Last year, we introduced you to Nicholas Sloane, who thought up a rather novel solution for the water crisis in Cape Town.

It’s simple – you just tow an iceberg from Antarctica to Cape Town and melt it down.

The problem is one does not simply tow an iceberg from Antarctica. Still, Sloane is a believer, and he’s going ahead with his plan come hell or high water.

First, some background on this guy from Business Day:

The 56-year-old SA marine-salvage master has survived two helicopter crashes and spent thousands of hours aboard ships that are burning, sinking, breaking apart, or leaking oil, chemicals, or cargo into the ocean.

Often, he gets calls in the middle of the night asking him to pack his bags and fly immediately to a disaster zone across the world, anywhere from Yemen to Papua New Guinea. Twice, he’s fought off armed pirates using water cannons, sound cannons, and strobe lights.

So he’s a real-life Indiana Jones-type. We get it.

Then, one day, he wanted to take a bath in Cape Town, mid-Day Zero panic, and couldn’t.

To forestall a shutoff, each household was permitted only 50l per day per person to cover drinking, cooking, washing, and showers.

“That’s enough to fill less than half a tub,” says Sloane, a soft-spoken man with graying hair, ruddy skin, and a deep crease between his green eyes.

“My wife used to take a bath every night and a shower every morning. She told me ‘you’d better do something’”.

His wife asked him to fix the water crisis. Think about that the next time your partner asks you to do something simple around the house.

Sloane still hasn’t taken that bath, but he’s using his specific skillset to formulate a solution. His plan to tow an iceberg is almost complete.

“To make it economically feasible, the iceberg will have to be big,” Sloane says. Ideally, it would measure about 1,000m long, 500m wide, and 250m deep, and weigh 125-million tons. “That would supply about 20% of Cape Town’s water needs for a year.”

Sloane has already assembled a team of glaciologists, oceanographers, and engineers. He’s also secured a group of financiers to fund the pioneer tow, which he calls the Southern Ice Project.

The expected cost is more than $200m, much of it to be put up by two SA banks and Water Vision, a Swiss water technology and infrastructure company.

The last step in the plan is an agreement with South Africa to buy the Antarctic water if he succeeds.

His team could charter the necessary ships and prepare all required materials within six months, though the mission will need to take place in November or December, when the Antarctic climate is somewhat less ferocious. “We’re taking on all the risk,” he says. “We’re ready to go.”

Interest in iceberg harvesting isn’t new, but has been on the uptick due to the world’s increasingly dire shortages of fresh water.

Today, as many as 2.1-billion people worldwide lack access to safe drinking water, according to the World Health Organisation, and the UN says global water demand will outstrip supply by 40% as soon as 2030.

If anyone can tow a 100-million ton iceberg through the notoriously rough Antarctic Ocean, where swells regularly reach 15 metres, Sloane can.

I reckon Liam Neeson will play him in the film one day.

[source:businessday]