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Antarctica has a massive store of freshwater trapped as ice Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike This day was first set in February, but the date was moved to July 2011. Right now, the day is not in the water. Looking for the best of southern Europe.
A new, rather outlandish, plan involves sailing out to Antarctica, about 2,000 km south of Cape Town, and lassoing up an entire iceberg, then dragging it to land for water. Too much Looney Toons just yet.
According to a report by Quartz, Nick Sloane, navy expert salvage seems to think that an iceberg can easily solve the city's water problems. The iceberg only needs to be, according to Sloane, one kilometer long, half a mile wide, and about 250 meters deep and a flat top. All that can be done in Cape Town, with 150 million liters of clean fresh water everyday for one whole year. That is about 30 percent of the city's annual needs.
In spite of icebergs being, in effect, rather broad slabs of ice, they would not imagine when they were floating in the southern oceans. The largest ever recorded iceberg that broke off Antarctica was afloat for over 18 years before it disintegrated into the sea. Also, this idea of dragging icebergs for freshwater is not a new concept. Only last year, UAE announced plans of doing something similar.
To keep the iceberg from losing too much water to melting, the whole thing will be covered in a "textile insulation skirt" says the report. The 2,000 km will cost about $ 100 million. All Sloane is waiting for a go-ahead from the city officials. About the money, he said that they've "… got private investors standing on the wings to fund it." He added that the only charges that the company will charge a
Cape Town is yet to green-light this project, says the report and the decision on whether or not to go ahead with this project will happen in August.
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Tags Antarctic Cape cards crisis freshwater iceberg Town39s water
