Science Warms to Iceberg-Harvesting Idea

Robin Henry

From: The Australian August 08, 2011 12:00AM

An eco-entrepreneur, backed by a software company, claims to have proved that his plan to end droughts by towing giant icebergs to the Third World could become reality.

For 40 years, Georges Mougin has been struggling to convince the world that his idea to harvest icebergs could be used to solve water shortages. However, a cutting-edge computer simulation has shown that the ambitious scheme is possible and the French engineer is seeking backing to test his theory.

The breakthrough comes as droughts devastate the Horn of Africa, leaving more than 12 million people without water.

The 86-year-old's plan involves encircling the iceberg with a harness that contains a skirt made from strips of an insulating textile. This unfolds below the surface and covers the iceberg to prevent it melting. Then one tugboat uses ocean currents to help pull the massive load to warmer climes.

The project was first mooted in the 1970s when Mr Mougin, then an engineering graduate, teamed up with French polar explorer Paul-Emile Victor and Saudi prince Muhammad al-Faisal to explore ways of harnessing the billions of litres of fresh water held within icebergs.

At present, more than two billion people around the world do not have access to clean drinking water, while nearly 70 per cent of the Earth's fresh water is locked in the polar ice caps.

Around Greenland alone, more than 40,000 icebergs, weighing between 180,000 and 30 million tonnes, break away - or calve - from ice shelves each year and drift in the Atlantic until they melt. A 30 million-tonne iceberg could supply half a billion people with drinking water for one year.

"They are floating reservoirs," said Mr Mougin, who formed Iceberg Transport International in 1976. He held talks with glaciologists, engineers and scientists but was repeatedly told his scheme was too difficult and too expensive.

Mr Mougin moved on to other projects but continued to champion the idea. In 2009 he was approached by the French software specialist Dassault Systemes, which normally provides product testing for the likes of Boeing and Toyota. It had recently used 3D modelling to simulate the theory of architect Jean-Pierre Houdin on how the Great Pyramid of Giza was built and was looking for new projects.

Dassault provided Mr Mougin with a team of 15 engineers to build a simulation that would factor in all possible variables from the fuel consumption of the tugboat to the temperature and currents of the ocean.

For the trial, it designed a virtual seven million-tonne iceberg, 160m deep and 200m wide, that would be towed from the waters around Newfoundland to the Canary Isles. Using a huge, 3D viewing screen, Mr Mougin's team was able to see how the project would play out. Initially the voyage floundered, confirming the value of the simulation. The tug hit an eddy and ended up circling for a month before moving on, resulting in too much melting and heavy fuel consumption.

The solution was to change the departure date from mid-May to mid-June, according to Cedric Simard, the project's director. With the eddies dispersed at that time of year, the team showed that a tugboat travelling at one knot could tow the iceberg along the entire route in 141 days, with only 38 per cent of it melting.

The high costs involved in the project have previously scared off investors. Travelling the route with a real seven million-tonne iceberg would have cost at least pound stg. 6 million, but Mr Mougin believes the success of the simulation will help raise pound stg. 2m for a trial next year towing a small iceberg from the Antarctic to Australia.

It is not the only ambitious scheme for combating drought - other suggestions include manufacturing rainfall through cloud seeding and building mass desalination plants to purify seawater.

Source: The Sunday Times