Project: Ice Water — to set up Ice-Water Production Units in arid areas with easy access to the Arctic or Antarctic Ocean,
to begin with (on account of political stability) for instance in coastal towns in South or South Western Australia (harbours for iceberg docking and quarrying). I still remember that an account of the transport of an iceberg from the Arctic waters till Western Sahara appeared in a Dutch newspaper in the 1970s. This adventurous undertaking was financed by the Saudi prince Mohammad al-Faisal. I did not preserve a newspaper clipping of this feat, which was at that time mainly a curiosity but which should now be regarded as a remarkable achievement with considerable ecological significance. Especially in the light of current climatological and meteorological disbalances and their impact on millions of people world wide, either on account of lack of water or on account of excess water (at present Tropical Storm Harvey is raging in Houston, Texas; earlier, this year has seen the devastating force of Cyclone Debbie in Australia, of Cyclone Mora in Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Manipur …). The iceberg transfer mentioned in the newspaper in the 1970s was probably one of those organized by the pioneering French engineer Georges Mougin. Iceberg transports such as this one are briefly referred to in a project simulation prepared by the French company Dassault — www.3ds.com/icedream/scientific-simulation-in-3d/cutting-edge-technology/analysing-the-iceberg-transfer/ (a preview: last viewed in 2015…);
The concept of Iceberg towing is also demonstrated at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOs-gSVvPWA
And it forms part of a recently proposed visionary project to convert the deserts of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) into lush green land through icebergs towed even much further than achieved so far: from the Antarctic waters to Heard Island (Australia), and next all the way to Fujairah Port (UAE).
Icebergs captured and tugged in from the Antarctic region to a relatively “nearby” Southern Australian coastal port can therefore contribute to a generous supply of fresh water for the Fullarbor project (discussed *here*), for the planned forest-corridors through the extensive Australian deserts – as long as the production of fresh water direct from sea water (desalination plants such as the one on Aruba island in the Caribbean, producing 24000 m3 drinking water/day in 2010) or through for instance electro-chemical reactions remains insufficiently cost- and effort-efficient.
Potential funders of the initial 5-10 years of the project include: longterm green investors and countries and companies sincerely trying to meet their CO2 target but nevertheless still surpassing it…
Images:
(a) Antarctic Sound, near Brown Bluff, Tabarin Peninsula
Date 15 January 2016, 20:05:56 Author Godot13 Attribution
(required by the license) Andrew Shiva / Wikipedia / CC BY-SA 4.0
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Antarctic_Sound-2016-Iceberg_02.jpg
(b) Date 30 July 2015, 14:45:46 Author AWeith Valued image
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Iceberg_in_the_Arctic_with_its_underside_exposed.jpg (this is also the featured image in the slider).
