Offshore renewable energy technologies are being tested and deployed around the world to mitigate climate change and to bring clean sustainable energy to remote locations. The trend is being led by the development of offshore wind, with energy from waves, tides, and large run of the river turbines also increasing. However, there are additional marine renewable energy technologies that will help to fill in gaps of availability and location for power production. These emerging technologies are generally less well known, including ocean thermal energy conversion, seawater air conditioning, power from salinity gradients, and floating solar photovoltaics (floatovoltaics). Coupled with each of these power production systems is the need for energy systems at sea to aid in storage and transport of the energy. There is little known about the potential environmental effects of these emerging technologies or undersea energy storage, or how they might best be managed. This paper describes the new technologies and explores the potential effects on the marine environment and wildlife and recommends approaches to their management.
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The global expansion in offshore renewable energy, primarily through offshore wind, is associated with the proliferation of subsea power cables (SPCs) throughout marine and coastal benthic environments. The transmission of electrical power through these SPCs will introduce electromagnetic fields (EMFs) into the seabed and the adjacent water column, which raises questions regarding the potential impact on benthic fauna, particularly during critical developmental early-life stages for which research considering the effects of both the electric and magnetic components of SPC EMFs is lacking. We conducted an experiment on three benthic egg-laying species, – the elasmobranch Scyliorhinus canicula, the cephalopod Loligo vulgaris, and the cephalopod Sepia officinalis – found in areas under consideration for the routing of SPCs. We exposed the embryos to realistic EMF levels (magnetic field 4–6 μT) recreated in the laboratory using an AC power cable set-up that simulated the EMF conditions, and examined the morphological, physiological, and behavioural responses. Our findings indicate subtle responses to EMF exposure in S. canicula and L. vulgaris with faster growth rates and morphometric differences, but no responses in S. officinalis. Our results highlight the value of a multiple end point approach to determine the potential influence of chronic exposure to EMFs on embryogenesis in benthic fauna and provide a baseline for future studies to build upon. Although our study cannot extrapolate the consequences of individuallevel effects to population-level impacts, it does underscore the necessity of realistic and longer-term studies to assess the potential consequences of EMFs to marine fauna.
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