Swedish Coastal Windmills Produce New Marine Habitat

[hatrack]

STOCKHOLM, Sweden — The windmills off Sweden's southeastern coast may not be postcard perfect, but fish and mollusks love them, making them their home and creating thriving new ecosystems, scientists said Tuesday.

In a study of the effects of marine-based wind power plants on marine life, Swedish biologists found that the structures, jutting from concrete platforms in the ocean, promote marine diversity.

"It's almost like an artificial reef," said Marcus Oehberg, a marine biologist at Stockholm University. "We've seen that it encourages more species and that it creates a living environment that wasn't there before."

EDIT

"The windmills have become small ecosystems," Oehberg said, adding that thousands of fish have begun making their homes amid the structures and mollusks are attaching themselves to the structures, too."

EDIT

http://www.enn.com/news/2004-02-11/s_13011.asp

[jean]

1. Swedish marine life - thanks for this one, it lifts me up!

[xchrom]

2. what a great story

thanks -- just makes ya feel good.

[Vogon_Glory]

3. No Surprise To This Texan

It's no surprise to this Texan that those offshore Swedish power-generating platforms are creating useful marine habitat. The same is true for decommissioned off-shore oil drilling platforms. In fact, marine life can become so abundant on some of them that amateur scuba divers are willing to boat out to such platforms and dive there.

Cleaned-up and decontaminated oil platforms make excellent marine habitat for reef fish, mollusks, and the bigger fish and sharks that feed on them. If the upper portions are topped off, fish can thrive and aesthetes need not worry about the tres tacky oil platforms interfering with their view of seas and cloudscape from their cabin cruisers.


I'd say that the Swedes have stumbled onto a good thing.

[TreasonousBastard]

4. No surprise here, either.

We've been scuttling old ferries, railroad cars, and just about anything else to form artificial reefs and habitats.

It works.