Towing Icebergs to Australia For Freshwater

[@Asianometry]

I hope you enjoyed the video. I now have an Australia playlist: kzbin.info/aero/PLKtxx9TnH76RvZYpXxZlYrKVVA7S2J_rN

[@BonktYT]

GOD, HOW HARD IS IT TO NORMALIZE YOUR AUDIO TRACK??? I can barely hear you. Otherwise good content, except for your Patreon talk as it is the same words in the exact same order every video, spice it up sometime?

[@davidbryden7904]

Audio could use an upgrade, but I did enjoy this video. Growing up in Southern California during the '7th, I remember the idea being "tossed around" , but like y'all down under, desalination was considered more cost-effective. Cali is in a very similar situation, I believe, to Australia. A challenging few decades ahead of us both.

[@tamarahagenbeek]

What a crap if there is a scientist who can show us a mountain of water, please come forward hahahaha

[@kevinbarry71]

If there was alcohol in those icebergs Australia would've done this a long time ago

[@seihai-kun6726]

Forget Australia. I'd do it myself.

[@CyReVolt]

And that's how the drunkaroo evolved, which jumps in awkward directions.

[@CyReVolt]

And the alkoala, an always hungover cutie dosing off a dozen times a day.

[@drkiwihouseMD]

let's move to Antarctica

[@cheechinwong5585]

A snowed kangaroo

[@No0dz]

I remember as a kid reading about iceberg towing in the early 90s. 30 years later and an MSc in Hydrology later, I can see this for the BS it really is: water is very heavy and, even if fresh, packs very little value. ANY transportation makes it economically unfeasible. Desalination and tapping aquifers is simply cheaper.

[@unlink1649]

What Australia needs is a ton of solar energy and desalination plants. That's cheaper and way more sustainable

[@bUwUmer1260]

@@unlink1649 a couple nuclear plants would probably be cheaper long term then solar.

[@ContraVsGigi]

If I am not wrong, aquifers go away for good, it is not a renewable source of water. I would expect them to bequite empty over there.

[@bUwUmer1260]

@@ContraVsGigi desalination should last indefinitely tho

[@ContraVsGigi]

@Rejected Alien That is the same solution, it still needs bringing them to shore.

[@Patrick.Edgar.Regini]

I think the most economic and practical way of processing the iceberg would be to build a containment giant dock outside or next to the city harbor. The iceberg would simply be floated inside the dock, then the compartment gate/wall would be lifted back up and shut behind it, then the sea water would be pumped out and the dock filled with the berg's fresh water.

[@eliasross4576]

I went sea kayaking in a field of bergy bits. The problem of course is the bottom melts faster than the top, and it tends to want to flip over at some point.

[@elye3701]

Pity. You don't have a visionary like Boyan Slat.

[@vera9230]

You went all out on the puns for this one lol

[@Asianometry]

If only I could do more.

[@KevinLyda]

If only you could harvest water from floods of puns.

[@betula2137]

@@Asianometry But you cold more which inhibited your punny ice capabilities If only

[@stephenjust01]

I can just imagine a small army of maple syrup farmers trying to tap icebergs with little buckets hanging off the taps.

[@MagnumForce51]

As some have commented, it might be more economical to harvest the icebergs in their natural environment instead of trying to tow them thousands of miles away and do it there. Specially made tanker ships could be built for the purpose of breaking down and storing the fresh water of icebergs. I reckon it might become economical in a couple more decades when water scarcity becomes a much bigger problem.

[@21simper]

in that case just fill up at the Ord river .... you could green the whole country there is enough water there

[@stevenstart8728]

Shinning One have you been there. Lake argyle isn’t big enough to water all of Australia. That’s a dumb thing to say and you obviously have no idea.

[@rimc8783]

There's never a shortage of water on a planet with 75% surface water! Just because rain don't fall where man needs it doesn't mean there's a water shortage.

[@chrisparker2118]

We don't have a couple of decades. Ice ages are the norm and we are going back to it.

[@rimc8783]

@Andrei Salvaleon Just because it don't rain where man wants it to or needs it rain doesn't mean there a shortage of Water!

[@dchappy6985]

Did Australia ever consider capturing a comet from outer space? 🤔

[@carultch]

Have you been watching Futurama?

[@shalvinsharma4108]

Yes, but it was later dismissed because it was totally different from playing footy. Now the plan it to produce a giant tennis bat to deflect them.

[@dann6067]

The puns got an instant like from me.

[@ggtgp]

It’s cheaper to use an oil tanker to ship water from Indonesia where they have too much water. You can google numbers for this and post a video. ;) “cost to ship oil’ , you will find desalination is cheaper.

[@stormtrooper9404]

Not quite! Some islands on the Adriatic Sea get their water from mainland Croatia trough... water tankers of course! I have seen one such while on vacation there. Sure the distances to Aus are much greater, but than the tankers are ever bigger. Economy of scale! So I doubt your calculation that is cheaper to desalinate water! That maybe holds true for Dubai and similar oil reach countries, that dont give a damn about ecology and burn fosil fuels on massive scale for electricity/desalination.

[@RemusKingOfRome]

Great point Or melt icebergs insitu and tank them to Oz.

[@m2heavyindustries378]

@@stormtrooper9404 Save your enviro/greenie stuff for another video- Aus has operating desalination plants in all big cities built years ago.

[@helmutzollner5496]

Hello John! This is a great new flic! A great update on this subject. For the first time I can remember, I saw a cost analysis of the transport of an iceberg. I had been considering the iceberg landing problem and thought a drydock arrangement would be most advantageous. Although I find the "berg in a bag" idea quite intriguing. In all cases the resulting melt water would produce a kind of brackish water that would at worst need some de-salibation or best case need processing in a trickle sand pile. Furthermore, the water quality will vary from berg to berg. So, I agree with the deciders in Perth to go for a de-salibation plant. They would most likely need that anyway. The question of inserting a 'cold island' into an urban area is rather intriguing. That could lower power consumption for air con dramatically. I wonder if the chilling effect might be enough to fell percipitation out of moist coastal air. That might be the biggest benefit of it. However, Diesel tugboats are probably not the answer to this whole subject, as the Carbon foot print would be substantial. So, a fleet Russian atomic icebreaker tugboats might be a better solution.

[@esecallum]

Simply put large push propeller engines or windmills or sails and powered by solar panels and steer it to the port. no need for tugboats or fuel costs.

[@carlramirez6339]

Dick Smith proposed this way back in the 80s. It's insane that some people prefer to do this instead of recycling water.

[@dann6067]

Thank God for capitalism.

[@RemusKingOfRome]

You enjoy drinking other people's wee ? Give me brown ice any day, at least I know penguins are disease free.

[@hoangle2483]

@@RemusKingOfRome ever heard of water treatment plant ?

[@nimernimer]

If it’s good enough for the iss it’s good enough for me!

[@scottfranco1962]

We do it here in San Jose! come get your nice glass of recycled sewage! No takers?

[@xavierdemers-bouchard2747]

😂 at every video you make I start thinking "oh God, my man is at it it again with the puns" but a quarter of the way in I'm laughing so much, puns are your true craft, in depth and very interesting documentaries on niche and increasingly varied subjects are just your medium. Keep up the great work! Thank you

[@clearandsweet]

I'm just here for the puns. And the science. That's cool too.

[@addanametocontinue]

If you think trying to drag an iceberg back to civilization for drinking is crazy, try doing it for purposes of creating an aircraft carrier. Project Habakkuk.

[@klobiforpresident2254]

Project Habakkuk's pykrete is an interesting material but it would have required *building* an iceberg, not just towing one.

[@DFPercush]

Desalination seems like the obvious answer for a lot of places. They just need to be careful about salinity concentrations on the discharge. Spread it out more, extract less freshwater per liter of salt water, etc. This planet has so much water. It just takes energy to make it drinkable.

[@OhNoNotAgain42]

“Just” takes energy. Just? Australia gets most of its energy from coal.

[@terrysummerfield5863]

1st law of thermodynamics. Research it. There's no such thing as clean energy. Period. Good luck.

[@DFPercush]

@@terrysummerfield5863 "Clean" normally means it does not release CO2 or pollutants into the atmosphere, and there are various methods of power generation that accomplish that. What does the law of conservation of energy have to do with this? Maybe you meant "free" energy.

[@terrysummerfield5863]

@@DFPercush All energy creates heat and all energy must be mined or refined in the continued fight against nature, and without our sembients in nature, we'll all be gone. We are now in what is being called THE 6th mass EXTINCTION. Our problem of abrupt irreversible climate change is a direct result of human overshoot. Meaning that we humans cannot stop consuming the resources of planet earth. It's called WETICA DISEASE by Sitting Bull. It's a condition in which the afflicted, ( now nearly all humans) are constantly desiring to posses material things. Everything mankind makes and builds ends up in the landfill, even your so called"clean energy materials and machines. God be with you.

[@OhNoNotAgain42]

@@terrysummerfield5863 I think this issue is better understood through the Second Law of Thermodynamics. All actions increase entropy. We’re trying to improve human existence with the least amount of increase.

[@1chai]

1. Build an undersea pipeline from Antarctica to Perth. 2. Build a giant concave reflector to reflect sunlight to melt the iceberg. 3. Channel the melted water to the pipeline. 4. Use floating solar panels to power the motors inside the pipeline to pull water from the iceberg to Perth.

[@RemusKingOfRome]

(1) Hugely expensive .. end

[@arjunyg4655]

I’m just here for the New Zealand memes

[@christopherellis2663]

This crops up every few years. It's a joke...

[@RemusKingOfRome]

yeah, just like the fast trains the socialists love reviving each election.

[@billferner6741]

Before that study the Arabic countries wanted to do similar, from the north ice cap. It was not done because an ice boulder is way too unstable when pulled due to melting of material, which changes the center of gravity (unpredictable).

[@nobodythatyouknow241]

Towing an iceberg 😂. I towed logs. It's incredibly slow. 3 or 4 miles per hour if the tide and current is favorable.

[@brandonb3279]

Love you man, your videos are truly fantastic. Long live the new independent media from passionate creators!

[@ddegn]

There are huge areas of Australia which are uninhabited. These area make perfect landing areas for ice blocks launched from Antarctica using a giant trebuchet. This makes much more sense than towing icebergs. I just need a few billion dollars to make this idea a reality.

[@justjohn9067]

We used to. Breweries in Melbourne received ice from icebergs being towed up from Antarctica in late 1800s. 75% was lost in transit providing 25% to breweries

[@MizMite2002]

Harvesting icebergs that break off Greenland is an emerging industry in Newfoundland and Labrador. Iceberg water, sought after for its reputed purity and low mineral content, is worth the arduous labour involved to hunt, capture and crush the ice. It’s also apparently worth stealing, which is what police say happened in the hamlet of Port Union this past winter.

[@charlesxavier4409]

how big of sails would you need to build on an iceberg to be able to control it?

[@TheHuntermj]

Could you possibly mine ice off the icebergs into tanker ships?

[@BC-op7rj]

Rather than pick up massive bergs and tow them back with large risks, I think the answer is in a purpose built ship. It would have to be a monstrous 200,000 ton twin hull vessel with a deployable conveyor belt that submerges ahead of the bow to scoop little bergs onboard. It may or may not have armaments to smash down larger icebergs. It could be nuclear powered, comparable in size to two US aircraft carriers merged as a catamaran. It would have cranes to launch and recover small tugs , used to herd bergs to it for processing. Plus helicopters for surveys and crew transfers. Nuclear power would direct heating to special splicing guns used to cut down larger blocks brought aboard. By the end most ice pieces would be the size of large house bricks. When full the ship would move north away from the ice fields to meet with transport ships. These transport ship would be little different to coal or petroleum tankers. Liquid would transfer via hose and ice bricks transferred by a conveyor arm (just like coal) into the hulls of receiving ships. The harvester would also refuel at sea and then return to the field to repeat. Meanwhile the water tankers sets course for customers. Grand Terre would probably be the meeting point to transfer at sea with some shelter from rough seas. Upon reaching unloading point the cargo would be entirely liquid, having naturally melted on the long voyages. Desalination plants simply need an offshore barge to pump the contents ashore. There the plant would test for any frozen bacteria or similar issues, and resolve before distributing via existing infrastructure into local water supplies.

[@Trey4x4]

**FARTS LOUD AF** to expensive for water. Melt it onsite with solar energy and lay a pipe down to mainland.

[@bernardsulman1506]

If the iceberg is 150m deep you are not going to get it anywhere near to land around Perth because of the continental shelf, It would have to be cut up in the open sea some distance off shore, like the far side of Rotto. Probably out of sight of land. The idea was looked at in the early 2000s, along with a pipeline from the tropical north (which gets plenty of rain in the monsoon season), and towing in bags from the north. Desalination was the cheapest option. So desalination plants were built.

[@ausaskar]

Colin Barnett's northern canal/pipeline was a more feasible solution. But looks like we're going with desalination.

[@Hassanmohamed31152]

Love the new topics, your overview of topics is great👍🏽

[@shazmosushi]

I recall an article on iceberg towing was part of the standardized reading comprehension testing system in the Australian elementary school system. It's such a great science fiction concept!

[@tamarahagenbeek]

Its sf indeed, mountains of water or ice don’t exist

[@aporiac1960]

I assume someone has already thought about sailing icebergs from Antartica to Australia, and it has been rejected as impractical? Certainly it would save the fuel costs, although maybe the size of the sails to overcome sea currents means it's not technically/economically feasible. Westerlies from Antartica are pretty reliable so one would think they could be harnessed. Obviously, the hazard to shipping is an issue - there will be practical limits on the manoeuvrability of a sailing iceberg, and so every other sea-going vessel would definitely have to give way in the event they encountered each other! Let's hope someone at some time is crazy enough to give it a go - it would probably be exceedingly difficult and dangerous, but heroic on a similar scale, and so wonderful to see!

[@Graham_Wideman]

Well individual icebergs become unstable as the underside melts faster than the top and they become top heavy. So for your heroic sailing idea, you'd need to take three or four icebergs and form them into a raft by bridging across them with some other icebergs....

[@aporiac1960]

@@Graham_Wideman It just became orders of magnitude more crazy and heroic - I love it!

[@Graham_Wideman]

@@aporiac1960 Exactly! Although at some point it's probably easier to tow Australia to Antarctica.

[@Bialy_1]

@@aporiac1960 "About 7/8ths of an iceberg is below the water line." so the speed of that sailing iceberg will be on the super slow side... and yea because of all the melting caused by thewarm moving water of the ocean it would be melting and changing what side is on the top...

[@musaran2]

I chuckle at the idea of a super tanker having to cede way to a "bigger fish".

[@AlohaMilton]

One could imbed large masts with wing type sails controlled by a computer system allowing an iceberg to sail itself to a designated location. That has a lot of issues, iceberg breaking up and blocking shipping lanes, loosing the expensive equipment on the iceberg, etc. But it is a way to transport a tabular iceberg and with practice it could be reliable. It also could with enough individual sails on the iceberg allow moving very large ones over a kilometer in length/width by distributing the pressure applied to the iceberg over its entire surface. Wind gusts would have to be accounted for and sails adjust to not rip the berg apart with unequal forces in different areas. It would probably have to be slow and tedious journey, but it should work.

[@allamasadi7970]

Plus attached a propeller and rudder mechanism below the waterline

[@SocialDownclimber]

It won't work. You need a shaped keel to use sails. Even if you can find an iceberg of the right shape, the melt on the underwater part of the iceberg would cause the centre of mass of the iceberg to continually move. Eventually the iceberg would flip over and all your sails and infrastructure would be underwater, causing a total loss of the endeavour.

[@fdc184]

icebergs are buoyant bodies, they flip and rotate like a sphere every now and then

[@ggoddkkiller1342]

Bag option really makes sense, just capture smaller icebergs. Pump out salty water and just wait until it melts then tow it to Australia, fresh water is lighter than salty water so it should float on it's own and it would be a lot safer than towing an iceberg. However Cyprus is really close to Turkey and mediterranean is a calm sea so it would be still quite challenge..

[@drpk6514]

Why should they do that? It takes for ever to melt and its very heavy to tow. There are lots of water in the rivers of north WA and NT in Australia. Tankers can be loaded and deliver the water in a few days. Imagine if there was nuclear tankers and this would have been done for free.

[@theknifedude1881]

Thank you for the videos/information. Sorry it took so long to become a Patron but I’m trying to support as many creators as possible. I’m grateful the KZbin algorithm put you in front of me. Thanks again.

[@cseguin]

Question - in the process of "bagging" an iceberg saltwater would be introduced into said "bag" - wouldn't this have to be pumped out so the meltwater isn't mixed with saltwater and the whole enterprise come to nothing?

[@peterbreis5407]

The concept was proven viable on 1st April 1978 when entrepreneur Dick Smith towed an iceberg into Sydney Harbour.

[@afre3398]

As an aside. I remember for a long time ago a Norwegian firm looked at the possibility to tow a large bags of water in the ocean. To ares that needed water. I do not think it got much longer than the drawing board

[@sortysciaofiscia]

I counted 61 iceberg puns

[@jnamemoption7742]

Solution is to attach sails to bergs so wind from high altitude could be used so everything would move. Cost of transportation would be minimized and transportation would then become feasible. Picture kites anchored through bergs from top to bottom with GPS navigation.

[@klobiforpresident2254]

@@idonotconsent Heat is primarily lost in three ways. Radiation and physical transfer. This is the feeling of warmth from standing close to a fire and the cold from touching a handrail in the winter. In our case air and sea lose heat to bergs. At similar temperatures both air and sea will heat the berg roughly the same amount through radiation. Heating and cooling water takes a lot more energy than heating and cooling air. The consequence is that warm water melts ice much faster than warm air, especially if there isn't additional airflow (like in a hair dryer's exhaust). There's an easy way to test this. Prepare an oven at 100°C. Prepare a pot of not-quite boiling water. Put ice cubes into each. Which disappear first? The boiled ones, despite being in less warm of an environment. Icebergs flipping is pretty common as due to the above the melt is fairly uneven.

[@sovo1212]

My knowledge of physics is limited, but I think most likely it wouldn't be a good idea to tow these icebergs out of the antarctic ocean. They are at a lower temperature than the surrounding water, so they're still contributing to keep the area cooler, thus preventing other chunks of ice separating from Antarctica. In essence, you'd be accelerating ice cap melting and global warming.

[@maschwab63]

Consider buying a new oil tanker but using it just for water. Imagine sailing to a large fresh water river (Amazon, Mississippi), going a few miles upstream to avoid tides, pumping the tanks full of water, adding chlorine to stop algae growth, then travelling to port and pumping the water out. Is that going to make sense? The bags of water might help some. Now, lets consider fishing trawlers spreading a huge net, with floats on the edge. But for water collection without towing, you need a plastic cover on the net, and plastic pipes to the edges. Once you have the iceberg surrounded. You pull the cable through the floats so the floats encircle the iceberg. Pump out the trapped seawater so the membrane surrounds the bottom surface. Capture the water once the salinity is low enough, it will continue to drop as the ice melts. Start towing toward destination, while the tankers pick up the melted water in tanks and bags and deliver asap.

[@thylacine1962]

Im 60 & Australian. I remember when I was at school we studied this concept. So the idea is at least 50 years old. It never took off then due to logistics. So this story is just that, a story, BS 1 at that.

[@yam594]

Is it possible to laydown pipeline in the ocean , and pump fresh water from antarctica?

[@nobodythatyouknow241]

You're kidding? Right?

[@douglasianscott3599]

South Africa, or more specifically Cape Town, has had a similar plan to tow icebergs during times of drought to solve the water problem. It was last publicly discussed during the 2015-2018 Cape Town water crisis but was most seriously discussed during the drought in the mid-1990s. It has never been done though due to the cost of the proposed project and looks even less likely now as desalination technology gets more economical.

[@trevorvanbremen4718]

There was a boatload of decent puns in this one, all of which I enjoyed!!! BTW, I'm from 'doesn't exist'

[@yaokuanhuang4816]

Yse 1 tanker ship, the size of those huge container ship. Have retractable pipes with drill bit at the end, drill bits have heating elements. Park the ship next to square iceberg. Stretch out multiple retractable pipes. Sink the drill end into the berg. Start drilling in, as it drills you switch on the heating elements. As that spot starts melting, you suck up the melting pieces and water into the tanker. Detach, pack up and leave once your tanks are full. Set sail back to harbour to off load your water load into land water storage tanks. If one were to have a fleet of say 10 ships, water can be harvested and stored easily from that iceberg. Ships can work in a relay formation where 3 to 4 ships latch onto the iceberg at a time. No need to tow that iceberg and worring where to park it when it gets to port.

[@SunriseLAW]

A California company owned by Gov. Newcomb's brother was paid $31 billion to get iceberg water to Los Angeles. The company does it by letting icebergs melt into the sea in the arctic and selling sea water pumped from the Long Beach area to the State, which is treated at the Carlsberg, CA desalination plant.

[@andybaldman]

Got a source for that, buddy?

[@kangkim150]

There’s no place called Carlsberg in California.

[@obsidianjane4413]

@ 9:30 Actually, it should be a sail boat. As in literally mounting sails on the iceberg and sailing it wherever its going.

[@tomdillan]

I talked about doing this in the late 90’s from Alaska to California for the USA. Instead of towing them but use something like a water tanker. It would be much easier now in Greenland with glaciers already melting.

[@michaelsergejhelgesson7889]

This idea was mentioned in the news on swedish TV back in november 1976. Since then I have been wondering what became out of it-now I know!

[@lakrids-pibe]

I remember hearing about another project about capturing morning dew in the desert with little mass produced gizmos. They would capture just enough water for some shrubbery to thrive. Not enough for real farming, but it would help to prevent erosion.

[@mceajc]

Ah, the puns. Nicely done, sir.

[@uprightape100]

Naw.....desal, powered by wind+solar, will save Western Australia and anyone else with money, sun, and oceans.

[@deandavid9240]

Drage the ice to the coast , put bag under it with air floats around top of bag . Pump up the air floats in casing the ice. Pump seawater out ,then as the ice melts pump out the fresh water

[@Brandon-w3o]

High quality content and puns. I like it!

[@shaundubai8941]

We in Dubai considered this as well. I had to independently build a business model and my costs for a round trip was only USD $30m in fuel, whilst ignoring other and fixed costs, whilst selling price would be only USD 9m - waiting for the next level of shipping (advanced wind powered ships, so no fuel costs) to become available and then this project can become live - I like the simple toothpaste tube analogy (easier to explain to funding sources)

[@beththurling4965]

Moving icebergs to areas in Australia would be a monumental task. It is much easier to desalinate sea water . The problem of course is the production of brine which would cause serious environmental problems especially if done on a large scale. Another suggestion - after desalination transport the concentrated brine or salt to Antarctica. Mine the icebergs for fresh water and dilute the brine until it has the same salt concentration as seawater and then release it. The large container ships that transport the brine can return with freshwater to Australia.

[@real_arbuckle]

Why do people get stuck on bringing back ice when it's the water they want and we know how to build big tankers?

[@froggoboom]

loving the regular uploads, would it be possible to up the volume of the voice on your videos? it's really soft compared to other videos on youtube

[@thom7440]

At 2:13 you say ... "but that is no pan-ASS-see-uh" or something similar ... i assume you were saying the word "panacea"? ... Not sure if it's a regional difference in pronunciation or if i just misheard, but I've heard that pronounced as ... "PAN-uh-SEE-uh" ... fwiw ... Thanks for doing the video. It's really interesting.

[@drpk6514]

Use oil tankers to bring water from North rivers of Western Australia and Northern territory to Perth and other cities.

[@chasingcapsaicin]

Hard Sail/Hydrofoil dual use devices, carve out and install self righting habitation and processing facilities. Combine a pseudo bagging systems to collect fresh/brackish melt from under and to the rear that could be further desalinated using solar optical distillation in route. Would be worth a few tens of millions to explore, no limitations on size of the target either.

[@johnl.7754]

Was thinking the same thing…like what they thought about using in space.

[@SNgillott]

I must be getting old! I recall Australian Businessman Disk Smith having a little fun with the idea by towing a mocked-up iceberg into Sydney Harbour in 1978 as an April Fool's prank. Corney, but it did get everyone talking about it for a while.

[@jaymacpherson8167]

Some municipalities in California considered the iceberg option towed from the Arctic.

[@fattfatt6483]

HOW ABOUT PUMPING THE WATER FROM THE ANTARTICA,JUST LIKE PUMPING OIL AND GAS !?

[@bewell4743]

Great content! I have one request though, could you make the volume level higher? In my noisy factory I can't hear it as well as other KZbin programs.

[@xap81]

Ice bergs in the polar caps help to keep the polar caps cold. If you took them away, the polar caps would melt even faster, which is unaccetable.

[@bobkelley8291]

Before refrigerators and freezers many big cities would cut block of ice from fresh water lakes. And store the ice blocks to be used in the summer.

[@christinearmington]

Excellent dry delivery of juicy puns. 🤦‍♀️🤩😆

[@apgarcia2909]

Unless just off shore from the beach is 1000 feet deep, I don't see an iceberg being towed there for fresh water

[@TheShootist]

larry niven and jerry pournelle suggested this back in the 80's. Except the destination was San Diego, California. Still a good idea

[@matthewmartin5763]

It would be cool to be able to tow these into a dry dock somehow. It would be much easier to process there I would think.

[@eliasbouhout1]

Doesn't ice preserve old pathogens in good condition? Would melting the water require treatment afterwards?

[@thelastofthehitachi972]

on the contrary icebergs pieces are good quality for drinking kzbin.info/www/bejne/bpbXeGdrp9uco7c

[@michaelshore2300]

Show how stupid I am getting "why would anyone tow an iceberg from the Arctic to Australia "

[@piotrd.4850]

6:30 - you can't dynamite iceberg from shelf, because ice is one resilient thingy. It wouldn't be worth the effort. Just learn about idea of ice carrier or attempts to burn or bomb icebergs so they don't threaten shipping.

[@fractalign]

It’s a fanciful idea, they must have given up when they realised, icebergs melt.

[@rorychivers8769]

Has anyone thought of towing them further inland where they wont... well... melt? I mean once you've watered your front lawn with what's left of Antarctica, then what.

[@garman1966]

I think it make more sense to just tow huge hydrodynamic bags of fresh water pumped in from river outflows than to tow and process an iceberg. Maybe just park an oil tanker where a large river flows into the sea and pump it full, etc

[@keithmitchell3282]

when bringing hundreds of thousands of migrants into Australia yearly , wouldn't it be sensible to match those number of people to new dams being built ( ah yes the greenies and their endangered frogs ) people filling their backyard pools with drinking water is very sensible as well

[@shalvinsharma4108]

The cost of towing icebergs, risks involved and proccesing will surpass the cost's of establishing water making plants, the ice is already melting into the ocean, it would indeed be much faster and more cost effective to have desalination plants that will also give by products for the soil itself, like how they make use of it in denmark. Such strides will lead to more advancement in technologies to make desalination more cost effective and efficient.

[@botyaltotertutal468]

Just transfer the iceberg bags into a giant warehouse, it would be transferred via drydock or carried by a crane onto an overload truck that's designed to carry windmill "arm" or fan. You can install a pipeline under or at the tip of the icebag and get a vacuum to suck out all of the water.

[@waziammm]

"If you can think of a better way to get ice i'd like to hear it." -Apu

[@alexquek4923]

Taking the ice from South pole? So that it can break up faster? So that the water level can rise higher?

[@bennieknape4857]

Why tow the berg break it up and load it in tankers. When towing a berg you would put a Barrier floating barrier around the iceberg so as the iceberg melts, The fresh water could be shaved it wouldn't mix with the saltwater readily.

[@doctorscoot]

Why not send tankers to the iceberg and get the water in situ?

[@shauno1970]

Biggest one I saw down there at around 61deg south near Heard Island was 26miles long and 30m+ high ice cliffs with the big swells putting spray way higher. Just a massive floating island in the middle of nowhere.

[@dariuscanuto]

The best thing to do is to have a gigantic cargo ship to harvest iceberg pieces by pieces and deliver it to Australia nothing to waste in iceberg to melt and no hassle.

[@sisyphusvasilias3943]

Asianometry GOLD!

[@LoneWolf-wp9dn]

A company called Dasault tried something in the early 2010s... they wanted to tow one to western Africa... i dont think they ever tried anything IRL

[@weithiamneo1442]

I had an idea to tow one to Singapore for Winter Olympics 🤔

[@eddiem461]

What about having a processing ship stay by the pole harvesting and shipping the water either via pipes or tankers back to land.

[@REPSDirect]

Build a huge Tug/Water Processing Plant Boat, melt icebergs onsite, pump the water into those "bags" and tow them to Australia.

[@TheWheels1965]

its would be a cheaper way to process the iceberg at Antarctic and use a oil tanker style ship, use would a giant ice grinding machine like a snow plow would extend out and just grind down the iceberg. The ship and hull would need to be heated to melt the ice and keep in a liquid form better if the ship was nuclear powdered. what do you think.

[@myearshurtnoone1367]

this was so interesting, thank you for sharing

[@davidharrigan9884]

You are kidding, the fresh water evaporates to the atmosphere, before Macquarie Island, 600 miles from Antarctica.

[@charlescurran1289]

How about putting huge sails on the burgs to move them and use the tugs to more or less just steer?

[@shannonkohl68]

It would seem to me that it would be better to send a supertanker to the ice berg, run a pipe and heating equipment to it. Heat the berg, collect the water in the supertanker. Far less drag than towing a berg, and we know how to economically transport liquids over long distances. Also you don't really care if the berg is too big or even too small to survive the journey. And offloading it is trivial. It may still be less economical than desalination, I guess? Or did all the "experts" fail to consider this?

[@tigertoo01]

Would it be better to mine the ice and convey it into a tanker then ship it to Australia?

[@dannyarcher1984]

I always find this puzzling, why dont they just harvest it right there and then? I mean, melt the ice into water and store it in a large 'oil tanker' like ship. if melting cost to much energy, just break it into smaller pieces and store it in a huge 'oil tanker' and it will melt eventually.