New marine technologies could transform use of oceans
By Matt Hodson, Marine Hub Operations Director, Cornwall Development Company
Despite the many advances that have been made in marine technology, we have still only harnessed a tiny percentage of the full potential offered by our oceans. But marine innovation is advancing rapidly on a number of fronts.
Here are three examples of new marine technologies that are
likely to have a major impact within the next ten years.
1. Deep sea mining
The ocean floor is home to vast deposits of rare minerals
and metals, many of them in much higher concentrations than are found on land. There
is great international interest in this field and dozens of exploration
licenses have already been granted. Nautilus Minerals have designed three giant
crawling machines to mine the seabed and they plan to commence trials off the
coast of Papua New Guinea within two years. They will be mining in depths of up
to 1,600 metres. Meanwhile, China’s largest mining company has been given a
license to begin exploring 72,000 square kilometres of ocean bed.
Naturally there are concerns from environmentalists about
the impact this new marine technology will have, but experts have pointed to a
trade-off here. Mining the sea bed in a controlled way may well cause less harm
overall than mining on land. Furthermore, many of the precious metals being
sought are vital for our new sustainable technologies. One example is
tellurium, which is used in the manufacture of high quality solar panels.
2. Ocean medicines
It is believed that the deep oceans could prove to be rich
source of novel drug compounds, new antibiotics and new ingredients for
medicines. The WHO estimate that, if no action is taken, the number of
drug-resistant related deaths could rise to 10 million per annum. So the need
to discover totally new forms of cures has never been greater and the oceans,
with their huge biodiversity, could provide the solution.
PharmaSea is an EU-funded project which brings together 23
partners from 13 countries with the key goal of collecting samples from some of
the hottest, deepest and coldest places on the planet. They want to “discover
new antibiotics, but also new agents for central nervous system diseases, such
as epilepsy and Alzheimer’s disease,” says Marcel Jaspars, who is the
scientific lead for the project.
In a separate marine development, U.S. scientists from the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have been analysing the
properties of sponges and coral. They discovered a naturally-occurring chemical
that breaks down the shield that bacteria use to defend themselves against
antibiotics. This chemical can therefore be used to create ‘helper drugs’ which
would restore the effectiveness of antibiotics when fighting resistant
bacteria.
3. Ocean thermal
energy conversion (OTEC)
The theory behind OTEC was originally developed back in the
1880s, but it has only recently become a reality. OTEC exploits the difference
in temperature between cool, deep waters and warmer, shallow waters to power a
heat pump which can in turn be used to generate electricity.
A small but operational OTEC plant was established in Hawaii
in 2015. Hawaii was chosen due to a combination of three factors: very warm
shallow waters; access to very cold, deep waters; and the fact that Hawaii has
relatively high ongoing electricity costs. Although small, this was an
important milestone as it was the first OTEC plant to be connected to the U.S.
grid.
OTEC plants can also be designed to produce fresh water as a
by-product. They do this by evaporating sea water and condensing the vapor.
This could prove hugely valuable in countries where there is a scarcity of
clean drinking water.
Lockheed Martin are committed to OTEC technology and have
invested $15 million over the last three years in the development of higher
capacity plants. They estimate that there are over 80 countries around the
world where the sea conditions would be favourable for OTEC plants.
These are just three examples from a very broad range of new
marine technologies that are changing the way we view our oceans and the role
that they can play in sustaining us over the centuries to come. They are
creating important new challenges and new opportunities for all kinds of marine
technology businesses – large and small.
As a result, many experts have commented that there is a new
industrial revolution stirring in our oceans.