Renewable energy sources such as offshore wind has proven, time and again, its significant impact on the environment and human life. Offshore wind development, in particular, has reduced C02 emissions by 55.8m tons from coal or natural gas over the last two decades; has produced more than 100,000 jobs and is one of the fastest growing industries in the last few years; and spurred substantial economic growth, investing between $10 billion and $20 billion per year in the U.S. economy.

Technological breakthroughs have also made it possible to advance offshore wind power, while protecting marine life. The National Resources Defence Council (NRDC), an environmental organization, released management practices for protecting the endangered North Atlantic right whale during offshore wind construction and operation, working closely with the offshore wind industry and other concerned parties to ensure both the advancement of offshore wind and marine life protection.

The NDRC also listed two types of quiet offshore wind fixed foundation technology currently used by European commercial offshore wind projects and also oil and gas industries: suction bucket foundations and gravity-based foundations. These reduce risk to the environment, which then serves to reduce risk to the developer by “limiting the possibility for unanticipated environmental impacts.”

There are also studies on how offshore structures such as wind turbines can serve up a continuous stream of fish supply for seabirds. According to one research, “Placing large offshore structures into such energetic environments can therefore change local flows, ranging from large sediment wakes behind offshore wind farms, to the emergence of distinct eddy-dominated wakes spanning tens to hundreds of meters behind tidal turbines.”

The research focused on SeaGen, UK’s first grid-connected tidal turbine energy structure, and found that there were three times more terns foraging over the man-made flood wake left by SeaGen than over the nearby natural wake sites.

These scientific data help support the case for offshore wind power’s potential to protect marine life as we continuously work to mitigate the worst and most dangerous effects of climate change.