water
. Deep water oil drilling is not new, but market pressures are making the exploration
for and tapping of evermore remote reserves cost effective, bringing the most isolated areas
under consideration. Methane hydrates, a potentially enormous source of hydrocarbons,
are now also being explored and tapped from the seabed.
Oil will remain the dominant energy source for many decades to come but the Ocean offers
enormous potential for the generation of renewable energy – wind, wave, tidal, biomass,
thermal conversion and salinity gradients. Of these the offshore wind energy industry is the
most developed of the ocean based energy sources. Global installed capacity was only a
little over 6 GW in 2012 but this is set to quadruple by 2014 and relatively conservative
estimates suggest this could grow to 175 GW by 2035
.