In Greenland, ice from glaciers is sometimes used in unexpected ways. Two companies, for example, are working on making bottled water, vodka, and beer from glacial ice.
According to the BeverageDaily, Greenland Ice Cap Productions would be harvesting the ice from a glacial ice field in the country (with the government’s permission) and supplying it to Premium Glacier, a Canadian company that would then make and sell the products.
Another way people in Greenland use the glacial ice is to cool drinks. According to the Guardian, several entrepreneurs have tried to export the glacial ice (to be used in drinks) in the past, albeit unsuccessfully.
What appears to be the first successful export of glacial ice from Greenland has recently been carried out by startup Arctic Ice.
Based in Greenland, the startup was founded in 2022 and has now successfully shipped its first batch of 20 metric tonnes of glacial ice to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — to be used in the country’s hotels, bars, and restaurants.
The ice, which the startup says is the “purest ice in the world,” is sourced “directly from the natural glaciers in the Arctic which have been in frozen state for more than 100.000 Years.”
“These parts of the ice sheets have not been in contact with any soils or contaminated by pollutants produced by human activities,” adds Arctic Ice. “This makes Arctic Ice the Cleanest H20 on Earth.”
According to the startup’s co-founder Malik V Rasmussen, as reported by the Guardian, the ice has no bubbles whatsoever. It is purer than the water normally used in ice cubes in Dubai and does not melt as quickly.
“Helping Greenland in its green transition is actually what I believe I was brought into this world to do. We do have that agenda running through the company, but we may not have communicated it well enough yet,” Rasmussen said.
As the Guardian notes, Artic Ice says its ice is “environmentally friendly and of social value,” and that it is “committed to becoming fully carbon-neutral.”
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So how does the ice reach the UAE? Eimskip, a shipping company from Iceland, first takes the ice to Denmark. In Denmark, the ice is transported to another ship which then takes it to Dubai, around Europe and through the Suez Canal.
According to the Guardian’s estimates, the route has 9,000 nautical miles and lasts 19 days in total.
The trip to Denmark, Arctic Ice says, is of “low carbon intensity;” Greenland imports more products than it exports, and the ice is transported in shipping containers that would otherwise leave Greenland empty.
Their excess supply chain emissions will be compensated for through carbon capture and storage, the company says, or “through emerging technologies that suck CO2 out of the air.”
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by the authors are their own, not those of Impakter.com — Featured Photo Credit: Arctic Ice.
