Environment

A core characteristic of the proposed energy harvesting facility is its environmental footprint.

• The facility operates without producing any kind of emissions of e.g., greenhouse gases.
• The construction of the facility will consist of recyclable materials.
• The installation of this facility will have a minimal effect on the marine ecosystem. The seabed will be affected just from the anchoring structure, which will be comparatively small and localized, since the platform is completely above from the surface of the water, except from the floats.
• All the moving parts of the structure may produce small noises that will not be loud enough to be considered as noise pollution (these sound waves will propagate out of the water since they will be produced from the movement of the joints of the platform and as a result these sound waves will be attenuate quickly).
• Finally, the construction does not have any traps for animals, such as nets, or dangerous components, such as sharp blades, that would harm animals.

It is worth mentioning that one of the uses of the facility is by definition ecological, since it is designed to provide fresh air – with sufficient concentration of oxygen – to the seabed, contributing this way to the restoration of a damaged marine ecosystem and to the reduction of the seabed pollution. The final environmental footprint of the structure will be assessed through a Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) and by taking under consideration all the aforementioned issues we expect it to be small.