Bloomberg Businessweek - USA (2019-06-10)

sails,fromLagunaSanRafaeltoValparaiso,

wheretheywereusedfor refrigeration.In

thelate1940s,JohnIsaacsoftheScripps

InstitutionofOceanographybeganexploring

morefantasticalplans,suchastransporting

an 8 billion-tonicebergtoSanDiegotomiti-

gateCaliforniadroughts.(Icebergsofthesize

Isaacshadinmind—20mileslong,3,000feet

wide,and 1,000feet deep—are extremely

rare.)Inthe’60soilcompaniesbeganusing

thickropestowrangle andredirectmuch

smallerArcticicebergsbeforetheycollided

withrigs,a practicethat’snowcommon.If

conditionsaretoorough,ora bergtoobig,

therigssometimesneedtobemovedinstead.

Inthe’70s,theU.S.ArmyandtheRand

Corp.bothlookedintousingAntarcticiceas

a sourceoffreshwater.Ataboutthesame

time,PrinceMohammedal-Faisalbeganpour-

ingfundsintopolarresearch,in hopesthathis

assembledteamofinternationalglaciologists

andengineerswouldfinda waytoalterthe

driftoficebergs,potentiallybringing them as

far as Western Australia. Prince Mohammed

even sponsored the First International

Conference on Iceberg Utilization for Fresh

Water Production, Weather Modification and

Other Applications in, of all places, Ames,

Iowa, in 1977 and had a miniberg weighing

4,800 pounds trucked in from Alaska. “The

people of Ames have seen princes before, but

it has been many millenniums since an iceberg

has visited these parts,” wrote the New York

Times, delighting in the spectacle. The paper

also described some of the more outlandish

suggestions floated by speakers, such as out-

fitting icebergs with nuclear-powered paddle

wheels that would allow them to “be pro-

pelled as self-contained units.” One skeptical

delegate lamented: “There isn’t much money

around these days for Arctic and Antarctic

research, so they’ve flocked around

Bloomberg Businessweek | Sooner Than You Think June 10, 2019

2/2009 2/2019

250b

125

0

Gallons of stored water

at Cape Town’s six

major dams

Bound for Cape Town

Icebergdensityper20,000

squaremilesin 2017

25 to 100

100 to 300

300+

Most Antarctic icebergsare

1,300 feet to 4,000 feetlong

((1)) Encircle an iceberg in

a giant plastic net.

((2)) Use tankers and

tugboats to maneuver

the skyscraper-size berg

into a helpful current ...

((3)) ... and park it off the

coast of South Africa

three months later.

Container ships take

the water ashore.

Tanker

Tug

Iceberg

Antarctica

Australia

New Zealand

Argentina

Ice shelf

Antarctic

Circumpolar

Current

Gough

Island

Benguela

Current

②

③

①

Cape Town

DATA: CLIMATE SYSTEMS ANALYSIS GROUP, COLLECTE LOCALISATION SATELLITES, NATURAL EARTH, OLAV ORHEIM

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