
Suriname Will Tow a Giant Bag of Water to Fight the Caribbean's Drought - protomyth
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-22/suriname-to-ship-bags-of-blue-gold-to-drought-struck-caribbean
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ChuckMcM
I always wonder about ideas like this. Desalination is a known solution and
big boats full of fuel that can power desalination plants are a solved
problem. In terms of under utilized infrastructure you could put tanks in
shipping containers and use unused container craft to move the water from port
to port. Hanjin has a bunch available for cheap at the moment.

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wila
All drinking water from the tap in Curacao has been from a huge desalination
plant for many years, see also [1]. There's a shortage of water alright, but
not drinking water.

I don't know anything about this story, but when I just asked a friend who
lives down there it was not known to him. When I showed him the article he
said that it reads more like a first of April joke as anything serious.

For the record, it does not happen much, but it has been raining down there
now for 2 whole days.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-
business/2015/feb/18...](https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-
business/2015/feb/18/caribbean-water-crisis-forcing-long-term-reliance-on-
desalination)

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stmfreak
This sound like an absurd way to get fresh water to an island.

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sliken
Dunno. Maybe a few hours of a tug boat is less energy than desalinization of a
similar amount of salt water? Not to mention desalinization plants likely cost
more than a tug boat.

Doubly so if you need to ship fuel to the desalinization plant via boat.

~~~
aaron695
> The trip to Barbados was expected to take five or six days.

One would think a pipeline would be cheaper. I guess they have done the maths
on a $2 million investment though. But it's not intuitive.

~~~
geon
Thats a long pipeline. Apparently, the Keystone pipeline cost 7 billion $.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_Pipeline](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_Pipeline)

I'm guessing a water pipeline would be cheaper, and it would need less
capacity. But it would have to be constructed for underwater conditions, and
any maintenance would be cumbersome.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
The Langeled underwater pipeline, carrying natural gas from Norway to the UK,
is a bit longer than the Barbados-Surinam distance (at 1200 km), and cost
approx. 2 billion USD adjusted for inflation. That's a really big-ass pipeline
though, at 44" diameter. I guesstimate they could probably get this water
pipeline done at about a hundred million USD.

Edit: Digging a bit further, subsea pipeline lay cost can be roughly
approximated at 0.04 million USD per inch-kilometer (that is, multiplied by
pipeline length and by diameter in inches) for 8"-24" pipe. Furthermore we can
estimate that Barbados would need a flowrate of 5 000 L/s to supplement their
water supply, giving an optimal pipeline diameter of 8". That means it would
cost 942km * 8in * 0.04 million USD/(km*in) = 300 million USD.

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StavrosK
What do you base that estimate on, given that planning, permits, work etc
don't scale with the diameter of the pipe?

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semi-extrinsic
Actually, work does scale with the diameter. For lower diameter pipe, you can
use a smaller, less specialized lay barge with less crew, the welding goes
quicker meaning progress is faster, and you can fit more km of pipe on each
supply ship.

Also, the cost of permits (called Right-Of-Way, ROW) is a very small fraction
of the total cost, as is the planning cost. Materials cost for the pipe, OTOH,
can be as much as 60% of total.

~~~
aaron695
I guess the boat system can be moved around the world to meet demand. Unlike a
pipeline that might not get used again for another 10 years.

Still I think the numbers seem off for a boat dragging water in bags for 6
days to be cost effective.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
If you've never purchased pressure-rated pipe, you'd be shocked at the cost of
even a 6m piece of 1" PN20 pipe.

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tarr11
If people are willing to pay as much for water as they do for oil or gas, can
we use oil infrastructure (tankers, pipelines, trains, etc) to transport
water?

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EricBurnett
Can we assume they'd be willing? Here in Canada I use orders of magnitude more
water than oil products, and would be willing to pay commensurately less.

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tarr11
[http://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view_group.php?i...](http://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view_group.php?id=5047)

Looks like water costs $2 / cubic meter, and oil costs 100x more than that, so
we have a long way to go before this makes any sense.

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codecamper
Nothing to see here folks. Move along. Business as normal. Clever engineering
is all it is.

Pretty soon we'll be towing icebergs & what an amazing day that will be.

~~~
asdfasdfa11112
Historically, ice was actually towed (stowed and sailed) from the Northeastern
US to e.g. India, and other hot climates.

It was a huge industry in the northeast in the 17th(? I think) century. Got
this info from an awesome documentary called the Science of Cold.

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trendkill
Jesus, does this ever sound like a terrible idea to operate at scale.

I hope this is something that's only reserved for emergencies, and is
otherwise unprofitable.

I get the feeling that this could become horribly destructive behavior, if it
catches on as a global trend.

Meanwhile, quotes such as these are disturbing to read:

    
    
      We have a nearly unlimited 
      source of fresh water in 
      Suriname.
    

Actually, in terms of things human activity can place stress upon, and
ultimately ruin, few things are "nearly unlimited."

