Computer Models Show that Towing an Iceberg to a Drought Area Could Actually Work
By Clay Dillow Posted 08.09.2011 at 6:07 pm Popular Science EXCERPT:
You may have heard of this scheme before: during periods of serious drought, a huge tugboat or fleet of tugboats could be tethered to an iceberg and hauled to areas where water is scarce, providing drinking water and irrigation stores to stave off famine. The idea was originally floated by an engineer named Georges Mougin in the 1970s, and though it was laughed out of development back then, its enjoying a kind of renaissance today.
Dassault Systemes, the french software developer, has built a computer model of Mougins idea. And after 15 engineers ran the problem through their models, they found that the idea is more or less perfectly feasible. Towing an iceberg from somewhere around Newfoundland to the northwest coast of Africa would only take around five months and could still retain more than 60 percent of the icebergs mass. The downside: it would cost about $10 million.
The simulation accounted for the costs associated with fitting a huge insulating sleeve around a seven-ton iceberg, towing it across the Atlantic via tugboat and kite-sail (at a speed of about one knot), and then distributing the water inland from the coast.
END EXCERPT
Wouldn't attaching a few big diesel engines work better than tugs coordinating tow lines? Kite sail? Really?
By Clay Dillow Posted 08.09.2011 at 6:07 pm Popular Science EXCERPT:
You may have heard of this scheme before: during periods of serious drought, a huge tugboat or fleet of tugboats could be tethered to an iceberg and hauled to areas where water is scarce, providing drinking water and irrigation stores to stave off famine. The idea was originally floated by an engineer named Georges Mougin in the 1970s, and though it was laughed out of development back then, its enjoying a kind of renaissance today.
Dassault Systemes, the french software developer, has built a computer model of Mougins idea. And after 15 engineers ran the problem through their models, they found that the idea is more or less perfectly feasible. Towing an iceberg from somewhere around Newfoundland to the northwest coast of Africa would only take around five months and could still retain more than 60 percent of the icebergs mass. The downside: it would cost about $10 million.
The simulation accounted for the costs associated with fitting a huge insulating sleeve around a seven-ton iceberg, towing it across the Atlantic via tugboat and kite-sail (at a speed of about one knot), and then distributing the water inland from the coast.
END EXCERPT
Wouldn't attaching a few big diesel engines work better than tugs coordinating tow lines? Kite sail? Really?
