Yet, an entrepreneur in the Middle East, Abdulla Alshehi, thinks harvesting icebergs is a distinct possibility. Melting, then, has to be factored into any effort to take icebergs across the oceans. In fact, the loss due to melting is one reason that the Cape Town calculation does not exactly jell with the Svalbarð one, which you might have noticed. How much of the iceberg will melt on the way? Can we answer that question accurately? Still, how much power will the boat that does the towing need? Besides, it will take at least several days to tow it the 3,500 km from Antarctica to Cape Town, at the southern tip of Africa. More practical might be plans that are afoot to “catch" icebergs in a gigantic net, or encircle them with a metal belt. We can’t simply attach a hook to an iceberg and start towing, as we do to a car.
Though of course, there are obstacles to overcome. Suddenly, icebergs are starting to look pretty promising. He suggests, for example, that if we towed a 113-million-tonne iceberg-not a particularly big one, as icebergs go-from Antarctica to Cape Town, it could supply 20% of that city’s annual water requirements. In his recent book Chasing Icebergs: How Frozen Freshwater Can Save the Planet, Matthew Birkhold, a professor of law and language at Ohio State University, considers this idea. I use that word “harness" quite deliberately. What if we were able to harness that potential on a much larger scale than Svalbarði does? For another, there’s the question of how we take the water locked up in those icebergs to Indonesians or Nigerians or Ecuadorians, or whoever.Įven so, the quick Svalbarð calculation above probably gives you an idea of the potential here.
There are other, indirect uses of water that I haven’t accounted for. For one thing, many people use more than 50 litres daily. Intriguing, thought-provoking numbers? Naturally, there’s more to them than just stating them baldly. Also similarly, the icebergs that break off from Antarctica every year represent more fresh water than all of humanity consumes. Similarly, the Jakobshavn glacier in Greenland “calves" enough icebergs each year to serve the entire population of the US for that year. And the Svalbarð glaciers are just a small fraction of the glaciers and icebergs there are around the world. That means the annual iceberg bounty from Svalbarð’s glaciers alone can supply the annual water requirements of about 250 million of us: let’s say, the population of Indonesia. Add to that the water we use for other purposes-baths, washing our clothes-and a conservative estimate is that on average, each of us humans consumes about 50 litres of fresh water a day. How much is that? Well, to stay in reasonable health, humans are generally expected to drink about 3 litres of water a day each. As Svalbarði also points out on its website, the glaciers of Svalbarð release approximately 5 billion cubic metres of icebergs into the sea every year. And yet, there’s potential in those icebergs. This is not quite how we can address the world’s water scarcity concerns.
The price for this pre-industrial mouthfeel? €100 for a 750ml bottle. Svalbarði claims the water has “a light mouthfeel, with a slight bite and sweetness". They tout its “pre-industrial" provenance-which is fair enough, because much of the ice has been ice “for up to 4,000 years", says their website. They bottle the water and sell it as “Svalbarði" water. For example, a Norwegian company “harvests" icebergs from the Svalbarð archipelago in the northern reaches of that country and melts them. This is why scientists, entrepreneurs and governments are searching for ways to tap water sources that have been so far unavailable to us.įor example, icebergs. This is why water scarcity is a serious concern in many parts of the world, like India. So, CLimate This is what is available to satisfy our thirst for water.
0 kommentar(er)
