Greenland startup begins shipping glacier ice to cocktail bars in the UAE
Greenland startup begins shipping glacier ice to cocktail bars in the UAE
Arctic Ice argues its rare, pure product can be part of Greenland’s green transition and greater independence
Arctic Ice harvests ice from the fjords of Greenland, and then ships them to the United Arab Emirates to sell to exclusive bars. Using glacial ice in drinks is a common practice in Greenland, and, over the years, several entrepreneurs have unsuccessfully attempted to export it.
Its co-founder Malik V Rasmussen said the ice, which has been compressed over millennia, is completely without bubbles and melts more slowly than regular ice. It is also purer than the frozen mineral water usually used in Dubai’s ice cubes.
When the world starts burning, these guys will be selling marshmallows on the side. Fuck everything about this, from the bottom of my heart.
You gotta make a living. Why not make a living off of those stupid idiots who value your magic ice over regular ice. It's like selling overpriced paper cards with pretty pictures to kids who love Pokemon. Except kids are kids and these arabs are supposed to be fully capable adults. It's a low risk, high reward game. I can't blame them.
Maybe because it makes global warming much worse, shipping refridgerated ice through the air to the desert?
I guess you didn't read the article then?
Wrong guess.
Harvesting this ice is not carbon neutral.
A ship filled with ice will burn more fuel compared to an empty ship. A refrigerated ship even more so. An ice cube paid with petrodollars to travel a few thousand miles just for some asshole bragging rights, I mean, I can't even... Why is there a demand for this in the first place?The gall of claiming this a low carbon business is perplexing. Low compared to what, exactly? If I make solar powered freezers in UAE and freeze distilled water, I'm pretty sure I would get the same results at a mere fraction of the total cost. But hey, no bragging rights.
Just sums up our dumb fucking species.
That's dumb, just drink your cocktail with normal ice, or use RO water if you really can taste the mineral content.
There are specialty companies in New York City that supply cocktail ice, but the ice is designed with a good flavor profile and is completely clear.
And this is something that actually makes sense.
RO water would be the opposite of what you'd want if you want all the non-water things in your ice
The claim here from the summary is that the water is more pure than the mineral water. You could also just do distilled water and customize the mineral content with additions like brewers and sparkling water makers do. I just don't see how it would be cost effective to ship thousands of pounds of glacier ice vs freezing as needed. You could even make a pressurized freezer and probably achieve the same effect.
This business is built on people with more money than sense.
I always wonder what they were thinking as they chopped down the last tree on easter island.
I put this in the cross post, bit figure it belongs here, too:
While ridiculous, there's interesting context here.
- Greenland has little to no economy
- The ice is mined from ice that has already broken away from the glacier, thus not reducing any more than nature has already
- Cargo ships bringing frozen food used to leave empty, now that same fuel is used to transport ice back instead of going to waste
- The founder has always dreamed of a sustainable economy for Greenland
- He is conflicted about how his work to do this in a sustainable way is being taken
Lots of gray here.
Death threats don't go far enough.
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Drinking a cocktail on top of a Dubai skyscraper may seem decadent enough, but a Greenland entrepreneur wants to add ancient glacier ice scooped from the fjords to the glass, for the ultimate international thrill.
Using glacial ice in drinks is a common practice in Greenland, and, over the years, several entrepreneurs have unsuccessfully attempted to export it.
These parts of the ice sheets have not been in contact with any soils or contaminated by pollutants produced by human activities.
Other reactions and private messages have gone even further, including some comments which, according to Rasmussen, have “verged on death threats”.
The first stage of the shipping, from Greenland to Denmark, is, Arctic Ice argues, of low carbon-intensity, as most refrigerated shipping containers that leave Greenland would have been empty, because the country imports more frozen goods than it exports.
It has now committed to becoming fully carbon-neutral, and once the supply chain has been established and Arctic Ice’s carbon footprint calculated, all excess emissions will be calculated and compensated for, either through carbon capture and storage, or through emerging technologies that suck CO2 out of the air.
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This is so fucked up and it will work because those rich Saudis don't give a damn about this climate thing considering where their money comes from.
This sounds SUPER sustainable. And THANK GOODNESS the superior humans of the UAE get to drink their hypocritical cocktails with whacky ice!!!
I hate capitalism.