A 7,000 foot long iceberg would be difficult to tow, and by the time it arrived in Dubai would probably fit into a styrofoam cooler.
Yeah that melting thing does cut into profits.
Up to four-fifths of an iceberg’s mass is underwater, and due to their vast density, they would theoretically not melt in the boiling climate of the Middle Eastern coastal line. Mr Al Shehi says it could take up to a year to drag the huge body of ice up to the UAE, and the project is set to begin in 2018.
Ice was harvested in New England, packed in straw lined ships and sold in India for a very nice profit in the 19th Century. The loss from melt would probably be much less than 1% of the mass during transit of a giant iceberg.
The potential for hazard to navigation presents new vistas in admiralty law.
Maybe they’ll put it in a really really big Yeti cooler.
“A 7,000 foot long iceberg would be difficult to tow, and by the time it arrived in Dubai would probably fit into a styrofoam cooler.”
Wonder if the engineering company is considering use of US Patent 4334873, which suggests using the melting ice to propel an iceberg - combination of a water from the top of the iceberg providing some energy and using a heat cycle engine with the temperature difference of the seawater and iceberg. Don’t know if anyone has really worked out the numbers to see if more than the cooler would finish the trip - but theoretically feasible.
They talk about transmission losses with electricity...imagine the skipper of whatever boat looking back and saying, “ It was there a minute ago!”
“A 7,000 foot long iceberg would be difficult to tow, and by the time it arrived in Dubai would probably fit into a styrofoam cooler.”
yep. this cool “idea” of towing icebergs thousands of miles has been floated at least once a decade for the last 50 years ... (reader can decide if all the puns are intended or not ...)
“A 7,000 foot long iceberg would be difficult to tow, and by the time it arrived in Dubai would probably fit into a styrofoam cooler.”
Wonder if the engineering company is considering use of US Patent 4334873, which suggests using the melting ice to propel an iceberg - combination of a water from the top of the iceberg providing some energy and using a heat cycle engine with the temperature difference of the seawater and iceberg. Don’t know if anyone has really worked out the numbers to see if more than the cooler would finish the trip - but theoretically feasible.