On the potential of ocean energy technologies to contribute to future sustainability

Abstract

To achieve the United Nations Framework Convention Climate Change targets and the UN Sustainable Development Goals a major switch to clean sustainable energy is required. Both solar and wind energy are already making major contributions. Great interest is being shown in other processes including a suite of renewable technology that can has been labelled “Blue Energy” otherwise known as ocean energy or marine energy technologies. This suite of technologies comprises three principal categories relating to tides, to waves and to salinity gradients that can be created between seawater and fresh water. In each of these three categories there are various technologies for the extraction of the energy, and the various processes will be briefly described. Then the three are examined in order to assess which if any, from mainly a European perspective, have good growth prospects. Especially with respect to near-horizon implementation, tidal energy, especially tidal stream devises, are considered the most promising. Notwithstanding this observation, the brief review also concludes that no Marine Energy technology has the capacity to become as ubiquitous as solar and wind and in many cases the journeys from innovation to implementation have been or could be permanently stalled.