UAE plans to tow Antarctic ice 9,000 km away for drinking water

Sun-scorched UAE residents will soon be able to drink water from melted icebergs hauled back from an Antarctic island nearly 9,000km away.

A company in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has come up with a bizarre plan to provide drinking water to its citizens. The National Advisor Bureau, based in Masdar City, Abu-Dhabi, plans to tap into the vast icebergs of Heard Island, about 1,000 km from the Antarctic continent.

The company will transport the icebergs 8,800 km (5,500 miles) to Fujairah, one of the seven emirates that make up the UAE. Each iceberg can provide enough drinking water for one million people for five years. The project is expected to begin in 2018.

Abdullah Mohammad Sulaiman Al Shehi, director of the company, said they have gone through the shipping route and used simulators to test the feasibility of the plan, according to Gulf News.

"Our simulator predicts it will take about a year to tow the iceberg back to the UAE," Al Shehi said of the UAE Iceberg Project. "We have a technical and financial plan. Towing the iceberg is the best option. We will start the project in early 2018. Our main goal is water. This project will also benefit tourism and the climate."

The UAE is one of the driest and most water-scarce countries in the world due to its extreme weather. The UAE receives less than 10mm of rainfall each year. Despite this, the country consumes more than twice the global average of water and could face severe drought in the next 25 years.

The average iceberg holds more than 76 billion liters of water. It takes a long time for icebergs to melt because 80% of their mass is submerged under water, while the white ice above reflects sunlight and radiates heat.

Once at the specially built treatment facility, workers mine the ice for water. The chunks are broken up and placed in giant tanks, before being filtered. “This is the purest water in the world,” says Al Shehi.

According to VNE