While the whole world is frantically planting trees to combat global warming, a team of Indonesian designers has presented a ‘cooler’ approach – an iceberg-making submarine! Looking at the predicament from a different perspective, the team led by Faris Rajak Kotahatuhaha thought, ‘why not tackle global warming by refreezing the Arctic?’ More ice would reflect the heat and keep the planet cooler.
The team (Faris Rajak Kotahatuhaha, Denny Lesmana Budi, and Fiera Alifa) proposes the use of a submarine-like vessel that can re-freeze seawater in the Arctic, turning it into miniature modular hexagonal icebergs. They call the approach “Re-iceberg-ization.” The geoengineering project was submitted to an international competition organized by the Association of Siamese Architects, and it won second place!
The masterplan calls for a fleet of the vessels to be deployed in the Arctic to create miniature icebergs, and transform seawater into new ice fields. The modular hexagonal shape of the icebergs means they can lock into one another and form massive ice sheets (new ice floes) over time.
Kotahatuhaha said:
The main goal of this idea is to restore the polar ecosystem, which has a direct effect on the balance of the global climate. In this scenario, it is better to prevent than cure.
The re-iceberg-ization concept is a proactive response to the matters related to the melting of our planet’s polar ice. The designers noticed that so much focus has been placed on protecting cities from rising sea-levels, but none on stopping it in the ocean.
For example, recent on-land projects include BIG’s large-scale flood defense system in NYC and MVRDV’s proposal of a series of measures intended to safeguard San Francisco’s Bay Area from the encroaching ocean. So, Kotahatuhaha and his colleagues decided to tackle the rising sea levels with a design that didn’t involve blocking the water from consuming the land; instead, their design stops the water from even rising so much it needs to be blocked.
How It Works
- The vessel submerges to collect seawater within its central hexagonal well-like tank.
- The vessel rises back to the surface of the sea. The tank full of water is covered to shield it from the sun and speed up the process.
- Reverse osmosis would then begin to filter some of the salt from the water and further speed up the process.
- Turbines would then be employed, blasting the tank with cold air and accelerate the freezing procedure.
- After about a month, the water is frozen, and the vessel submerges again. As it sinks, it releases the “ice baby” and refills with more seawater to start the process over again.
An “ice baby” has a volume of 2,027 cubic meters. However, clustered together in a honeycomb pattern, their volume can be infinitely expanded, forming more massive ice floes growing so long as the vessel keeps making ice babies.
To fund such a project, the vessels would be large enough to accommodate additional functions such as an underwater hotel, polar research centers, and educational excursions.
