Recent water is turning into more and more scarce in lots of international locations, however not in Greenland. Its ice sheet accommodates around 6.5 percent of the world’s contemporary water, and over 350 trillion liters are estimated to run into the ocean yearly. And with local weather change accelerating Arctic melting, an increasing number of of Greenland’s water is ready to move off the island yearly.
In some locations dealing with water shortages, these exact same water molecules are doubtlessly being taken from the ocean and turned again into contemporary water utilizing desalination, at giant electrical and monetary value. This has impressed a startup to pursue an uncommon and impressive enterprise enterprise that has been partially accredited by the Greenland authorities—harvesting glacier meltwater and transport it overseas.
“We’ve one of many world’s best sources on this space and loads of it, and we wish to push that message out to buyers and potential markets,” says Naaja H. Nathanielsen, Greenland’s minister for enterprise and commerce.
The startup behind the concept, Arctic Water Bank, plans to construct a dam in South Greenland, seize meltwater, after which transport it world wide by boat in bulk water carriers. If all goes in response to plan, the corporate says the venture will likely be fully carbon-neutral and inflict minimal harm to the native setting.
“That is a number of the cleanest water on the earth. Anybody who has tried Greenlandic water is aware of that it’s pure, white gold,” says Samir Ben Tabib, cofounder and head of worldwide relations on the startup.
Arctic Water Financial institution is in the beginning, Ben Tabib stresses, a enterprise, however he believes it may additionally present a service to Greenlanders and the broader world. He argues that his firm will assist the folks of Greenland by leveraging the nation’s pure sources and paying taxes on earnings generated from them, and it’s an ambition the federal government shares. “The objective is twofold,” says Nathanielsen. “It’s about new sources of earnings for the nationwide treasury, and native enterprise improvement and the related creation of jobs.”
In the long term, Ben Tabib says, Arctic Water Financial institution may even assist mitigate the impending global water crisis. “It’s most likely not one thing our little enterprise can resolve alone, however in Greenland, contemporary water is a useful resource that’s simply washing into the ocean.”
Proper now, the startup has the preliminary permissions it wants. In paperwork seen by WIRED, the federal government grants the corporate sole rights for the following 20 years to make use of all water and ice from a river close to the city of Narsaq. On common, this river produces 21.3 billion liters of water every year, virtually completely meltwater from the Greenland ice sheet. However earlier than any water will be shipped, a dam have to be constructed, and Arctic Water Financial institution will want an Environmental Impression Evaluation (EIA) to be accomplished to get began on development.
This isn’t as nice a hurdle because it might sound. Greenland could also be one of the vital untouched environments on the earth—roughly the scale of Western Europe and residential to fewer than 60,000 folks—however the development of dams just isn’t unprecedented, says Karl Zinglersen, head of the Division of Setting and Minerals on the Greenland Institute of Pure Sources. Within the early Nineteen Nineties, the primary hydroelectric dam was constructed to serve the capital of Nuuk, and since then, a handful of smaller hydroelectric dams have been constructed across the nation. The EIA course of may be very thorough, says Zingerlsen, however in his expertise it not often if ever stops a venture.
