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Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), is a technique to assess environmental impacts associated with all the stages of a product's life from-cradle-to-grave (i.e., from raw material extraction through materials processing, manufacture, distribution, use, repair and maintenance, and disposal or recycling). Wind energy is one of clean energy forms during the operation phase of the project, but it…

The European Union has adopted one of the most ambitious renewable energy policies in the world. Restructuring Europe’s energy sector along renewable lines whilst ensuring compliance with EU nature legislation requires careful and early stage spatial planning in order to avoid creating new hazards for wildlife. As part of a wider study on the impacts and available mitigation measures in the…

Achieving a climate-resilient future requires rapid, sustained and far-reaching transformations in energy, land-use, infrastructure and industrial systems. Large-scale expansion of renewable energy can play a critical role in meeting the world’s growing energy demands and in the fight against climate change. However, even ‘clean’ energy sources can have significant unintended impacts on the…

Billions of birds fatally collide with human-made structures each year. These mortalities have consequences for population viability and conservation of endangered species. This source of human-wildlife conflict also places constraints on various industries. Furthermore, with continued increases in urbanization, the incidence of collisions continues to increase. Efforts to reduce collisions…

This paper proposes an improved soil-water-structure coupled interaction model within the framework of smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH). The continuous penetration process of the spudcan in clayey soil was investigated along with the concomitant variation of pore water pressure. The proposed method enables the efficient capturing of excess pore water pressure variation in soil undergoing…

The need for sustainable energy is rising.The members of the European Union have devoted themselves to a 21% share of renewable energy by the year 2010. And the European Parliament has adopted a resolution that stresses the need of setting a mandatory target of a share of 20% renewable energy by the year 2020. At the moment wind energy is one of the few forms of renewable energy that can be…

The objective of this work is to study the uncertainties involved in the modelling of the soil-pile interaction concerning their influence on the prediction of the dynamic structural response of monopile offshore wind turbine support structures. Two main issues are identified and addressed: the adequacy of the method used to deal with the soil-pile interactions and the adequacy of the soil…

With only a few wave and tidal devices in the water and no long-term post-installation datasets available, there continue to be uncertainties around risks to marine animals and habitats from the deployment and operation of marine renewable energy (MRE) systems. Based on these uncertainties and lack of familiarity with MRE devices, regulators and stakeholders continue to perceive a wide array…

Tidal shelf seas are energetic areas of intense biological activity and turbulent motion. This turbulence is largely generated at the water surface from wind stress and wave breaking and in the bottom boundary layer through friction generated by tidal motion. When stratification is formed, a thermocline often emerges and separates both boundary regions, controlling the vertical transport of…

Wind energy is characterized as a clean and environmentally friendly technology, and this is one of the main benefits that makes it such an attractive and promising energy supply solution. The present chapter deals with the main social and environmental benefits from the introduction of wind energy in an area, such as CO2 emissions and fossil fuels imports reduction, creation of new job…

1. Offshore wind farms (OWFs) may potentially affect birds in a number of ways, most notably through: i) collisions with turbines; ii) displacement of birds due to effective loss of habitat; and iii) barrier effects where the wind farm creates an obstacle to regular movements to and from breeding colonies or migration. These effects have usually been considered separately in Environmental…

This paper examines an environmental weighting tool developed for site assessment of New York offshore wind development and discusses future applications of sensitivity weighting for site identification and assessment as part of the development of other renewable energy projects across different geographic locations. As part of New York State's Offshore Wind Master Plan, Ecology and…

The Rhode Island Ocean Special Area Management Plan (Ocean SAMP), a marine spatial plan — and, one of the United States’ first such plans — laid the groundwork for the siting and permitting of the nation’s first offshore wind farm. This document examines the Ocean SAMP process from the time it was conceived, through its intensive plan development period (2008 – 2010) and its five years of…

The objective of this work is to investigate the impact of a wave farm on the nearshore wave climate quantifying, for the first time, the interaction of the WECs (Wave Energy Converters) with the waves using ad hoc laboratory tests. To accomplish this objective, a procedure consisting of three main steps is implemented and illustrated with a case study: a wave farm of WaveCats (a lateral…

This paper considers a novel spillover effect of wind farms - microclimate impacts on neighboring crop yields. Using US county-level crop and wind capacity data, I examine the effects of wind energy development on crop yields, controlling for time-invariant county characteristics and state-level annual shocks. I find robust evidence that counties with increased wind power development have also…

Large-scale development of wind farm has brought environmental benefits, at the same time, it will also affect local meteorological environment. We choose Zhurihe wind farm, which is located in Sonid Youqi of Inner Mongolia, as our study area. Our Observation instrument is HOBO automatic meteorological station. The observation points are set on upwind area, inner wind farm and downwind area,…

Large-scale development of wind farms has not only brought environmental benefits, but it will also affect the local meteorological environment. We chose Zhurihe wind farm, which is located on Sonid Youqi of Inner Mongolia, as our study area. Our observation instrument is the HOBO automatic meteorological station. The observation points are set up in the upwind area, inner wind farm and…

Marine renewables offer potential economic and environmental benefits, however there is a need to ensure that the growth of this emergent industry considers existing features and users of the marine environment. There is a clear role for marine spatial planning to guide its future development. The Shetland Regional Locational Guidance is a sensitivity led approach to identifying the…

This document is intended to provide an introduction into the international, national and regional policy and legislation framework relevant to the deployment of marine renewable energy technologies within the UK, and specifically with a focus upon the South West and the county of Cornwall and its neighbouring Isles of Scilly. Within the context and scope of this document, devices that utilize…

The European Commission has developed a set of common principles for marine spatial planning in the European Union. A critical examination of these principles in practice is undertaken through an evaluation of the Clyde Marine Spatial Planning Pilot Project. The principles are found to be lacking in specificity and somewhat inconsistent with the ecosystem based approach, which they advocate.…