阿联酋富翁计划用南极冰山供水

An inventor and entrepreneur from the UAE plans to drag an iceberg to Australia or South Africa later this year — at a cost of US$80 million.

Abdulla Alshehi says a chunk of Antarctic ice will be towed to either Cape Town or Perth at some point in 2019.

The mission will act as a test run for a much more ambitious project which he hopes will end with a hunk of ice measuring 1.9 km by 0.5 km being taken to the UAE.

Speaking to Euronews’s Inspire Middle East, Alshehi said, “As per our analysis, it will be cheaper to bring in these icebergs than using desalinated water (gained by stripping the salt out of sea water).

“Desalination plants require a huge amount of capital investment and mean pumping a huge amount of sea water to the gulf, killing fish and marine life.”

Alshehi points out that similar schemes were trialed before by the likes of Saudi Arabia, but their project failed in 1977 due to technical difficulties.

He plans to overcome these difficulties using a metal “belt” which will be constructed around the ice, before using a boat to drag the block across the ocean.

The block selected for use by the UAE will be chosen via satellite and could measure as much as 1.9 km long and 0.5 km across.

It is expected to lose around 30 percent of its mass during its 10-month journey from Heard Island near Antarctica to the Fujairah coast.

Even so, the block will provide millions of liters of fresh drinking water to the Arab kingdom, as well as bringing natural rain clouds by releasing cool, damp air.

The final project will cost between US$100 million and US$150 million, in addition to the US$60 million to US$80 million spent on the test run.

The UAE is one of the most arid countries and one of the top 10 most water-scarce in the world, due to its extremely arid climate, which receives less than 100 mm of rainfall per year.

Despite that, it consumes more water than double the global national average putting the country at severe risk of droughts over the next 25 years.

An average iceberg contains more than 20 billion gallons of water, according to the company.

Upon arrival at a specially constructed processing facility, workers will “mine” the icebergs for their water supplies.

Words to Learn 相关词汇

【淡化】dànhuà

desalinate remove salt from seawater

【干旱】gānhàn

drought a period of dryness especially when prolonged

阿联酋的一位发明家兼企业家计划今年晚些时候将一座冰山拖到澳大利亚或南非，预计耗资8000万美元。

阿卜杜拉·阿尔谢希称，今年将把一块南极冰山拖到开普敦或珀斯。

此次任务只是试水，未来还有更加宏伟的计划。他希望最后能将一大块长1.9千米宽500米的冰山带回阿联酋。

阿尔谢希对欧洲新闻电视台启迪中东频道的记者说：“据我们的分析，把冰山运过来比使用淡化的海水更便宜。”

“海水淡化厂需要巨额资金投入，同时也意味着要把大量海水注入海湾，杀死鱼和其他海洋生物。”

阿尔谢希指出，沙特阿拉伯此前也试行过类似的计划，但因为技术难关在1977年失败了。

阿尔谢希克服技术难关的计划是在冰山四周建起一个金属“带”，然后用一艘船穿越海洋将冰山拖回来。

阿联酋将通过卫星选定目标冰山，尺寸大概是1.9千米长500米宽。

将冰山从南极洲附近的赫德岛拖到富查伊拉海岸，在长达10个月的旅途中预计会损失约30%的体积。

即使如此，余下的冰山仍会为阿联酋提供数百万升新鲜饮用水，还能通过释放湿冷空气形成天然雨云。

除去试水工程所花费的6000万至8000万美元，最终的工程将耗资1亿至1.5亿美元。

由于极度干旱的气候，阿联酋是世界上最干旱的国家之一，也是全球最缺水的十个国家之一，每年降水还不到100毫米。

尽管如此，阿联酋消耗的水量却是全球平均水平的两倍多，这将使其在未来25年出现严重旱灾风险。

根据这家公司的数据，一座冰山平均含有超200亿加仑的水。

一旦冰山到达专门的处理厂，工人就会从冰山“开采”水资源来供水。

(Chinadaily.com.cn)