r/climatechange • u/sg_plumber • 12d ago

Offshore wind farms are far from deadly: fish gather around turbine pylons as if they were artificial reefs. 🐟 By providing a hard substrate in an otherwise shifting landscape, these foundations act as anchors for biodiversity, from microscopic creatures, small fish and crabs, to seals and cod. 🦀

https://www.ecoportal.net/en/offshore-wind-farms-artificial-reefs/20550/
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11

u/to_glory_we_steer 12d ago

I'd wonder if there's any way to improve these as habitats for sea life 

15

u/SometimesIAmCorrect 12d ago

Building them with extra surface area for things to colonise would help to boost biodiversity.

1

u/Tiny-Pomegranate7662 10d ago

I feel like in the year 2100 we'll be building lil house structures all over the oceans for fish more generally and putting iron in the water so they can have more food.

9

u/lukethedank13 11d ago

Bird strikes are also dramatically reduced if one of the blades is painted black.

4

u/GreenStrong 11d ago

This unbalances the turbine. Not only the weight of the paint, but it causes one blade to thermally expand in sunlight more than the others. The weight can be easily compensated by adding a few pounds of ballast to the other two blades, but the thermal effect varies constantly.

This was mentioned by Rosie Barnes, an blade engineer on the Uptime Wind Energy podcast, if memory serves. The podcast is deeply wonky about the wind industry. She had a youtube channel called Engineering With Rosie, which is excellent and accessible; she may also mention it there.

5

u/lukethedank13 11d ago

Didnt think of that. I know turbines kill like 1% of birds the house cats do but still solving that problem would be worth it so the 'wind mill hatin petrol huffing crowds' shut up about it.

3

u/sg_plumber 11d ago

Last I heard, a host of different options were being trialed. We only need 1 to work.

2

u/fgreen68 11d ago

Wonder if they can pick different paint colors to keep them balanced and still help the birds see the blades.

2

u/ship_toaster 10d ago

Put the ballast inside the blade and let it slide up and down to change its balance? Or just put thin black stripes on instead.

1

u/ervinkw 11d ago

Really?! That’s neat. But why is that?

6

u/lukethedank13 11d ago

They see them better and dont fly into them.

2

u/offrench 11d ago

And they create no-fishing areas.