AquaFreezing: Energy and Engineering

We call our method 'AquaFreezing' as we plan to flood the sea ice in the winter and insulate the ice at the end of winter so we can expect it to last through the summer months

If we focus on the areas where we can preserve or restore full-year sea-ice (7 million km2, of which 1.38 million km2 to be re-iced annually):

The useful period for re-icing with the snow flooding method would be September - December, for a total of around 17 weeks.

Similarly, the useful period for creating snow would be March - May, for a total of around 13 weeks

Ice making: we could start from the colder places, where in September we have both solid ice and snow

By relocating energy hubs over this period, and letting water pumps automatically relocate, we would be able to cover the ~1.4 million km2 required annually, in 17 chunks of ~82,000 km2, each one to be covered every week.
These would require about 820 energy hubs, each covering 100 km2 and requiring 625 water pumps each (covering 0.16 km2 )

We would need a total of 520,000 water pumps
Each pump would need to displace 160,000 m2 x 15 cm = 24,000 m3 of seawater in a week = 143 m3/hr

Snowmaking: we would start from the warmer places, in March, and move towards the colder places over the following months

Artificial snow will require 8 cm of water for a 20 cm layer (~400 kg/m3)
The snowmaking pumps will have a smaller range, e.g. 10,000 m2 (100x100m) as snow will not spread automatically
Covering 10,000 m2 at 8 cm = 800 m3 of seawater, which could be distributed in 8 hours (100 m3/hr)

In 1 week an individual pump would be able to cover around 210,000 m2

Snowmaking pumps will have to relocate multiple times per day, given their lower range but also easier task

800 m3 per location vs. 24,000 m3 for ice-making

The 13 weeks for snow production will allow for 2.73 km2 per pump vs. 2.72 km2 for ice-making