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Contemporary water is changing into more and more scarce in lots of international locations, however not in Greenland. Its ice sheet incorporates 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, increasingly more of Greenland’s water is ready to movement off the island yearly.
In some locations dealing with water shortages, these exact same water molecules are probably being taken from the ocean and turned again into contemporary water utilizing desalination, at massive electrical and monetary price. 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 delivery it overseas.
“We have now one of many world’s most interesting assets on this space and loads of it, and we wish to push that message out to traders and potential markets,” says Naaja H. Nathanielsen, Greenland’s minister for enterprise and commerce.
The startup behind the thought, Arctic Water Bank, plans to construct a dam in South Greenland, seize meltwater, after which transport it around the globe by boat in bulk water carriers. If all goes in line with plan, the corporate says the undertaking will likely be utterly carbon-neutral and inflict minimal harm to the native atmosphere.
“That is a number of the cleanest water on this planet. 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 at the start, 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 individuals of Greenland by leveraging the nation’s pure assets and paying taxes on earnings generated from them, and it’s an ambition the federal government shares. “The aim 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 in all probability not one thing our little enterprise can clear up 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 subsequent 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 solely meltwater from the Greenland ice sheet. However earlier than any water might be shipped, a dam should be constructed, and Arctic Water Financial institution will want an Environmental Influence Evaluation (EIA) to be accomplished to get began on building.
This isn’t as nice a hurdle because it may appear. Greenland could also be one of the vital untouched environments on this planet—roughly the dimensions of Western Europe and residential to fewer than 60,000 individuals—however the building of dams just isn’t unparalleled, says Karl Zinglersen, head of the Division of Setting and Minerals on the Greenland Institute of Pure Assets. Within the early 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 hardly ever if ever stops a undertaking.
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