Iceberg ahead!
Shhh...don’t scare it!
How else are we going to capture the berg and bring it back home?
There are some downright crazy schemes out there that defy common sense.
Ready for one?
A United Arab Emirates company wants to tow a 3.5 million-ton iceberg from Antarctica
and bring it back to their desert homeland.
They want to use the iceberg as a tourist attraction and as a source of fresh, drinkable
water for their citizens.
In the firm’s splashy ad, animals in Antarctica come along for the ride too, including polar
bears! … which don’t actually live in Antarctica.
Also, what happens when they get there?
They’re not exactly, like, set up for desert life…
Humans suck.
Okay, we’ll play ball for a second.
This is how iceberg towing could “work,” based on the latest computer simulations.
An iceberg would be carefully selected for shape and size, and then it’d be fitted
with a giant insulated skirt at the waterline.
Then the berg would be pulled by a gigantic tugboat that would travel at a speed of roughly
one knot… which means it would take 283 days of nonstop, full bore tugging, 24/7 to
get there.
BTW in that time they estimate the iceberg would lose over 30% of its overall mass.This
all sounds totally doable in theory, and that’s exactly where this zany idea has existed for
centuries: in theory.
See, iceberg towing isn’t a new concept.
It’s one of those technological wonders that’s floated around media circles and
keeps popping up like a never-ending game of wac-a-mole.
The idea first appeared in the 1800s, initially proposed as a way to "equalize the temperature
of the earth."
They were worried about rising temperatures back then!
Neat huh.
Iceberg towing kept circling in dream space until it got some serious attention around
the 1970s.
NASA and various think tanks wrote technical reports on its feasibility (Spoiler: not
cost effective).
Then a French engineer and a Saudi prince proposed using icebergs to solve the world’s
growing water crisis.
There was a conference in Iowa, a landlocked state of all places, devoted exclusively on
how to export icebergs.
To get delegates excited, the Prince actually shipped a “one-ton mini berg” from Alaska
to Iowa to be used for research and to keep cocktails chilled.
Suffice it to say, the plans were all at sea..
Beyond the technical challenges iceberg towing poses, there are other factors that make this
incredibly impractical.
First, the cost.
One iceberg-towing vessel can cost $75,000 a day, and to get a massive berg from Antarctica
to UAE -- for this journey that might be 21-and-a-quarter million dollars.
And they might need multiple towing ships for months.
It might be easier to just build a desalination plant.
Secondly, taking icebergs out of their native habitat could fly in the face of international
law and wouldn’t be great for the environment.
The eco firm claims that the iceberg will transform UAE’s desert landscape into a
lush paradise, creating a “microclimate” around the glacier.
While it’s true that icebergs can create a mini climate within its proximity, it’s
not going to turn the desert into a cloud forest.
While iceberg towing to quench the world’s thirst is still a lot of hype, moving ice
around to suit our human needs does actually happen today.
And guess who’s chiefly behind that?
Oil companies.
Sometimes megaton icebergs can change direction in a storm and when pushed by high wind speeds,
they'll be on a collision course with an oil rig … which can't exactly run away.
So, to make areas safer for oil and gas exploration, companies will lasso looming begs and use
tugboats to move them just a bit away from oil platforms.
I have to say, an iceberg posing a challenge to an oil rig is a feat of poetic mother earth
justice.
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Have you ever thought about that undersea oil?
It’s made of ancient plants and animals… it’s a fossil fuel… so how did so much
of it get under the oceans?
Find out here.
Do you think this is crazy plan, or are you totally on board?
Tell us in the comments, subscribe for more videos, and thanks for watching Seeker.