Iceberg Melting or Block Shipment

Some scientists have already set forth an idea to deliver water in the form of icebergs. They have even calculated possible ways of transporting million-ton icebergs from Antarctica to Saudi Arabia. Up-to-date technologies allow for transportation of icebergs in three ways:

- in a liquid state, although it would take a lot of energy to melt the ice and then deliver it;

- in the form of small pieces of ice; this would allow saving a lot of energy, but the spending on various equipment would increase;

- in the form of large ice bars; this would require lower power inputs, but this method would cause a lot of severe loading problems.

All of the three variants are very expensive, so the prime cost of the delivered water will be high. Current handling equipment and shipping does not allow for dealing with such huge masses and dimensions. Moreover, the areas of the supposed activity (Antarctica, Greenland) are not good for big installations and mechanisms. Also, there are no ships that would be capable of transporting huge ice bars or blocks.

Russian engineer Gamid Khalidov has patented a system involving bars and blocks of ice being produced on the icebergs. Special ice-cutting devices will cut ice into bars or blocks, which will then be pulled into the sea and taken to special ice-carrying vessels. When the vessel arrives in a Saudi port, for example, it unloads ice bars in the water and special powerful winches pull them to the berth. After ice bars are taken out of the water, they are moved to a special chute and then transported to an ice-receiver, which is located close to the shore. This ice-receiver allows for production of needed amounts of cold water and air too. (Source: Pravda via Antarctic News Archives)