Any penguins that come with the 'berg are going to be fed to the polar bears at Dubice Zoo - scandalous. The bears will be happy though because they don't often get penguin.

Way back when I was growing up in the 70's, there was a magazine called Look & Learn which we used to have in the library at school.

This was touted as a solution then - I remember seeing artist impressions of icebergs being towed by tugs.

Geektastic:

 

Way back when I was growing up in the 70's, there was a magazine called Look & Learn which we used to have in the library at school.

 

This was touted as a solution then - I remember seeing artist impressions of icebergs being towed by tugs.

 

I recall the same thing! :) The plan was that bergs would be painted with a reflective coating (silver paint?) to minimise melting. I just couldn't believe that anyone would pay for water at all.

Presumably if you put a big plastic sheet underneath it, supported by inflatable booms or whatever, you could catch all the melted water. Maybe pump it into tankers for more efficient transport.

Perhaps climate change is deliberate - melt the icebergs so we have more water..!

eracode:

 

Any penguins that come with the 'berg are going to be fed to the polar bears at Dubice Zoo - scandalous. The bears will be happy though because they don't often get penguin.

 

Why don't polar bears get to eat penguin I hear you ask. Because they're mutually exclusively non-bipolar.

Towing ice burgs though the tropics - LOL smells of false news.

Surly they'd do this instead: http://www.ecowatch.com/sundrop-farms-solar-desalination-2033987160.html 

I don't think they want it for the water. It's probably to build a temporary $100,000-a-night ice hotel 30ft inside the iceberg.

tripper1000:

 

Surly they'd do this instead: http://www.ecowatch.com/sundrop-farms-solar-desalination-2033987160.html 

 

 

 

The farm expects to produce 17,000 metric tons—37,000 pounds of tomatoes—every year, about 13 percent of Australia's market share

 

Ummm.... 17,000 metric tons (actually that would be 17,000 tonnes) is 37 MILLION pounds. 

And a bit more research...

 http://www.tomatoland.com/documents/686.pdf

 

In 2001, Australia processed 380 000 metric tonnes of tomatoes

 

Uh-oh... looks like they didn't do so well on the market share arithmetic either... looks like 4% (or less... production is rising).

Hope they've done their arithmetic better in their costings!

Our councils just give it away, why have they not setup bottling plants all over NZ

No way would it work. Ice will definitely melt quickly if the water temp is warmer than 0deg. Put some ice cubes into a glass of warm water and watch what happens. They will quickly melt until the water temp in the glass drops to 0deg. Just because they are dealing with larger pieces of ice, doesn't change the physics. If what they claimed was true those icebergs would be drifting all over the world. And there would be icebergs in Samoa and other tropical countries.

I remember seeing a news article once about a large iceberg getting close to Dunedin. But even that iceberg didn't last long.

They're a bit late.

Dick Smith did it in the 70's

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/sydney-april-fools-pranks-the-day-an-iceberg-floated-past-the-opera-house/news-story/592efb3e982c8cb43748fd2564dc524d