One iceberg, coming right up
This strikes me as one of those flying car, meal-in-a-pill-type ideas that people in the future will write snarky blog posts about, but it’s fun to think about. Why not bring icebergs to people who need fresh water rather than letting them melt into the ocean. Fast Company writes: It might sound outlandish, but Mougin ...
This strikes me as one of those flying car, meal-in-a-pill-type ideas that people in the future will write snarky blog posts about, but it's fun to think about. Why not bring icebergs to people who need fresh water rather than letting them melt into the ocean. Fast Company writes:
This strikes me as one of those flying car, meal-in-a-pill-type ideas that people in the future will write snarky blog posts about, but it’s fun to think about. Why not bring icebergs to people who need fresh water rather than letting them melt into the ocean. Fast Company writes:
It might sound outlandish, but Mougin has been trying to tap the icecaps for decades. In the 1970s, Mougin was enlisted by prince Mohammad al-Faisal, a nephew of the Saudi king, along with other engineers and a polar explorer, in a venture called "Iceberg Transport International." Faisal planned on wrapping a 100-million-ton iceberg in sailcloth and plastic and tugging it from the North Pole to the Red Sea, though the cost was estimated at an exorbitant $100 million. For a swank conference on "iceberg utilization," he even managed to ship, via helicopter, plane, and truck, a two-ton "mini-berg" from Alaska to Iowa, where the giant block of ice was chipped apart to chill delegates’ drinks. According to a Time report from October of 1977, Faisal predicted that he’d have an iceberg in Arabia "within three years."
Obviously, that didn’t quite work. But Mougin has created a new company to make the dream a reality. Here’s how it works:
Once you’ve found the proper Titanic-buster, have your tugboat (yes, a tugboat–more on that later) deploy a floating geotextile belt–made rigid by a series of poles–around the target, effectively lassoing the iceberg.
Which brings us to step two: Deploy a geotextile "skirt" to snag the bulk of the beast and to keep as much as possible from melting away. The skirt, which deploys down to 20 feet below the surface of the ice, creates a cushion of cold water around the iceberg, which helps slow melting. And below the surface, icebergs are smoothed by ocean currents, making it unlikely the skirt will tear as it protects its cargo.
And now the third and final step (theoretically): Tow that iceberg across the ocean before it melts away.
Sounds easy enough!
Hat tip: Marginal Revolution
Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating
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