The Insane Plan to Tow an Iceberg to the Middle East
Some people have some pretty insane ideas. Like making a trillion-dollar coin. Or forcing 11 couples to have babies in Antarctica.
Or… towing an iceberg to the Middle East. While that may sound like the sort of idea an intoxicated green peace activist came up with, it was actually proposed by a man named Abdullah Alsehi, who could, for all we know…be a drunk green peace activist.
But, other than that, who the hell is Abdullah Alsehi? He’s an Arab millionaire. And he wants to tow an iceberg to the Middle East. But, why?
Well, to cut it short, its for fresh drinking water. But before we get to that, you need to know about the United Arab Emirate’s (UAE’s) exploding population. In 1975, less than 560,000 people lived in the UAE. But fast forward to 2018, that number has skyrocketed to just over 9.5 million. That’s nearly as fast as the decline of America after Trump took office.
Ouch, there goes 38% of my readers. But seriously, the UAE was growing like a 14-year-old kid on his growth spurt. And then they ran into a problem. The United Arab Emirates is 80% desert and that means they don’t have many freshwater sources. Additionally, the most populous area of the UAE has a measly average rainfall of about 5mm. As the population grew, the UAE began to need more and more water.
The United Arab Emirates currently relies extremely heavily on a network of over 70 desalination plants. This transforms salty ocean water into potable water for everyday use. An enormous 42% of the UAE’s water supply comes from these desalination plants.
However, the problem is that this is a very expensive process and is environmentally destructive. It significantly increases the salt concentration around desalination plants and is consequently harmful to surrounding marine life.
Hence, many arguments have been made for an alternative source of water to quench the nation’s water crisis. And the most ludicrous idea of them all was proposed by the drunk green peace activist you met in the 2nd paragraph.
Yes, Abdullah Alsehi. He wants to send a tugboat to Antarctica, find a nice chunky iceberg, and tow it all the way back to the UAE to harvest it for the freshwater locked inside. So let's delve deeper into the logistics.
Abdullah Alsehi wants to select the iceberg via satellite, and it should ideally be approximately 2km long and 500m wide. Once the iceberg has been secured, he calculates it would take 10 months to transport the iceberg to the United Arab Emirates. To prevent the iceberg from splitting off into smaller chunks, he plans to utilize a metal belt that will wrap around the iceberg to keep it together. Despite this, his iceberg-stealing team predicts that 30% of the iceberg’s mass will melt during the 10-month journey before it even reaches the much warmer water of the Persian Gulf, where the average water temperature (in summer) is… oh, 90° Fahrenheit or 32° Celsius.
But it’s fine. They’ll do it in Winter when it’s… 81° Fahrenheit or 27° Celsius.
Icebergs and scorching deserts don’t go hand in hand. So… Alsehi will hire a team of miners to mine the iceberg for water as soon as it arrives. According to him, the iceberg could provide water for 1 million residents of the UAE for 5 whole years.
If that’s true, that would significantly relieve the pressure on the nation’s water crisis. Additionally, Alsehi claims that stealing icebergs is significantly cheaper and more environmentally friendly than current desalination techniques. But I’m pretty sure the polar bears don’t agree with him.
He also says that this could positively influence local weather patterns and lead to more rainfall on the coast of the UAE.
Finally, it’s said that a floating iceberg could be a great addition to the UAE’s portfolio of completely useless, but extremely popular, tourist attractions. I mean, who doesn’t want to step foot on a rapidly melting iceberg?
Ok. That’s Abdullah Alsehi’s crazy plan to steal an iceberg from Antarctica. But that could just be the tip of the iceberg (pun intended). I mean, what’s next? Is he pinching trees from the Amazon rainforest? Or stealing sand from the Sahara desert. Soon, countries will be able to just swoop in and steal parts of Antarctica to take home as souvenirs.
So, the next time you desperately want a piece of Antarctica as a souvenir, look in your goddamn freezer.
