in the North Atlantic off the Newfoundland and Labrador coast. Photo: Wayne Power/JD Irving Ltd.
By Tanisha Heiberg JOHANNESBURG, April 30 (Reuters) – Marine salvage experts are floating a plan to tug icebergs from Antarctica to South Africa’s drought-hit Cape Town to help solve the region’s worst water shortage in a century.
Salvage master Nick Sloane told Reuters he was looking for government and private investors for a scheme to guide huge chunks of ice across the ocean, chop them into a slury and melt them down into millions of liters of drinking water.
“We want to show that if there is no other source to solve the water crisis, we have another idea no one else has thought of yet,” said Sloane, who led the refloating of the capsized Italian passenger liner Costa Concordia in 2014.
South Africa has declared a national disaster over the drought that hit its southern and western regions after 2015 and 2016 turned into two of the driest years on record.
Tough water restrictions are already in place and Cape Town authorities have warned that taps could run dry altogether as soon as next year if winter rains do not come to the rescue of the port city’s 4 million residents.
Cape Town-based Sloane said his team could wrap passing icebergs in fabric skirts to protect them and reduce evaporation. Large tankers could then guide the blocks into the Benguela Current that flows along the west coast of southern Africa.
A milling machine would then cut into the ice, producing a slurry and forming a saucer structure that will speed up the natural process, he said.
A single iceberg “could produce about 150 million liters per day for about a year,” around 30 percent of the city’s needs, said Sloane, a director at the U.S. marine salvage firm Resolve Marine.
He said he was planning to hold a conference later this month to try and sell the $130 million project to city officials and investors. The city council was not immediately available for comment. (Editing by Ed Stoddard and Andrew Heavens)
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2018.
Join the gCaptain Club for curated content, insider opinions, and vibrant community discussions.
Join the 108,948 members that receive our newsletter.
Have a news tip? Let us know.
A US aircraft carrier strike group left the Red Sea for Europe weeks after Yemen’s Houthi rebel group said it will stop attacking vessels in the region.
China's retaliatory tariffs on the United States may cause U.S. oil exports to decline in 2025 for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, after growth plateaued last year.
A. P. Moller-Maersk A/S, a bellwether for world trade, forecast growth in the global container market as it sees consumer demand defying an intensifying trade war.
Maritime and offshore news trusted by our 108,948 members delivered daily straight to your inbox.
Essential news coupled with the finest maritime content sourced from across the globe.
Sign Up
Join The Club
