It all started years ago when a prince of Saudi Arabia offered to pay some millions to have an iceberg towed to a Saudi port. I knew he could not tow an iceberg. But I thought he should be able to load a ship with ice and snow and sail that back to his port. Where there are icebergs there are ice and snow. The ice and snow will melt to potable water by the time his ship gets back to port. In the fifties I was in the merchant fleet. I was on a tanker and have seen icebergs. In terms of volume of fresh water a big ship full of snowmelt is the equivalent of an iceberg. A 250000-ton tanker brings back the equal of a melted iceberg of that size.
But how to get ice on a ship? My first idea was to surface mine ice on Greenland or on Antarctica and run it through a crusher and with conveyors right into the hold of a waiting tanker that has been modified for that purpose. Similar to coal and ore bulk handling operations. Technically that is no problem. I calculated that the cost of a gallon of water delivered that way would be equal to the cost of a gallon of water from the tap in a city such as Cleveland, Ohio. But politically and environmentally there might be a whole lot of intervention to the surface mining of ice.
Just about then I got involved in snow making for ski areas. I actually designed and supervised the installation of the electrical part of the first snowmaker at Keystone ski area in Colorado. And after some trials we ended up making beautiful snow. Tons of it. Gleaming white. There is the answer I thought. If we go on the ocean and make snow from sea water into the hold of a ship and we let the saltwater component trickle out of the snow before we melt it we can fill a ship with the equivalent of an iceberg and melt it to fresh water on the way back to port.
The idea is practical. We have all the technology required to make it work. The patent is issued and available. This is a cost competitive environment friendly way of making fresh water and of delivering it where it is needed. – To any terminal that is prepared to unload fresh water.
Heinz G. Stripp.