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Shipping Water

What do you do with an aging oil tanker due to be phased out for environmental concerns? Use it to solve one of the world’s more vexing problems: Drought.

Shipping water to countries that suffer prolonged heat waves and drought may become standard in the next few decades, as climate change brings even more dramatic dry spells than we’ve already witnessed. Already, water is being shipped between France and Algeria and Turkey and Israel, and climate experts say this is one of the most viable solutions to a growing problem.

Other solutions – such as towing icebergs from the Arctic and seeding rain clouds – are receiving less support. But some worry the high price of fuel could make shipping water impractical. That concern is motivating an Australian firm to design electric-hybrid supertankers powered by solar sails to carry large quantities of fresh drinking water from one country to another. Australia, which has suffered its own water crisis, would like to be on the receiving end of those shipments.

In the meantime, some say using aging oil tankers could solve two problems at once: What to do with ships that can no longer be used to transport oil, because of environmental hazards, and how to move large quantities of water overseas.

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To read more about this and other environmental health issues, go to: www.environmentalhealthnews.org, www.ourstolenfuture.org, or www.healthandenvironment.org