Icebergs could be towed 1,200 miles to Cape Town to provide water for drought-stricken South Africa
Cape Town suffered a severe drought earlier this year, leaving the capital city only weeks away from running out of water.
To prevent the dire situation happening again, one marine salvage expert – and native South African, Nick Sloane has come up with a solution.
Sloane wants to tow an enormous, 100 million ton (91 million tonne) iceberg from Antarctica to the South African city to provide much-needed fresh water supplies.
The outlandish mission, which the marine salvage expert readily acknowledges 'sounds crazy', would involve a 1,200 mile (1,900 km) tow trip across open water.
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A marine salvage expert has come up with a bold scheme to help solve South Africa's drought crisis. Expert Nick Sloane hopes to tow a 100 million ton iceberg from Antarctica to Cape Town. The outlandish mission would involve a 1,200 mile (1,900 km) trip across open water
South Africa has declared a national disaster over the drought that hit its southern and western regions this year.
The crisis follows record droughts in the nation in both 2015 and 2016.
Melting an 100 million ton iceberg towed from Antarctica could provide South Africa with 150 million litres of usable water every day for a year, claims Nick Sloane.
'The idea sounds crazy,' the maverick salvage expert admitted in a recent interview.
'But if you look at the fine details, it is not so crazy.'
Mr Sloane was the mastermind behind the idea to refloat capsized Italian passenger liner Costa Concordia back in 2014.
He now hopes to drag huge chunks of ice across the ocean, chop them into a slurry and melt them down into millions of litres of water.
Cape Town-based Sloane is a director at the US marine salvage firm Resolve Marine.
He claims his existing Southern Ice team would be capable of towing huge icebergs back to the coast of South Africa using an underwater net.
Wrapping a passing iceberg in a fabric skirt would also stop the iceberg melting before it reaches South Africa since the specialist geotextile could help to stop evaporation, Sloane adds.
However, despite this precaution, the team admits the berg is likely to shrink by almost 30 per cent on its journey northwards.
More than 2,000 billion tonnes of ice breaks away from Antarctica every year, and the Southern Ice team predict some seven per cent would be suitable for towing.
The iceberg would be carefully selected by drones and radiography scans.
Ideally, it would be about 1,000 yards (one kilometre) in length, 550 yards (500 metres) across and up to 270 yards (250 metres) deep, with a flat, tabletop surface.
Large tankers would be used to guide the blocks into the Benguela Current that flows along the west coast of southern Africa.
South African native, Nick Sloane (pictured), wants to capture a iceberg in Antarctica and tow it back to his homeland to solve the crippling water shortage in South Africa. Mr Sloane believes the project could produce about 150 million litres per day for about a year
The Southern Ice team will use a geotextile material to tow the iceberg. This would be suspended from a huge cable and would form a 'skirt' which would also protect against evaporation. It would be used to move an iceberg from the Antarctic to Cape Town
One advantage of the iceberg scheme is that icebergs are made of pure water, and would require minimal processing before being delivered to residents.
Existing emergency plans involve pumping seawater from the coast around Cape Town. However this presents a major obstacle in desalination – the process of removing the salt from water to ensure it is suitable for human consumption.
The removal of the salt on the scale needed to solve the drought problem would require huge desalination plants capable of processing several thousand tonnes, something that significantly adds to the cost.
'Icebergs are made of the purest freshwater on earth,' Sloane said.
'Thousands break off every year. Mother Nature has been teasing mankind with this for a long time, saying "this is here".'
According to the salvage expert, melted water could be gathered each day using collection channels and a milling machine to create ice slurry – producing 150 million litres of usable water every day for a year.
Sloane estimates it would cost $100 million (£76 million) to haul an iceberg on a journey that could take up to three months, and another $50-60 million (£38 - £45 million) to harvest the water for one year as it melts.
HOW CAN AN ICEBERG PROVIDE WATER FOR DROUGHT-STRICKEN AREAS? There have been several attempts at moving icebergs to end droughts. In 2017, the UAE was experiencing severe water shortages and a project was set up to tow an iceberg to the region. These plans involved harvesting icebergs from Heard Island, around 600 miles (1,000 kilometres) off the coast of mainland Antarctica. The only details provided at the time, was that towing would be the most likely method. South Africa in 2018 is experiencing its worst drought for a century. A renowned marine salvage master from the country also believes towing an iceberg could be the answer. Cape Town-based Nick Sloane, director of Resolve Marine, wants to tow a rogue iceberg 1,200 miles form the Antarctic ocean to Cape Town. He intends to do this by using a material skirt, made of a specialist geotextile, which would fit around the underside of the huge chunk of ice. In order for this to be successful, the iceberg must be of specific size and shape, with steep sides. Huge tankers would guide and pull the iceberg through the water and the skirt would help reduce evaporation. A milling machine would then then cut into the ice, producing a slurry and forming a saucer structure that will speed up the natural process, he said. The removal of the salt from the water would require huge desalination plants, and a large injection of cash to build plants capable of processing several thousand tonnes.
'In Russia, they have pushed (icebergs) away from oil installations - but small ones, they are about half-a-million tons. (Here) we are talking about 100 million tons (91 million tonnes),' said Sloane.
Whether Cape Town authorities will be persuaded to embrace the iceberg project is unclear.
'At this stage it appears to us that in fact the groundwater or desalination options are cheaper or at least equal cost price,' said Cape Town's deputy mayor, Ian Neilson.
'It won't sort out Cape Town's crisis, (but) it will be about 20 to 30 per cent of their annual needs,' said Sloane.
The iceberg would be carefully selected by drones and radiography scans. Ideally, it would be about 1,000 yards (one kilometre) in length, 550 yards (500 metres) across and up to 270 yards (250 metres) deep, with a flat, tabletop surface
The project would target an iceberg with 'tabular shape and steep sides,' according to Olav Orheim, the former director of the Norwegian Polar Institute and now part of the Southern Ice project.
'The project is crazy – no question,' said Olav Orheim, a Norwegian glaciologist with four decades of experience who is working on a similar project for Saudi Arabia.
Mr Orheim added that it was no longer unrealistic 'because we know so much more now than when we started this kind of research 40 years ago'.
'It is a high risk project, but also (one) which may have a very high reward at the end.'
For Wolfgang Foerg, the chief executive of Swiss company Water Vision which has teamed up with Sloane, the project has huge potential in the face of ever more frequent drought.
As for Sloane, he is ready for the green light.
'If they tell us to go now, we can have it here by Easter (2019),' he said.