RT info:eu-repo/semantics/article
T1 Examining the potential of marine renewable energy: a net energy perspective
A1 Samsó, Roger
A1 Crespin, Júlia
A1 García-Olivares, Antonio
A1 Solé, Jordi
K1 Energías renovables
K1 Oceanic energy
K1 Offshore wind
K1 Ocean currents
K1 OTEC
K1 Tidal
K1 SGE
K1 Wave
K1 2510.91 Recursos Renovables
AB It is often claimed that marine renewable energy alone could meet the electricity demand ofcurrent and future human societies. However, such claims are based on highly uncertain estimationsof the global potentials of marine renewable energy sources (including tidal, ocean currents, wave,offshore wind and salinity and thermal gradients), and do not take into account the embedded energyof current technologies. To better understand the effective potential of marine energy, we conducteda literature review of its gross, technical, economic and sustainable potentials, as well as the energyreturn on investment (EROI), and estimated the net energy potential. We found that all marinetechnologies could provide a maximum energy surplus of 57,000 TWh/yr. This figure goes down to  5000TWh/yr when excluding offshore wind. The previous figures do not include the contributionfrom ocean currents, for which no reliable estimates of global potentials and EROIs could be obtained.Due to its high upfront costs and environmental impacts and low social acceptance, no additionaltidal range capacity expansion is envisioned. Similarly, the combination of a low sustainable potentialand the low EROI makes the large-scale exploitation of salinity gradients unlikely with currenttechnologies. Including all technologies, the average EROI of marine energy is   20, but excludingoffshore wind reduces the average EROI to   8. While we did consider sustainability constraintsfor some marine energy sources, our estimation of marine net energy potential primarily reliedon technical factors and did not account for economic and legal constraints. Therefore, the resultspresented here should be interpreted as an upper bound for the actual net energy contribution ofmarine energy sources to the global energy mix.
PB MDPI
YR 2024
FD 2024
LK https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/67420
UL https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/67420
LA eng
NO Sustainability, Mayo, 2023, n. 15 p. 1-35
NO Producción Científica
DS UVaDOC
RD 26-jun-2024