A New Way to Get Fresh Water

In parts of the Middle East, several years may pass between rainstorms. There is thus a serious shortage of water, so that desalination plants have to be used to make fresh water from sea water.

A new scheme is now being tested. If it is successful, it will be of great interest and value to many countries. The first step in the scheme is to find a flat iceberg about 1.5 km long and 300 to 400 meters wide. The best place to look is in Antarctica, where the icebergs tend to be more regular in shape than those from the Arctic. Engineers would start by cutting one end of the iceberg to the arrowhead shape of a ship. This would reduce the resistance of the iceberg to the sea when it is pulled by ships. The iceberg would be wrapped in plastic and cloth to reduce the rate of melting as it passes through warm seas. At the same time, a protective ridge around the top would keep water melted by the sun. This would prevent the heat of the sun from further melting the iceberg.

A French engineering company, backed by Arab money, has prepared plans to send an iceberg to Saudi Arabia at the cost of 21 cents a cubic meter. This is below the current cost of getting water from a desalination plant and is the major attraction of the scheme. Ships will have to pull an iceberg for over 7 000 miles and the voyage will last at least six months. It is estimated that a large iceberg would produce at least 70 billion liters of fresh water. The average daily consumption of water is about 225 million liters per million people. Thus in a country of about eight million people, a large iceberg would provide enough fresh water for more than a month if it could be stored and distributed efficiently.