Water freeze: new irrigation

Chinese scientists have developed a new method of extracting water from frozen water in the oceans during the winter.

Shi Peijun, head of the research team, said the salinity of water drawn from ice was less than 0.2 percent, the level within the drinking water threshold. The process of salt extraction costs about 4 yuan / ton ($ 0.5).

A review conference conducted by the Ministry of Education concluded that the technique was ripe and met the basic requirements to start large scale trials before mass production.

Northern China's Tianjin is planning to build a project demonstrating the use of water from frozen water that will be used to irrigate crops.

Shi, who is vice president of the Beijing Normal University, said the winter ice handling near the Bohai Sea would produce 30 billion cubic meters of fresh water annually. This level is close to the amount of water flowing from the Yellow River into the Bohai Sea each year.

Q. Huang ( Xinhuanet )