Experts: Antarctica's icebergs can be "pulled away" to alleviate South Africa's water problems

According to reports, South Africa's marine salvage expert Nick Sloan and his team hope to use water nets to drag icebergs from Antarctica for urban water use. Earlier this year, Cape Town suffered a severe drought and the capital ran out of water in just a few weeks. To prevent this terrible situation from happening again, Sloan came up with a solution. He hoped to drag a 91 million tons of iceberg from Antarctica to South Africa to provide a much-needed fresh water supply. For this bizarre mission, marine salvage experts readily acknowledged that "it sounds crazy", and icebergs will cross 1200 miles (1900 kilometers) of open water. A three-month haul would cost at least 7.2 billion pounds, but this iceberg could provide 30% of Cape Town's annual water requirements. Sloan said that nearly 100 million tons of icebergs pulled from Antarctica could provide South Africa with 150 million liters of usable water per day. The maverick salvage expert admitted in a recent interview: "The idea sounds crazy, but if you look at these details, it won't be so crazy." Sloan in Cape Town is the American Ocean A director of the salvage company Resolve Marine. He claims that his existing team (Southern Ice team) will be able to use water nets to drag huge icebergs back to the South African coast. Wrapping icebergs in professional geotextiles also prevents them from melting before they reach South Africa. However, despite such precautions, the team acknowledged that the iceberg could shrink by almost 30% on its northbound journey. More than 200 billion tons of ice are separated from Antarctica each year, and his team predicts that about 7% of the ice will be suitable for towing, and the iceberg will be carefully selected by drones and radiological scanning technology. Large oil tankers will direct these ice cubes into the Benguela Current on the west coast of southern Africa. It is unclear whether Cape Town authorities will be persuaded to accept the iceberg project. "At this stage, we think that options for groundwater or desalination seem cheaper, or at least the same cost," said Ian Nelson, Deputy Mayor of Cape Town. Sloan said the iceberg plan would not address the crisis in Cape Town, but it would account for 20% to 30% of its annual demand. According to Olaf Olheim, former director of the Norwegian Polar Institute, the project will target a "plate-like and steep side" as part of the current Southern Ice project. This is no longer unrealistic, because we know more now than when we started this study 40 years ago. As for Sloan, he was ready for the green light. "If they tell us to go now, we can bring it here before Easter (2019)," he said.