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It's a plan as crazy as the situation is desperate – tow an iceberg from Antarctica to Cape Town to provide fresh water to a drought-ridden city.
But the 56-year-old Zambian-South African has the reputation of taking the impossible after relaunching the giant Costa Concordia, which capsized in 2012 off the island of Tuscany's Gigl io , killing 32 people – one of the largest and most complex maritime rescue operations in the world.
"Icebergs are made of the purest freshwater in the world," says the founder of Sloane Marine Ltd. year. Mother Nature has long been teasing humanity by saying "it's here". "
He estimates that it would cost 100 million dollars (86 million euros) to transport an iceberg in a trip that could take up to three months" In Russia, they hunted (icebergs) oil facilities – but the smaller ones, they are about half a million tons. Weigh Options
To combat drought, Cape Town has adopted measures ranging from the construction of seawater desalination plants to the publication of strict instructions.
But it is unclear whether the Cape Town authorities will be persuaded to embrace the iceberg project.
"At this point, it seems to us that in fact the groundwater or desalination options are cheaper or at least Ian Neilson, Deputy Mayor of Cape Town,
There are also questions about how the iceberg water will be channeled into the city's distribution system.
Another problem is that there is no guarantee that the weather that the iceberg be transported to Cape Town, he will still be able to produce the promised water volumes.
Sloane's plan is to tow the giant iceberg about 150km further north of St. Helen's Bay in South Africa Before the Cold Benguela Current Keeps the Water Around Zero Degrees C.
'The Project is Crazy'
Once there, the iceberg could be anchored in an old underwater channel, Sloane suggests, as the iceberg melts, water will be collected every day. , pomp tanker trucks to Cape Town.
"This will not solve the Cape crisis, but it will represent about 20 to 30% of their" The project is crazy – no question, "said Olav Orheim, a Norwegian glaciologist with four decades of experience who works on a similar project for Saudi Arabia.
Never has such a large iceberg been towed – indeed, ice towing to provide drinking water would be a first – and we do not know it would not stand up to ocean currents or would simply fracture in transit.
But, says Orheim, it was more unrealistic so we know so much more now than when we started this kind of research there at 40. "
" It's a high-risk project, but also one that can have a very high reward in the end, "Orheim said.
For Wolfgang Foerg, the director of the Swiss company Water Vision, who has teamed up with Sloane, the project has enormous potential in the face of an increasingly frequent drought.
As for Sloane, he is ready for the green light.
"If they tell us to go now, we can have it here at Easter (2019)," he said.
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