[ExI] towing an iceberg

[Stuart LaForge]

Quoting BillK:
> On Fri, 21 May 2021 at 19:25, spike jones via extropy-chat
> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>> Cool!  A few days ago, this huge iceberg was formed when A-76 broke  
>> off the Ronne Ice Shelf.
>>
>> A-76 has been measured at about 4300 square km, and since about 10%  
>> of an iceberg is above water, then the volume of ice is the product  
>> of square km of visible ice times the average altitude above sea  
>> level of the surface of the ice times ten.
>>
>> Sooo? by that reckoning, this is a bunch of cubic km of ice.
>>
>> California (and the US in general) is going into another damn  
>> drought.  What if? we could somehow haul A-76 up and park it about  
>> 50 km out at sea, then build a pipeline out to it which would bring  
>> fresh water from the melting ice over to the mainland.
>>
>> OK so how the heck do we haul a chunk of ice that size?

>
> You can't tow an iceberg that big!  There is already a lot of
> expertise in this. Smaller icebergs have to be towed all the time in
> the Arctic to move them away from oil rigs. 70 to 80 a year.
> A recent study is here:
> <https://www.whoi.edu/news-insights/content/can-icebergs-be-towed-to-water-starved-cities/>

So since the iceberg is so big, how about having some engineers set up  
camp on it, drill holes all over it, put masts and rigging on the  
iceberg and use a bunch of sails to move the iceberg like a giant  
ship? Once the iceberg makes it to warmer latitudes, then one could  
install Stirling heat exchange engines to power ship screws to propel  
the iceberg. Just some thoughts, not a boat expert or anything.

Stuart LaForge