BRE18- Offshore wind energy vs nuclear power plant? A comparative study on the environmental, social, and economic dimensions between the Saint-Brieuc offshore wind farm and the Chooz pressurized water reactor.
- Sapiologie (2021) Life Cycle Assessment of Offshore Wind Power
Brest
- Organisation
- Sapiologie
- Biarritz 64200
- Volcy BOILEVIN
Ocean economy is expected to drastically increase by 2030, particularly in the marine aquaculture, capture fisheries, and marine renewable energy sectors. These activities need to coexist in the maritime space without damaging the marine environment.
At Sapiologie, we use the life cycle assessment (LCA) to measure the environmental and social impacts of products, activities, and political strategies. This analysis tool allows to have a clear view of all the processes as well as understanding the (cumulative) impacts associated with one or several activities and find ways to mitigate them. Combined with an environmental impact assessment and marine spatial planning, the LCA would contribute to a sustainable blue economy.
To demonstrate this, the Sapiologie team wants to take the challenge up in conducting an LCA of the offshore wind turbine project in Normandy. While this is expected to be France’s biggest wind farm, it raises concerns among local fisher cooperatives (could hamper their fishing activities) and is criticized by environmental conservationists (lacks an appropriate environmental and energetic impacts evaluation).
What would be the social, environmental, and energetic impacts of this new project? How can these impacts be mitigated? Can fishing activities, renewable energies, and other activities coexist in this region? These are the questions that our team will try to answer during the Ocean Hackathon with the larger objective to democratize the use of LCA.
- What the challenge owner would like to develop over 48h
- Using standard LCA software such OpenLCA, and our custom database and visualization approaches, we will develop an interactive web-based visualization of the wind farm construction life cycle analysis.
- Which skills the challenge owner is looking for
- Oceanography
Underwater acoustics
Marine chemistry
Biology
Ecology
Design
Communication
