It’s a claim that has been made by British technology company Ioniq – the same company that went public earlier this year on how it has mapped Portugal’s underground wealth, but simply cannot get any national government to run with the results (click here).
Chief operating officer Damon Walker has been in touch with the Resident on a day marked by further ‘tragedy’ as the fallout from the devastating fires of Sunday October 15 persists: a burns victim battling for life in hospital has died, bringing October’s death toll now to 45.
Meantime, Civil Protection has confirmed that a second victim is also in an unstable situation.
But if Damon Walker’s information is correct, this month’s fires might never have raged so horrifically out of control.
As he explained, “containment is key. With the enormous bodies of underground water that we have identified, the authorities could have contained these fires by up to 40-50%”.
In future, if Ioniq’s new challenge is accepted, fire breaks could be ploughed into areas where the water exists and then pumped up to fight any advancing flames.
So, what is Ioniq’s new challenge? The company simply wants to reach decision-makers and give them their “game-changing information”.
“We have been trying for so long”, Walker told us.
“We are utterly prepared to say that we will give this information for no cost at all.
“Call it a humanitarian effort. Call it what you like. There is no reason for this country to burn, and we mean to show a way out of this vicious, destructive, tragic cycle”.
Ioniq’s past experience with the Portuguese government came badly unstuck when it tried to get political leaders to act “for the good of the country”.
“The problem was that the people we spoke to kept saying that there was no legislation in place to allow for a government to take the initiative when it came to exploration: mining, drilling, etc.
“They wanted us to apply for a concession to develop the resources ourselves. We aren’t a mining company. We simply wanted to sell our information so that the government could develop it to help the country crawl out of its crippling debt.
“Our position was that if the law didn’t allow for this, it is time the law changed!”
Ioniq is currently involved in a number of water captation projects in Angola, and it is because of this that Walker is currently in Lisbon on business.
But his challenge is now out there. If the government is interested in Ioniq’s maps on where it can find water, the company is ready and waiting to hand them over.
The Resident will be in touch with the contacts we have in Portuguese political quarters as Walker says Ioniq has all but given up.
“There is a limit to the amount of time you can invest in trying to break down a brick wall”, he told us. “But in this instance, we are talking about saving lives. It’s well worth another try”.
Ioniq’s technology involves the interpretation of molecular resonance powered by satellite data.
The company claims it can identify thousands of underground natural resources with surgical-strike accuracy.
Walker told us in March that Ioniq conducts business very much on a face-to-face level as its technology is “hugely disruptive to a multi-million dollar industry”, and an online presence would simply open the door to complications.
