Fresh water is becoming increasingly scarce in many countries, but not Greenland. Its ice sheets contain approximately 6.5 percent of the world’s fresh water, and it is estimated that more than 350 trillion liters flow into the ocean annually. And climate change is accelerating the melting of the Arctic, causing more of Greenland’s water to leave the island each year.
In some regions facing water scarcity, those very same water molecules may be extracted from the ocean and returned to fresh water through desalination, at significant electrical and economic costs. It costs money. This inspired the startup to pursue an unusual and ambitious undertaking, partially approved by Greenland’s government, to harvest glacier meltwater and ship it overseas.
“We are rich in one of the world’s best resources in this field and we want to spread that message to investors and potential markets,” said Naadja H. Nathanielsen, Greenland’s Minister of Industry and Commerce. say.
Arctic Water Bank, the start-up company behind the idea, plans to build a dam in South Greenland, capture meltwater, and transport it around the world by boat in bulk water carriers. If all goes to plan, the project will be completely carbon neutral and cause minimal damage to the local environment, the company said.
“We have some of the cleanest water in the world. Anyone who has tried Greenland’s water knows that it is pure white gold,” said the startup’s co-founder. says Samir Ben Tabib, Head of International Relations.
Ben-Tabib emphasizes that the Arctic Water Bank is first and foremost a business, but believes it can also serve Greenlanders and the wider world. He insists his company will help the people of Greenland by exploiting the country’s natural resources and paying taxes on the revenue it generates, an ambition shared by the government. “Our goals are two-fold,” Nathanielsen said. “It’s about new sources of revenue for the national treasury, as well as local business development and associated job creation.”
In the long term, Ben-Tabib says, the Arctic Water Bank could help alleviate the looming global water crisis. “It’s probably not a problem that our small company can solve alone, but in Greenland, fresh water is the only resource that flows into the ocean.”
At this time, startup has the required initial privileges. According to documents obtained by WIRED, the government has given the company exclusive rights to use all of the river’s water and ice near the town of Narsak for the next 20 years. The river produces an average of 21.3 billion liters of water per year, almost all of which is meltwater from the Greenland ice sheet. But before the water can be transported, a dam must be built, and an environmental impact assessment (EIA) must be completed before construction of the Arctic Water Bank can begin.
This isn’t as big a hurdle as you might think. Greenland may be one of the world’s most pristine environments – roughly the size of Western Europe and home to fewer than 60,000 people – but building dams is not unheard of, says Karl from the Ministry of Environment and Minerals.・Director Zinglarsen says: Greenland Natural Resources Institute. The first hydroelectric dam was built in the early 1990s to serve the capital Nuuk, and since then a small number of hydroelectric dams have been built across the country. The EIA process is very thorough, Zingarssen says, but in his experience it rarely stalls projects.
