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the United Arab Emirates when you think
of the UAE the first things you probably
think about our tall buildings
ridiculous islands and lots of sand with
very hot temperatures one of the last
things that you would ever expect to
find here is a giant iceberg floating
right by the coast but if one guy has
his insane plan work out that could all
change in the near future the UAE is a
country that has experienced enormous
success within the past few decades the
Emirati economy today is nine times
larger than what it was just 40 years
ago back in 1980 and it's now become the
fourth largest economy in the Middle
East ahead of other countries that are
significantly larger in population like
Egypt or Iraq and because of this ever
booming economy workers and economic
migrants have been flowing into the
country for decades now which has
swollen the desert country's population
to never-before-seen heights in 1975
only 550 8,000 people lived inside of
the UAE but just over 40 years later in
2018 that number skyrocketed to over
nine and a half million people for every
one person who lived in the UAE in 1975
there are now 16 more people and
overwhelmingly most of this new
population have been immigrants coming
from abroad today only 11.5 percent of
the entire UAE s population are actually
Emirati citizens the vast majority of
people who live there eighty eight point
five percent are considered foreigners
and have no citizenship which gives the
UAE the highest percentage of
foreign-born residents of any country in
the world save for Vatican City the
flood of people into the country has
done wonders for the Emirati economy by
providing a source of plentiful cheap
labor but it's brought a number of other
problems along with it namely water the
UAE
is a very hot dry country in the desert
where annual rainfall only averages less
than 5mm
along the coast where most of the
population is concentrated and as such
the UAE has extremely limited water
resources and one of her most critical
problems is providing enough for her
growing nine and a half million
residents to solve this problem the UAE
currently relies extremely heavily on a
network of more than 70 water
desalination plants located across the
coast the transformed salty ocean water
into potable everyday use water
forty-two percent of the UAE s water
supply currently comes from these
desalination plants which is so much
that despite being a relatively small
country the UAE produces 14 percent of
the entire world's desalinated water the
problem with this strategy is the
desalination is both a very expensive
process and an environmentally
destructive one it causes the
surrounding water around a plant to be
significantly saltier than it would be
naturally which is harmful to
surrounding marine life there are
therefore many arguments that have been
made for an alternative solution to the
nation's water crisis but perhaps the
most insane of all of them was proposed
by this guy Abdullah Al chahee for years
now he's been pushing with all
seriousness to send a tugboat to
Antarctica find a chunky iceberg and tow
it all the way back to the UAE to
harvest it for its fresh water locked
inside so how crazy is this idea in
reality according to Al Shaheed
the iceberg will be selected beforehand
via satellites and will probably be a
pretty chunky one up to two kilometres
long by 500 metres wide
once the tugboat has sailed over and
secured it it'll take approximately 10
months to sail back to the UAE with it
attached where it will come to rest just
three kilometres offshore by the city of
Fujairah
in order to keep the iceberg from simply
splitting apart and drifting away in
different chunks as icebergs are prone
to do the tugboat will utilize a metal
belt that will wrap around the water to
keep it all together but despite this
the team expects that around 30 percent
of the icebergs mass will melt during
the 10 month journey before it even
reaches the warm waters of the Persian
Gulf where the average annual
temperature is 26 degrees Celsius now
obviously a big iceberg in a desert
is gonna melt pretty quickly so the plan
is to deliver it at the beginning of
winter which is only slightly less hawks
but they'll immediately begin mining it
for water the day that it arrives
according to Al chahee the iceberg
should be capable of providing clean and
fresh drinking water for 1 million
people in the UAE for five years after
its delivery which if true would
seriously relieve the pressure on the
nation's water shortage in addition to
that the project is claimed to be both
cheaper and more environmentally
friendly than current desalination
techniques because all you basically
need is a boat a crew and a belt with 10
months time and then a bunch of miners
compared with the startup costs and
affordably expensive ongoing costs
associated with the desalination plants
and it's easy to see how an iceberg that
melts fresh water into an ocean would be
more environmentally friendly than a
plant that pumps more salt back into it
all chahee also claims that a cold
iceberg could positively influence local
weather patterns and lead to more
rainfall on the UAE s coasts finally the
prospect of setting foot on the iceberg
itself and experiencing a bit of glacial
tourism in the Persian Gulf is a weird
novelty that a lot of people would
probably pay for to experience which
could further enhance the UAE s already
strong tourism portfolio perhaps the
idea of hauling an iceberg from
Antarctica to the Persian Gulf for water
isn't so insane of an idea after all if
the project is successful it could have
enormous implications for the rest of
the Middle East in the entire world
beyond freshwater resources are expected
to grow ever more scarce as the world's
population continues to explode and the
demand grows ever higher throughout the
course of the 21st century so who knows
maybe in the future we'll see entire
fleets of tugboats from countries across
the world making the journey to
Antarctica to set up iceberg trade
routes back to the mainland's a new age
of Antarctic colonialism could become
the future of the 21st century with
countries vying for one of the few
remaining vast reserves of freshwater
left on the planets Antarctica is one of
the most fascinating places on the
planet because it's one of the few
places left where we know so little
bouts but you can learn so much more
about what we do know about the frozen
continent by watching the expedition
Antarctica series on curiosity stream
next which will show you in 4k what life
on Antarctica during the 21st century is
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