French Engineer Wants To Tug Icebergs To Parched Saudi Arabia

The man who can sell icebergs to eskimo may be a great salesman, but the guy who can tug icebergs to Saudi Arabia will be remembered as an engineering genius.

French engineer Georges Mougin may be that man. Fast Company reports that ever since the 1970s, he's been working on a method to tow freshwater icebergs across the Arctic. Now, with 3-D tech, declassified satellite data, and tugboats, he might have cracked the way to quench the world's thirst.

There are some keys to doing this right: Mougin says icebergs have to be harvested at the right time and that flat, table-shaped icebergs -- unlike the stereotypically craggy kind -- are less likely to crack and bust under the strain of being pulled a few thousand miles.

Read more at Fast Company.

Comments

[Oussa Jman]

03:09 PM on 06/09/2011

How about a very long pipe from a melting plant in siberia?

[Hans Struhar]

07:17 PM on 06/08/2011

hey why not an even exchange we give you water and you give us oil, how about that, because in the end it is water that will be the most precious item this planet will have,.....

[topop101]

06:29 PM on 06/08/2011

let then drink oil

[Isabella Caldwell]

09:41 AM on 06/08/2011

Yes, let's take ice away from the Arctic and put it where ice (or water at all!) isn't as common and then, 20 years from now, hear the whines and cries of how the environmental damage in the Arctic and in Saudi Arabia is so great. Because, of course, growing green grass in the desert doesn't affect the environment at all. Just ask California. /headdesk

[angelavictoria5]

07:24 PM on 06/08/2011

You have a good point Isabella.

[mrdpavo]

10:26 PM on 06/08/2011

Exactly.