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Engineering Firm Plans To Tow Icebergs From Antarctica To Parched Dubai (stuff.co.nz)
A Dubai-based engineering firm is planning to tow an iceberg from Antarctica to help provide fresh drinking water to the desert city's rapidly-growing population. Stuff.co.nz reports: The National Advisor Bureau (NABL), a private engineering firm, wants to schlep a glacial iceberg from Antarctica -- weighing approximately 100 million tons -- to Dubai, via an intermediate stop in either Perth, Australia, or Cape Town, South Africa. If the iceberg doesn't melt along the way, the firm will sell the water to Dubai's government. Dubai, which is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates, is growing so rapidly that a solution to the city's looming water crisis must be found, according to the city's largest English-language newspaper, The Khaleej Times.
The company is beginning a pilot study in November to examine the feasibility of the iceberg-towing project. According to Alshehi, the firm will use satellite imagery to look for a suitable iceberg -- which he says should be between 2000 feet (609 meters) and 7000 feet (2.1 kilometers) long -- and then try and tow it to either Australia or South Africa. Once the iceberg gets to its first stop, it will be towed the rest of the way. Because icebergs are so heavy, the company will need multiple ships to assist with towing, and it will use the ocean's prevailing currents to their advantage. Alshehi told NBC that even if 30 percent of the iceberg melts on the journey, it will still be able to provide between 100 million and 200 million cubic meters of fresh water -- enough for 1 million people to stay hydrated for five years. Last month, Alshehi told NBC: "If we succeed with this project, it could solve one of the world's biggest problems. So if we show this is viable, it could ultimately help not only the UAE, but all humanity."
The company is beginning a pilot study in November to examine the feasibility of the iceberg-towing project. According to Alshehi, the firm will use satellite imagery to look for a suitable iceberg -- which he says should be between 2000 feet (609 meters) and 7000 feet (2.1 kilometers) long -- and then try and tow it to either Australia or South Africa. Once the iceberg gets to its first stop, it will be towed the rest of the way. Because icebergs are so heavy, the company will need multiple ships to assist with towing, and it will use the ocean's prevailing currents to their advantage. Alshehi told NBC that even if 30 percent of the iceberg melts on the journey, it will still be able to provide between 100 million and 200 million cubic meters of fresh water -- enough for 1 million people to stay hydrated for five years. Last month, Alshehi told NBC: "If we succeed with this project, it could solve one of the world's biggest problems. So if we show this is viable, it could ultimately help not only the UAE, but all humanity."
Multiple ships towing an iceberg of this size multiple thousands of miles... belching carbon into our atmosphere.... this sounds like a horrible idea. How about instead we don't build enormous cities in deserts. And accelerating the melting of the iceberg will raise sea levels that much faster.
I'm skeptical that this will go anywhere near as well as planned. I suppose if it doesn't work out, they can always park what they do manage to haul all the way there off of the world islands.
The Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty prohibits the exploitation of Antarctica's resources based on environmental concerns.
Now it does say -mineral- resources and I don't think ice counts as a mineral, but still, I'd imagine the environmental impact isn't negligible. Specially if done in large scale.
I would love to see the energy estimate for the fuel required to tow this, compared to desalination of the same volume of seawater, for example. A giant 30 story iceberg isn't exactly streamlined.
Desalination plants would be the way to do this.
Energy costs are no problem.
The cost of the plants would be no issue.
The only open question would be spare parts and servicing?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
WTF are we talking about "greening the desert"? I mean, it's the desert - it wasn't a lush rainforest before the industrial revolution/age of the automobile, so why are we trying to make it something it never was? It's a stupid idea, it was always a stupid idea, and nothing Al Gore has ever has or will put on a powerpoint slide is going to change that.
Is desalination really so hard?
Can't Dubai figure out a way to, you know, conserve water?
Ken
It hasn't always been a desert and the historical evidence is that it was human activity turned it into a desert.
Possibly not rainforest, but forest.