PRODUCTS & SERVICES - Renewable Energy Technology - R.E. Technology



CORAL
Community Rehabilitation and Coastal Restoration & Nourishment via use of Wave/Wind Energy Utilization Systems managed under an Advanced Telematics Network

Coastal zones are considered to be areas where land and sea influence, meet and interact. The coastal band varies depending on the nature of the environment, the interactions of the marine and terrestrial coastal processes and the management needs. Coastal zones occupy less than 15% of the Earth's land surface, yet they accommodate more than 60% of the world's population. Exploitation of natural wealth resources added to an accelerating urbanization will further amplify this trend, so by 2025 there could be up to 75% of humanity residing in coastal areas (UNCED, 1992). Most of the world coastal ecosystems potentially threatened by unsustainable development are located within northern temperate and northern equatorial zones with Europe having 86% of its coasts at either high or moderate risk.

Coasts are not static. They can change shape rapidly, and coastal erosion, due to human activities or natural causes, is a common phenomenon About 34% of the world's coasts are at high potential risk of all kinds of degradation, and another 17% are at moderate risk. In the EU, 25% of the coast is subject to erosion, while 50% is stable and 15% aggrandizing; for the remaining 10%, the evolution is unknown.

In the European domain in particular, what happens in the coastal zone is important to all Europeans. Much of the influences and pressures on the coastal and marine environments are concentrated in this sensitive area. More importantly, the whole of the EU marine resources depend on the quality of the coastal zones, a relationship recognised in the 5th Environmental Action Program. Coastal zones also face pressure from development, since they are areas where people want to live and work and where recreational activities also feature in a major way. The EU has recognised the importance of environmental resources in coastal areas and the need for protective measures to ensure that they are not threatened by human activities, in particular urbanisation, transport, tourism, agriculture, industry, energy and fisheries. Therefore, improvements in economic conditions are a priority for coastal regions of Europe. Coastal regions have received substantial assistance - mainly for infrastructure investment - from the EU Structural and Cohesion funds: nearly 70% of the EU Structural Funds for the period 1994-1999 were allocated to the EU's coastal area (including nearly all EU Mediterranean areas; all areas on the Atlantic coast of Portugal, Spain and France, half of the UK coast, etc.). Key areas of action for the "Integrated Coastal Zone Management" (ICZM) program are environmental impact assessment, coastal land planning, habitat management and pollution control. The results of the EU "ICZM Demonstration Program" and the Water Framework Directive should provide concrete examples of how to tackle coastal zone management issues as they occur. However, although the EU could lead and coordinate the approaches to ICZM, decisions on management and implementation should be made at appropriate levels within Member States.

Societies that are just and sustainable are achievable, but only through the integration of economic development, environmental protection, and social development. The transition to sustainability is not easy, but it is possible, and since the alternatives are so disastrous for our future, it is imperative. The existence of the opportunity and the price of failure create the responsibility. The political declaration must be unequivocal on this point, and the negotiated text and voluntary partnerships must be fully consistent with it. Sustainable development will always be a complex of issues and agendas that can be addressed in competition or in cooperation. The lesson of Rio is that the competitive, isolated special interest approach is ultimately impotent. We will reach success on all three components of sustainable development together, or not at all. Under this realization, it is due to become apparent that the optimal overall environment for implementing and testing the potential of sustainability-promoting strategies, is the one governed by coastal zones.

The CORAL proposal will outline the agenda of such a possible spectrum of strategies, for a feasible portfolio of benefits and options offered to coastal communities' development cycle, via synergistic use of Renewable Energy in combination to modern Coastal Engineering Technology, administered under extensive application of an advanced Telematics environment.

In the energy technological aspect in particular, CORAL endeavours to clearly and explicitly demonstrate the integral benefit gained by applicable and proven long term research carried out by DAEDALUS Informatics and technology partners, in the fields of marine Wave Energy, small scale Wind Energy in conjunction to small scale Hydroelectricity, and, advanced Coastal Protection and Nourishment Engineering. The combination of these enabling technologies under a new design perspective, resourcing from a renewable and sustainable natural income, may radically address a chain of issues baring a concatenating importance for sustainability. Coastal community infrastructure assessment could -under this planning scheme- offer a new raised perspective of ameliorated and prodigious management and sustainable exploitation for a number of conventional, as well as number of novelty areas, briefly cited as:

  • Feasibility rational for implementation of an extensive use of advanced multi-purpose coastal engineering/erosion prevention schemes, coupled to wave energy exploitation for community rehabilitation purposes (floating harbors, ecologically adept coastal protection, electric power production, desalination).
  • New agenda and opportunities for construction activities, new labor opportunities in a wealth of fields (Shipping and maintenance, Marine and coastal tourism, Desalination and water management, Aquaculture, Marine and coastal structures, Offshore oil and gas services, Maritime transport and telecommunications, Marine environment technology, Law of the sea).
  • Promote and demonstrate viable transition strategies needed to move from today's fossil-based energy economy to one based on hydrogen and electricity as energy vectors. These, and other, important issues are in turn essential for indirectly accelerating development of other supplementary -but highly important- fields, such as fuel cell commercialisation.

In the telematics technological aspect, CORAL endeavors to serve the immediate objective of an Internet-based centre with international span, capable to amply demonstrate and convey the plethora of benefits gained by applicable and proven long term research in the fields of marine Wave Energy, small scale Wind Energy in conjunction to small scale Hydroelectricity, and, advanced Coastal Protection and Nourishment Engineering. The target of providing an effective promotion on these aspects, is optimally addressed in a mode of mutual and common benefit for worldwide coastal communities, added to the apparent benefit of offering a communal repository to multifarious involvement and cooperation, coming from public servicemen, businessmen, organizations and policy makers alike.

The long term objective of the centre is to serve as a business development foreground for the marine industry in the Mediterranean region. In particular, the centre aims at stimulating transfer of marine technology, encouraging international co-operation and eliminating duplication, as well as providing information relating to national priorities and business environments, technology and market opportunities, potential partners and funding mechanisms. Subsequent international benefits should follow by improving the access to new markets and technologies through promotion of strategic alliances and joint projects between enterprises and by directing work in R&D institutions to actual industrial needs, in developing and developed countries. Some actions of crucial importance could also receive substantial benefit by streamlining via this network, such as improving the utilisation of existing R&D infrastructure and increasing the returns on both private and public R&D investments, and, project management and technical services supporting the initial phase of joint project operations.

In the overall agenda, the -by no means exhaustive- list of issues and services to be hosted under the Coastal Telematics Network, includes:

  • The relation to the national and international Oceanographic Monitoring and Forecasting Networks.
  • Improved Monitoring and prevention of environmental disaster and pollution control.
  • Improved Access to and Management of Publicly-Funded Marine Information.
  • Long Term National & European EEZ Planning.
  • Marine Science and Technology Focus at Secondary and Tertiary Education levels.
  • The Creation of a Marine Information Partnership.
  • General Jurisdictional Issues.
  • General Renewable Energy Technology adept issues for coastal rehabilitation and development.
  • R&D Issues.
  • Coastal Environment Issues, Coastal zone management.
  • Marine Life Protection/Exploitation.
  • Population and urban development.
  • Relation to existing and developing legislation issues (such as related to UNIDO, UNCLOS, etc.).


Related links:
http://www.daedalus.gr/prdrenewables/coral/CORALThematicIndex/TextBrowserE.html
http://www.daedalus.gr/jsauxilpublic/AKTOMPIe.PDF
http://www.daedalus.gr/prdcoast.html
http://www.daedalus.gr/links3.html