Can offshore renewables aid Europe's climate goals?

Is it possible for Europe to meet its climate targets with the help of renewable energy generated at sea?

 The steady rise and fall of the waves, the strong pull of the tides, and the constant movement of the wind are all natural forces that could be used to power our lives if we could figure out how to use them to make electricity. By 2050, 10% of Europe's electricity needs could be met by ocean energy alone.

The bloc thinks that offshore energy can be delivered to consumers in a sustainable way because almost 45% of its people live near the coast.

Helena Rodrigues says, "We are already taking care of nature by producing more renewable energy and less carbon dioxide."

Rodrigues thinks that it needs to be evaluated carefully so that people can "understand the environmental impacts."

"Most of the time, we don't know enough about what lives on the seafloor." Rodrigues asks, "And what are the effects of things like noise pollution on marine mammals and other species?"

Over the past 10 years, the EU and private companies have spent more than €4 billion on ocean energy research and pilot projects.

Ideas like making electricity from the sun, wind, or even the difference in saltiness between sea water and river water are being put forward by accelerators like the Dutch Marine Energy Centre.

The CEO of the Dutch Marine Energy Center, Britta Schaffmeister, is our second podcast guest. She says that all of their technologies are closely watched.

She says that there are already a lot of technologies in the wind industry to reduce noise as much as possible. She also says that some types of offshore renewables, like tidal, don't add to the noise pollution problem because they're installed in the water flows.

"The noise of the water flow drowns out the sound of the turbine."

When it comes to ocean renewables, both Schaffmeister and Rodrigues think that the location of the infrastructure is key to meeting climate goals and reducing environmental impacts. But they say that you can't just rely on one kind of energy.

"For example, the North Sea has very small waves, so there is always wind there." Schaffmeister says, "If you can combine it with floating solar in a certain area, the electricity output goes up by a lot."

She says that some kinds of infrastructure in places like the North Sea could even help marine life.

"The bottom of the North Sea is sandy, so there isn't much living space." She says, "If you put anchors on a wave or a floating solar, for example, it gives new microorganisms a place to grow."

However, Rodrigues believes that this is a bad idea because a sandy seabed may "have an inherent value that protects."

She says, "We can't just say that building oyster reefs or other business infrastructure is good for the environment because the environment has value on its own."

"We need to think about avoiding, which is the first step in mitigating." So we try to avoid it, lessen its effects, and then try to fix it if we can't.