alternatehistory.com

This is not about marine energy (tidal, wave, and wind), but about building conventional and nuclear thermal power stations offshore.

The earliest proposals for this emerged in the 1950s and 1960s and involved placing nuclear reactors on barges or ships to supply energy to ocean and river communities. In the 1970s the Offshore Power Systems concept was developed, which would have gotten around the issue of NIMBYism by putting nuclear reactors on artificial islands several miles offshore, which would reduce the number of people potentially at risk from a nuclear incident. There's also Flexblue, a recent proposal which involves placing commercial derives of naval propulsion reactors on the ocean floor to power coastal communities.

Most proposals have been based around nuclear energy, but I'm wondering if it could be feasible for conventional power stations as well. Radiation was becoming an issue in the 1970s, but so was air pollution. Prior to the development of advanced smokestacks and emission filters, the pollution from conventional power plants tended to be heavy, but it was localized.

In terms of locations, the continental shelf would be ideal for fixed infrastructure. It tends to be no deeper than 200 meters (490 feet) and typically extends 80 kilometers (50 miles) offshore. It would also be possible to simply use power barges or ships. Power could be transmitted by an undersea cable.

Could going offshore have been a feasible response to the requirements for extensive pollution controls and public safety studies for new conventional and nuclear power stations? If thermal power stations were built offshore, could it help the development of other marine power systems such as tidal, wave, and wind systems?
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