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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Although the Later Stone Age as a distinctive techno-cultural phase has disappeared, forager groups in the African rainforest persist today. However, their origins remain poorly understood. The absence of stone tool production raises questions about the pace and processes of its decline and its relationship to the emergence or adoption of metallic tools. Archaeological sequences from the Middle and Late Holocene are particularly valuable for documenting the coexistence of diverse subsistence strategies and technologies within the Central African rainforest. In this context, the Pahon Cave sequence, in Gabon, spanning a period from 7,571 cal. BP to 2,523 cal. BP, provides an opportunity to study the evolution of stone tool production in the rainforest of the Ogooué Basin. This chronological range coincides with significant broader techno-cultural and environmental changes in Central Africa. This article provides a detailed description of the lithic industry for each layer, along with the identification of faunal remains, giving insight into the exploitation of rainforest resources and hunting practices. At Pahon Cave, our findings suggest that stone tool technology remained stable over time, at least until around 2,523 cal. BP. Furthermore, the technological characteristics of the lithic industry indicate no clear cultural affiliations. These features contribute highlighting a techno-cultural diversity during the Middle and Late Holocene Later Stone Age in Atlantic Central Africa.
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