

  65. These are tabular icebergs by dbIII · · Score: 1

    With most of the volume below the surface, ocean currents become a primary factor

    Fifty knot winds for days on hundred foot high faces three hundred yards long don't matter? The winds push the tabular icebergs of the size mentioned about far more quickly than the currents move and in different directions. They have a high "sail to draft ratio" compared with the arctic icebergs.
    An iceberg the size of a city on the other hand will act as you suggest, but nobody is planning to move any of those any time soon.

    1. Re:These are tabular icebergs by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 1

      I did not say winds didn't matter. I just said currents would be a primary factor. You already stated winds were, I just added another factor that was not discussed. Wind blowing around bergs in areas of low current doesn't negate the point.

    2. Re:These are tabular icebergs by dbIII · · Score: 1
      Slow currents versus fast winds and a lot of area above water - very different to the northern hemisphere situation you are thinking of.
      Perhaps you should look up "the roaring 40s" to see why wind is an issue there but not so much in the north Atlantic.

      Wind blowing around bergs in areas of low current doesn't negate the point

      It kind of does when we are discussing the specific case of getting a tabular iceberg into the Indian Ocean.

    3. Re:These are tabular icebergs by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 1

      So you are saying ocean currents are not a primary factor to be considered? If so, I have to disagree.

    4. Re:These are tabular icebergs by dbIII · · Score: 1

      In this case the movement of icebergs in the southern ocean in the direction of the prevailing winds very strongly indicates it as does years of research so perhaps your gut feeling is not a primary factor.
      Using google will help.

  66. Only poor countries would use tugboats by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Rich countries like UAE can airlift it. Using their cargo airliners there, with their A300F and Ukraine made An124 and IL-76 fleets, they can airlift this precious ice.

  67. Global warming by shaksys · · Score: 0

    I thought expediting the melting of arctic ice was a bad thing? Bringing it to the middle east would make it melt faster right?

  68. Re:Another disaster avoided thanks to global warmi by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    And now you know why they predict that the problem will simply go away in 25 years. With a spot of luck, in way less than that.

    If people tow any appreciable amount of ice out of there then currents will be affected and it probably will be way less than that. I'll be sorry to lose Santa Cruz and San Francisco but won't miss Dubai.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  69. Re:So the UAE bought Antartica and the world clima by allcoolnameswheretak · · Score: 1

    I think you meant to say James Cameron.

    Lets hope all passenger liners stay clear of those tugged icebergs. It would be Titanic all over again...

  70. Re: Can you get water from rag-heads? by Kiuas · · Score: 1

    Also, countries that have more water use more water.

    Not always so. The UAE consumption is about 3 times what it is here in Finland and we've got roughly 733 times the amount of renewable water resources than UAE thanks to a high amount of freshwater lakes and rainfall. The population sizes are also roughly the same (5,5 million here here, 5,8 in the UAE).

    Adjusted for population size we've also got over double the renewable water resources compared to the USA, yet we use about 1/5th of what the Americans use.

    --
    "It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
  71. Re: Can you get water from rag-heads? by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 1

    How does that comparison look when eliminating farming? Does Finland account for direct draws from rivers/lakes as much as the US? What other leveling considerations should be factored?

  72. Re: Can you get water from rag-heads? by vtcodger · · Score: 1

    Care to share your photos of irrigated fruit, vegetable, and grain crops stretching off to the horizon in Finland's fertile Central Valley?

    --
    You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
  73. old news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Monty Brewster invested in this back in the '85

  74. Re:Another disaster avoided thanks to global warmi by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

    Normally that hunk of ice would be frozen in place in Antarctica, but thanks to the miracle of global warming those thirsty rich Arabs will have plenty of water.

    If it is frozen in place, it isn't an iceberg. Thanks O'Bama!

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  75. Re:WTF IS UAE??? by pedz · · Score: 1

    Depends what your definition of IS is?

  76. Consequences? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Like most anything else these days, we at least 20 more years of environmental study before we even consider doing this.

  77. Re:So the UAE bought Antartica and the world clima by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe we could go to the UAE and fill up some tankers with their natural resource (oil) and drive them back to Europe?

  78. Re: Can you get water from rag-heads? by Kiuas · · Score: 1

    Care to share your photos of irrigated fruit, vegetable, and grain crops stretching off to the horizon in Finland's fertile Central Valley?

    I never claimed we have such. Agriculture here uses a lot less water than in most countries because we don't need irrigation nearly at all thanks to the amount of rainfall. Industry is the heaviest consumer of water.

    Of course climate effects consumption, which is why the US food production takes so much more water, understandably. We also import more food than the US, and of the total water footprint of Finns, about 47 % is 'hidden' abroad. How much that number is for the US I'm not sure, but probably smaller.

    My whole point was just that the simplification of "more water available equals more water used" is not true, because other factors, especially climate, effect the need for water a lot.

    --
    "It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
  79. Re: WTF IS UAE??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mayotte and Futuna are not countries, idiot.

  80. Brewster's Millions by Bomarc · · Score: 2

    Someone must have watched Brewster's Millions -- where this was treated as a crackpot idea.

  81. Let me get this straight... by kenh · · Score: 2

    The National Advisor Bureau Limited's (NABL) managing Director Abdullah Mohammad Sulaiman Al Shehi says an average iceberg contains "more than 20 billion gallons of water" which would be enough for one million people over five years.

    Where do they propose to "hold" this five year supply of water? Seems like they'd need to build a really big holding tank, about a 3 billion square foot tank (there are 7.48 gallons of water in one square foot)... By my back-of-envelope, sure to be proven wrong, calculation that would mean a 7,745 foot square box, fifty feet tall to contain the 20 billion gallons.

    --
    Ken
    1. Re: Let me get this straight... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They would "hold" it in the form of an iceberg, chipping off only a portion at a time and storing only the water that will be processed for use at that time.
      They wouldn't be melting the entire thing for storage at once.

    2. Re:Let me get this straight... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There in the gulf, in the form of an iceburg.

    3. Re:Let me get this straight... by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Iceberg condom, with reservoir tip.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    4. Re:Let me get this straight... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You realize that the entire iceberg doesn't just instantaneously melt as soon as it hits the middle east, right?

  82. Re: Can you get water from rag-heads? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Also, countries that have more water use more water.

    Righteo - The Nordic countries are certainly drought stricken then (add to the ones above Norway with 622.7 m3 / year x capita which gets about all its electric energy from hydro which indicates a fair availability of the wet stuff, Sweden gets about 45% electricity from hydro, Finland carries the nick "land of the 1000 lakes" for a reason... ), pretty much nicely lined up for rain as the weather systems come in across the Atlantic.

    And I'm sure the good people in US southwest are barely keeping their noses above the surface...

  83. Re:Wouldn't just buying water from other countries by kiviQr · · Score: 1

    No worries we will use petro-dollars to buy it to offset global warming. ....oh wait

  84. Re: Can you get water from rag-heads? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If the Finns started to take showers once in awhile they'd use more water.

  85. Re:Can you get water from rag-heads? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

    It is a silly comparison. Sweden/Denmark/Finland use relatively little water because the get a lot of rain and do not need to irrigate their crops. In the American West, nothing grows without irrigation. So of course we use more water.

  86. Re: WTF IS UAE??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Unless you get raped, that's a serious crime and you'll be locked away. Or break other religious crimes. There's a reason they all want to leave.

  87. The "Boiling Climate" of the UAE? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    >> From the summary: "...not melt in the boiling climate of the Middle Eastern coastal line"

    I know it can get hot around that area but does it ever really reach 100C / 212F? I seriously doubt that. Journalistic FAIL!

  88. Irony Defined by BrendaEM · · Score: 1

    They are using money made from fossil fuels, which cause global warming.
    They might not have the money if it weren't for fossil fuels.
    Because of the fossil fuel use, they will less icebergs to choose from.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
  89. Maybe hitch a ride? (was Re:Two Words) by rocket+rancher · · Score: 1

    Nice post. Your 3am back of the envelope calculations inspired me to do a few of my own.

    I googled around a bit, to see if hitching a ride on any of the numerous Coriolis-driven boundary gyres in the world's oceans would be feasible.

    Based on my own BotE calculations, the UAE team might be planning to hitch a ride on the Western Australia boundary gyre. This gyre flows north along the west coast of Australia at an average annual velocity of of .27 m/sec, which is near the .3m/s you calculated. This means they wouldn't need propulsive force. They would only need to give it the occasional nudge to keep it in the current.

    Once they reached the equator, they might need some force to get to the North Equatorial gyre (but only for a few hundreds of klicks, not thousands), whose average annual velocity of .13 m/s would then carry them almost to the Gulf of Aden.

    I'm thinking that if the Coriolis forces in the ocean are replacing a significant chunk of the propulsive force that you calculated as necessary, then the overall cost per liter would be quite a bit lower. In fact, it would be significantly lower than desalinization.

  90. No, but where are the streamlined hull ones? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It seems you have a different definition of EVERY word.

    Part of what makes you insane.

    Or a fucking idiot.

    Take your pick. Both if you like.

    What I said was that a sphere was a fairly good estimate for the drag produced by a naturally shaped ice berg (which frequently look like squared off lozenges) much more so than a streamlined boat hull. NOT that they WERE spherical, moron.

    But give your propensity for thinking that words and connections not made are there, care to show me where the streamlined boat hull icebergs are jetting around at high speed?

  91. Re:WTF IS UAE??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Clearly they are just jealous of what America has, people like to attack things they are jealous of in an attempt to make them selves feel better :-)

  92. Re:WTF IS UAE??? by Ksevio · · Score: 1

    Well it's literally the first sentence of the article if you wanted to go that far...

  93. Re: Can you get water from rag-heads? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have to agree or here in the US we wouldnt be planting allour high water consumption plants in the desert. What sense does it make to grow corn and almonds in water deprived regions?

  94. Re:Another disaster avoided thanks to global warmi by frovingslosh · · Score: 1

    I'm straight, so I'm actually glad about San Francisco.

    --
    I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
  95. 35 year old idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There was an article in Popular Mechanics in the early 80s with this idea in it. I think the plan was to bubble air up the trailing edge of the berg to push it along as the tug pulled.

  96. War over water by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

    Who is to say the UAE should get this water? Are they making efficient use of it or will it be squandered growing luscious gardens in all those luxurious buildings they have? I didn't think the war over water resources would begin so soon.

    --
    Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    1. Re:War over water by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Anybody wants to bitch, can grab an iceberg on their own. There is no shortage, even of giant ones. UAE gets the water because they own the berg, as soon as they take command and move it, it's theirs, makes it their problem too. That simple.

      The US navy is generally 'anti-piracy'. English royal navy as well. Chinese, Russian, Australian, Indian, Thai, South Africa, Singapore Navy all anti pirate. Coast Guards perhaps even moreso. About the only pro-piracy navy on the earth is the Indonesian one. It's made up of small patrol/pirate ships. Keep that in mind if you want to move a iceberg through the Singapore straits, Stay in Singapore and Malaysian waters.

      Make up your own B-movie joke.

      If they get it to the straits of Hormuz, I'd say they've demonstrated mastery of it and should be allowed to pass through. Hope they don't bottom out right in the middle of the shipping channel...but that's easy to survey.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  97. Re:Another disaster avoided thanks to global warmi by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    I'm straight, so I'm actually glad about San Francisco.

    The gays aren't going to drown, they will move. Right now their concentration in San Francisco improves your odds everywhere else.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  98. Oh, Andy! by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

    This was the first mission for Salvage One after they returned from the moon!

    --
    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  99. Re: WTF IS UAE??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Correct - the rule is only expand a country's name if it the first word isn't "United".

  100. Re: Can you get water from rag-heads? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sunshine and temperature year round. Its very simple.

  101. Progress and climate by mi · · Score: 1

    Interestingly enough, bringing an entire ice asteroid to a hitherto very dry planet was not considered an ecological disaster waiting to happen...

    In those quaint times — the novel is from 1952 — human progress was not deemed "dangerous"...

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    1. Re:Progress and climate by PatientZero · · Score: 1

      No one is claiming human progress itself is dangerous. But some technologies humans have employed are dangerous. It behooves us to figure out which ones are and stop doing them. Stop being such a simpleton or feigning ignorance.

      In this case, burning fossil fuels to transport an iceberg will exacerbate the problems of climate change. It will also speed up sea level rise—especially if more countries follow suit—because while the ice may melt less quickly than you'd think, it still melts more quickly at the equator than at the poles.

      Is this the first shot fired in the water war to come?

      --
      Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
      I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
  102. Re: WTF IS UAE??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wrong side on the gulf. The bad side - Iran, Iraq .... those are the shit holes.

    Uae Qatar. Absolutely beautiful and true peaceful muslims. Give you the Rolex off thier wrist if you stare at it. No joke. Its a custom. Almost zero crime. And women are protected.

  103. Re: WTF IS UAE??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Different AC here.

    Sure, because not knowing about a minor French territory in the middle of the ocean is comparable with not knowing an entire country in a region of the world that has dominated the news for at least the past twenty years. Not knowing about the existence of UAE isn't comparable to not knowing about Mayotte. It's comparable to not knowing about France.

  104. Re:WTF IS UAE??? by igny · · Score: 1

    What is IS?

    --
    In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. - Yogi Berra
  105. Re: Can you get water from rag-heads? by Type44Q · · Score: 1

    In the American West, nothing grows without irrigation.

    The American West grows meth-heads. There's also dryland farming...

  106. Re: WTF IS UAE??? by Type44Q · · Score: 1

    Funny how someone reads contempt and sarcasm in written form and perceives aggression. The "aggression" might be there, it might not... but there's definitely plenty in your head. You're young, aren't you?

  107. Re: WTF IS UAE??? by Type44Q · · Score: 1

    No doubt; too bad it's in the Middle East...

  108. Re: WTF IS UAE??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It is laughable to compare UAE with France. I will leave it to a Frensman to elaborate on that...
    The only news I could dig up about UAE are money laundering, execution by stoning, brutal Islamic laws, grandiose Brewster's million style projects...
    One must "Keep up with the Kardashians", so to speak, to be au fais with the UAE.
    No, thank you, I would rather follow other news and places that really matter.

  109. Not the Way it Went Down. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Funny how someone might become aggressive and full of contempt when faced with a simple mistake

    You give yourself too much credit.
    Your original post was literally nothing but aggression.
    Maybe the other AC gave you back more aggression than you put out. But it was not in response to just a simple mistake, it was a simple mistake plus your insulting, righteous rhetoric that prompted him.

    Shittiness begets shittiness. Keep that in mind next time you decide to go full-shitty.

  110. Evacuation by JimSadler · · Score: 1

    The UAE will have to be totally evacuated by 2025 by current estimates as it will get quite a bit hotter. In fact it will be too hot for human habitation. Hauling water is simply not an answer. Perhaps they could create some huge spray machines to mist large volumes of ocean water into the air in hope of cloud formation and a dropping of temperature near the ground level. The entire area of northern Africa will probably try to migrate to Europe. The wars that this will cause in some cases have already begun.

  111. Re:WTF IS UAE??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's the Amiga emulator.

    But I fail see what an emulator has to do with water an icebergs. Water cooling perhaps?

  112. Re: WTF IS UAE??? by SCVonSteroids · · Score: 1

    I don't know, maybe the fact that "fucking", "retardedly" and "stupid" were used one after the other would have provoked the sense that aggression was being used.

    --
    I tend to rant.
  113. cold source by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Because you need a cold source for condensation, nad honestly, the difference in mean temperatures isn't really that great.

    Also, distillation is horrid; the brine is amazingly good at destroying all alloys and plastics.

  114. UAE must pay carbon tax by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    carbon tax..

  115. Re: Can you get water from rag-heads? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Genuine question: to what extent is Finland agriculturally independent? That is, could Finland feed itself in the absence of a global produce infrastructure? Where I live in the USA, there is an abundance farmland as soon as you leave the city, but I'm not sure our region could actually support itself without Mexican produce. This is as much a factor of what our farmers are able to produce as it is of what they are incentivized to produce. I would be interested to hear what it's like for a vastly different region/population.

  116. Re:Another disaster avoided thanks to global warmi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Couldn't a changed current in some scenarios help balance the global temp rather than ensure increased warming 100% of the time

  117. I Have But One Question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How does the UAE plan to stop this ice berg? Maybe run it up on to the beach?

  118. This item is from Britain's Worst Tabloid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    (which is saying something).

  119. Re:WTF IS UAE??? by nukenerd · · Score: 1

    Windows 95 access fault?

    It was Windows 3.0 - "Unrecoverable Application Error"

  120. Re:WTF IS UAE??? by Layzej · · Score: 1

    The UAE. Like where Dubai is, which has the worlds tallest building?

    The folks in Dubai don't like The Flinstones, but the folks in Abu Dhabi do.

  121. Re:WTF IS UAE??? by Repentinus · · Score: 0

    I'm used to the acronym in another language since, like you, I'm not American.

    If you are not a native speaker, perhaps you should consider a dictionary? Writers with a better command of English need not dumb down for you.

  122. Re:Can you get water from rag-heads? by Aighearach · · Score: 1

    UAE gives out free trees and shrubs to anybody willing to plant them, even though they can't grow naturally in that climate.

    In the American West, governments encourage water conservation and the use of landscape plants that don't require watering. When there is a drought, people get fined for watering.

    UAE actually doesn't irrigate a lot of farms. They mostly irrigate artificial urban forests and luxury parks and yards.

  123. Re: Can you get water from rag-heads? by Aighearach · · Score: 1

    The American West grows meth-heads.

    It turns out you don't grow zombies, you grow humans, and then you infect them once they're grown.

    If you infect them prematurely, grown nearly stops.

  124. Obligatory Futurama... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cjx4gJFME0

  125. Putting words in the mouth - bad dog! by dbIII · · Score: 1

    So you are saying ocean currents are not a primary factor to be considered

    No! I did not suggest that at all! So you are just here to argue and are using nasty little tricks or is it just a memory lapse? I suggested that wind can not be ignored in the situation being considered here were the wind loading is quite extreme and the icebergs follow the wind direction far more than the current.
    Do a google image search for "tabular iceberg" and you will get the picture. Wind just cannot be ignored in that situation as distinct from the north Atlantic situation.

    1. Re:Putting words in the mouth - bad dog! by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 1

      I see you have trouble with reading comprehension, because nowhere did I say or even hint that wind can or should be ignored. Maybe go back and read what I actually said instead of making yourself look like a fool.

  126. Re:WTF IS UAE??? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    He ment: "Whats To Funny?" A simple typo :D

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  127. Re: Can you get water from rag-heads? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    In the UAE water is a status symbol.

    E.g. they have very special toilets: they are filled with water so high that when you poo, your shit is just gliding into it without making a sound or a splat. (probably close to 3 gallons ... roughly translating litters to gallons in my mind)

    So what are they doing? Obviously first before you go to the toilette, you flush first. Using another 5 gallons to flush away the 3 already inside of the toilette. Then you do your business. Then you flush twice.

    They need 15 gallons of water for a single toilette visit. In Germany that would be perhaps 3 or 4.

    And obviously they don't reuse the water for agriculture but let it run (after treatment?) into the ocean.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  128. None like it hot... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    https://youtu.be/6cjx4gJFME0

  129. TaleSpin did it by Baloo+Uriza · · Score: 1

    This is damn near identical to the plot of TaleSpin episode 9, "I Only Have Ice For You".

    --
    Furries make the internet go.
  130. Re: WTF IS UAE??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I hear what you did there.

  131. So you are trying that line? by dbIII · · Score: 1

    Considering that I only made one point, and you challenged it, there really is no question that you were pushing the line that wind doesn't matter. I really don't get why you play such silly games. "Gaslighting" is the trendy name for such petty attempts at bullying where you try to get someone to think different thing have happened before isn't it? What a stupid game. "Reading comprehension" indeed - WTF is this shit about trying to find some sort of weakness and pick on people? Are you really the age your username suggests or a petty and destructive teenager? Are you really surrounded by the sort of people where "reading comprehension" is an insult that people will take seriously - and if so why are you picking on them?

    I really do not get the point of you jumping on a post to deny the obvious just to start some sort of argument. Is your life really that empty? Have you reached some sort of silly troll goal due to me typing out an indication of how utterly worthless you appear to be?

    1. Re:So you are trying that line? by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 1

      Like I said, I never said wind should be ignored. And since you can't refute that because NONE of my posts say that, you come up with your BS post above and still insist I said something I never did. You are a waste.

    2. Re:So you are trying that line? by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Just give up on your troll game this time and chalk it up as a "win" if you like. You've got form so pretending innocence isn't going to work.
      I just don't get why you do it - what a total waste of everyone's time.

    3. Re:So you are trying that line? by dbIII · · Score: 1

      I also did not write that currents can be ignored you annoying troll.
      You do not come up to your own standards.

    4. Re:So you are trying that line? by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 1

      I also did not write that currents can be ignored

      I never said you did. I did say your point didn't negate mine, to which you replied "It kind of does....". You are just being obstinate.

    5. Re:So you are trying that line? by dbIII · · Score: 1

      I never said you did

      Oh really?

      So you are saying ocean currents are not a primary factor to be considered

      What's with acting like a poorly raised five year old?

    6. Re:So you are trying that line? by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 1

      Your response to my initial point was ridiculous, as were your following responses. I even reminded you multiple times I never said wind was not a factor, but yet you kept responding as if I had. Now you are just throwing senseless darts in the dark. Pathetic.

    7. Re:So you are trying that line? by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Your response to my initial point was ridiculous

      Quote it gaslight troll.
      The ridiculous words were your own that you attempted to put in my mouth.

      I really don't get why you jumped on here to build up a strawman to attack.

    8. Re:So you are trying that line? by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 1

      I just said current was a primary factor. That is not an attack. I guess you took it as one, that is your problem not mine. Maybe you should take a break.

    9. Re:So you are trying that line? by dbIII · · Score: 1
      You calling me a fool based upon words you put in my mouth was the attack.

      Maybe you should take a break

      Maybe you should stop these pathetic little games and stupid little easily exposed lies such as the quote you cannot find. Also if "trouble with reading comprehension" is your insult of choice in your neck of the woods perhaps you should take up moonshining and banjo - it shows a special sort of contempt of those around you. How did you get to be so utterly pathetic? I even agreed with you in some cases but you still had to set up a strawman and have a go at getting some bullying done. Do you do that to the kiddies here often gaslight troll?

    10. Re:So you are trying that line? by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 1

      I called you a fool after you made a fool out of yourself.

    11. Re:So you are trying that line? by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Obviously not. You could not find the portion to quote.
      Why are you still whining about this? Nobody cares about your silly little game apart from you.

  132. Re:So the UAE bought Antartica and the world clima by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

    Go to an iceberg and claim it for the world! Stay there to protect it.

    Fucking hippie.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  133. Typical for oil-centric societies... by martinfb · · Score: 1

    What about desalinization of sea water?
    Wouldn't that be cheaper? At least in the long run?

    Oh! I get it! It's not our money they want; it's more climate change!
    Since there is a bigger push for curbing CO2 emissions, the plan now is to further reduce reflective surfaces to promote global climate change.

    --


    Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
  134. Vast density by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The vast density of the knucklehead who wrote this is staggering.

  135. Penguins by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If they take the icebergs, where will the penguins rape and gangbang their mates and practice necrophilia ?

  136. No water problem here by nessman · · Score: 1

    Live near Lake Ontario where our municipal water is pumped from - a limitless supply of water considering it comes from the other 4 Great Lakes too. But hey - people want to live in drought-prone areas and hope the government will come to fix it. Have fun with that.

  137. Someone's been reading old SF. by jdharm · · Score: 1

    Here's the instruction manual for this: http://a.co/iddu7Wx

  138. Re: Can you get water from rag-heads? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Stupid hypocritical liberal..

    He praises countries with a small population, but fully supports open borders. You need your face smashed against brick.

  139. Re:Another disaster avoided thanks to global warmi by LunaticTippy · · Score: 1

    Anyone who feels compelled to broadcast their heterosexuality in a post about icebergs isn't probably all that hetero. Naturally a secret part of him is excited by the prospect of an army of homosexual refugees swarming his town.

    --
    Man, you really need that seminar!
  140. Wouldn't a desalinization plant be cheaper? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wouldn't a desalinization plant be cheaper?

    Also, desalinization moves water from the fluid ocean to land which will then return to the ocean. However, once you melt the iceberg, non-fluid, and the water returns goes to the ocean, it won't be frozen again.

    Are they going to create an iceberg to replace the iceberg they take?

    Also, if they drag an iceberg to a warm water area, what will happen to the nearby aquatic life that expects warm water? Surely the iceberg is going to have a temperature affect?

  141. Re:UAE has many different types of desalination pl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Does that %50 to %70 percent cost include restoring the iceberg? This iceberg lasts 5 years. What happens when dozens of countries start doing multiple icebergs? How soon will we be out of icebergs?

    I think your cost decrease is making assumptions that are not true.

  142. Wrong by dbIII · · Score: 1
    Your attempt to change the subject and calling me a fool based on nothing but your own words on a different subject is what was ridiculous.
    Why are you wasting so much time on setting up a strawman to attack over such a trivial subject?

    Now you are just throwing senseless darts in the dark

    Projection now? Pathetic.

    You stupid little game is an utter waste of time. Why are you still trying the "gaslighting" to pretend it never happened? Are you really that pathetic? Do you really crave feedback from the target of your pathetic attempt at bullying over something so utterly trivial so much?

    1. Re:Wrong by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 1

      No pretending required. The posts are right here. I never claimed wind wasn't a factor, you responded as if you needed to defend it was. I even repeatedly told you so and you stuck with your posture. You simply can't seem to read properly and/or admit you were being ridiculous. No worries for me, any other reader can see it plain as day... so go on and act crazy.

    2. Re:Wrong by dbIII · · Score: 1

      So by not accepting the ridiculous words you attempted to place in my mouth and staying on topic I am acting crazy?
      What a pathetic and silly little game. Are you sure you are not logged onto your father's account?

    3. Re:Wrong by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 1

      'I attempted to place in your mouth". That's a funny one. Either I did or I didn't, and I didn't.