How wind turbines can become homes for marine life

February 3, 2024 1:13 PM

"Like a shipwreck on a seabed": How wind turbines can become homes for marine life. Experts say wind turbines can create new marine habitats for marine life.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries (1 comment total)

One issue being the seabed is already home to marine life. There have been quite a lot of studies of the impacts of offshore in terms of installation, operation and decommissioning and as regards electrical fields, noise, impact on sedimentary movement, and in regard of benthic life, bird life (including migrating species), and lots of what lives in the sea including fish and especially species impacted by electrical fields, seals, dolphins, etc.

Floating wind offers new potential seabed ecologies. While the turbine tower won't reach the seabed, a floating turbine will need to have about a third of a kilotonne of moorings per turbine. It's early days but there is certainly potential to design the shape of moorings to favour maximising life growing on them. I have even heard it suggested you could coat them to maximise biomass attractiveness and actually plan on growing biomass as part of the anchoring to defray costs. I'm a bit dubious about that.

This is a good guide to floating wind turbines.
posted by biffa at 10:01 AM on February 4