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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.
".. 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.
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.
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."