Potential Downsides of Ocean Energy

According to a 2001 article in the Financial Times, ocean energy systems are becoming both more efficient and more economically viable. But these energy systems are not without cost.

First, there are the prospective ecological impacts. Constructing and operating facilities will undoubtedly have environmental costs, as will diverting, moving, or variously treating large volumes of seawater. Facilities will be generating their own pollution and wastes, including light pollution. Wind turbines and underwater turbines generate noise, which is a newfound concern of marine conservationists (see Exporting Pollution in the June isse of the World Ocean Observer). And removal of nonrenewable resources such as methane hydrates and renewable ones like algae may alter both the geology or oceanography and the ecology of some marine areas.

Underlying all of these ecological unknowns is the primary, unassailable fact that surveillance, monitoring, and protection of offshore facilities are infinitely more difficult than on land. This also means that security is more challenging, and energy plants may be more vulnerable to sabotage.

Converting the energy the oceans harbor is a technological puzzle that has been largely solved by enterprising engineers and scientists equipped with ever more sophisticated tools. But supplying that energy to users remains a daunting challenge. Energy is lost as it is brought from offshore onshore, and most large scale facilities are put as far offshore as possible to minimize conflicts with other ocean users.

Entrepreneurs face huge hurdles as well, which has resulted in constrained ocean energy development. In most developed countries the regulatory burden is immense, and the complexity of jurisdictions is reflected in a corollary complexity in obtaining the necessary permits for even demonstration projects. Recognizing these disincentives, the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) announced a proposal to shorten the permitting process for pilot ocean energy projects to as little as six months.¹¹

Finally, an inadequately informed public has sometimes resisted (and in some cases even blocked) the development of new sustainable energy technologies at sea, despite the fact that the alternative -- i.e. continued reliance on conventional energy sources -- is likely to have far greater impacts on the environment of the oceans¹².

Conclusions

Our collective reliance on energy to support our lives and our industries has driven an unending search for new, lost-cost and accessible sources of energy across the entire planet. The vast oceans of the world hold great potential to meet our energy needs, especially as land-based fossil fuels become harder to find and exploit, and as concern for global warming begins to drive more forceful movement toward renewable energy use.

There are three factors that currently constrain us from using ocean energy to meet our needs. First is the lack of investment in researching new energy sources and technologies. Costs of developing and then utilizing these new technologies are prohibitive; investors cannot be assured of returns on investment for small scale experimental projects, but larger scale economically viable projects cannot be developed without the small scale prototypes. Few governments are progressive enough to sufficiently subsidize R&D in ocean energy technologies. And the few stalwart private sector companies who have embarked on the exploratory trail are understandably not willing to share their trade secrets with other companies or with government energy agencies. The solution thus lies in strong public private partnerships.

The second obstacle is insufficient education of the public at large. For too long the people of the developed world have taken energy for granted; it is only in times of high energy costs (particularly rising costs at the fuel pump or on home heating bills) that the public is even conscious of the fact that supplying energy is a costly, and sometimes unpredictable, endeavor. The sudden surge of interest in the effects of global warming, and increasing geopolitical tensions between oil supplying and oil consuming countries has opened many people’s minds to considerations of new sources of energy, as well as to issues of energy conservation. But even those open minds have had difficulty accessing good information about the costs and benefits of ocean energy. Public education and outreach which is based on the best available science, and uninfluenced by vested economic interests or political ones, is a top priority.

The last constraint is related to the first two. The public sector must find ways to increase incentives for the private sector to research and develop cost-effective and environmentally sensitive ocean energy ventures. And in order for that to happen, there needs to be political will – political will built on the realization of ocean energy potential, and political will driven by the demands of an increasingly educated and informed public. Such political will cannot blossom if politicians continue to yield to the enormous political pressure being brought down upon them by the lobbyists and spokespeople of conventional energy corporations, so developing this political will requires courage. Under the direction of good political leadership, we may soon realize the enormous potential that the oceans hold in meeting our energy needs.

Endnotes

1 http://www.eia.doe.gov

2 National Energy Education Project 2007. Ocean Energy. US Department of Energy, Washington DC

3 http://www.oceanlinx.com

4 http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfacts/sources/renewable/ocean.html

5 Charlier, R.H. 2003. Sustainable co-generation from the tides: bibliography Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 7:215-247

6 http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/tech/oceanenergy

7 A.T. Jones, 2001. Renewable ocean energy systems becoming more viable. Available at http://www.waveberg.com/pdfs/financial_times.pdf

8 DiChristina, M. Sea Power.accessed 8/1/2007 at http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/OCEAN_PLANET/HTML/ps_power.html

9 DiChristina, M. Sea Power.accessed 8/1/2007 at http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/OCEAN_PLANET/HTML/ps_power.html

10 According to the U.S. Department of Energy, an OTEC plant that generates 2-MW of net electricity could produce about 4,300 cubic meters (14,118.3 cubic feet) of desalinated water each day (http://www.eere.energy.gov/consumer/renewable_energy/ocean)

11 http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/tech/oceanenergy

12 According to http://www.iea-oceans.org/index1.htm:
“There is a growing awareness of economic, energy security and environmental values of renewables and of its critical role to sustainable development. This is leading to political initiatives to promote their development, such as the EU Directive that establishes the target of increasing the 1997 6% share of renewables to 12% in 2010, and the recently approval of ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. Renewables are also high on the agenda of developing countries, and expanded renewable energy deployment is one of the key goals of the World Bank.” The U.S., Canada, Mexico, the U.K., Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, France, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China and India are all invested in ocean energy development. “The Implementing Agreement on Ocean Energy Systems commenced in October 2001. The Agreement's mission is to enhance international collaboration to make ocean energy technologies a significant energy option in the mid-term future.”

For more information, http://www.mtpc.org/cleanenergy/wavetidal/overview.htm provides many links to ocean energy sites.