DUTCH ARTIST TO MAKE ICE PRODUCING GLACIER IN THE DESERT

Dutch artist Ap Verheggen

 Image by Ap Verheggen, a digital artist impression showing a solar panel installation in the desert with ice-making capabilities

Dutch artist Ap Verheggen has expressed his plans to create a leaf-shaped "glacier" in the desert, which will produce a layer of ice on the leaf's ridged underside.  The 200 square meter (2,153 square feet) surface of the leaf will be covered with solar cells. Under the face of the elm leaf-shape structure will be cooling condensers that soak up humidity from the desert air. Even in the hottest conditions, it will produce a layer of ice on the leaf's ridged underside, as per the theorey.

"I give inspiration. What you can do with it is up to others. You have to open the borders of your thinking. To make ice in the desert is breaking down the border, and that is opening a new world. The project demonstrates that in a totally hopeless environment you can still generate hope. Let's accept the climate is changing. We have to see that as a challenge, to find new ways to deal with the changes in climate circumstances. There are solutions, and it all depends on human ingenuity. It all depends on us. Tests would be conducted next year, after which, sculpting of the massive work will begin. An unidentified north African country will be the first to host it." said Verheggen.

Scientist Andras Szollosi-Nagi says Verheggen's work falls at the crossroads of art, environment and science. "It's an amazing piece, it's very unusual and that makes it very exciting."