18-03-2025
World's most powerful underwater turbines are coming to French coast
A tidal farm featuring the world's most powerful underwater turbines is being built off the coast of Normandy after winning EU funding.
The NH1 tidal project from Normandie Hydroliennes will use four turbines to turn the Raz Blanchard tidal flow - Europe's strongest tidal stream - into a source of renewable energy.
It is one of dozens of decarbonisation projects that have received a total €4.8 billion in the EU's Innovation Fund's latest round of grants. This coffer for clean technologies is filled by revenues from the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS), which requires polluters to pay for their greenhouse gas emissions.
'Being selected by the Innovation Fund is a major recognition of our work and the impact that our technological system, the innovative Proteus AR3000 horizontal axis turbine, can have on decarbonisation and the energy mix,' says Katia Gautier, director of Normandie Hydroliennes (NH).
NH1 will be located 3km west off the coast of Cap de la Hague, and is due to start supplying electricity by 2028.
The Channel sea current of Raz Blanchard is one of the most powerful in the world, NH states. With a development potential of around 5 to 6 gigawatts (GW), it could produce 15 to 18 terawatt hours (TWh), supplying electricity to 8 million people.
Currently under construction in the port town of Cherbourg, the underwater turbines will have a rotor diameter of 24 metres and a capacity of 3 megawatts (MW) each. This 12MW foursome will supply 34 GWh of energy a year - enough to meet the needs of 15,000 local residents.
There are other benefits for locals too. 80 per cent of the construction value of the project will be produced in France, where NH promises it will create some 400 direct and indirect jobs. The reminder will come from Europe, in order to guarantee energy sovereignty.
Gautier says the €31.3 million grant will enable the company to take 'decisive steps' in realising the project. 'We look forward to working with our partners to make the NH1 tidal turbine pilot farm a success, a reference project and thus contribute to a more sustainable energy future,' she adds.
Future projects will deploy as many as 85 turbines a year, the Innovation Fund notes, multiplying job creation to boost France's blue economy.
Installed at a depth of at least 38 metres, NH stresses that its pilot farm will pose no danger to navigation or maritime safety, and will operate with respect for marine life.
Field studies show a return of fish and marine megafauna to existing project sites, it points out. The MeyGen project off the coast of Scotland, for example, suggests that turbine foundations and connection cables can be 'settlement spaces' for species.
According to other studies, the sound pressure levels of tidal turbines are significantly lower than the disturbance thresholds of marine megafauna.
The project is expected to save 57,878 tonnes of CO2 equivalent in greenhouse gas emissions.
In total, 85 clean tech projects in 18 countries secured funding from the Innovation Fund last October, in sectors ranging from energy storage to net-zero transport and buildings.
'The Fund is once again demonstrating how the EU ETS is a great tool in reducing emissions, and funding the projects we need to build a climate-neutral and competitive Europe,' commented Wopke Hoekstra, EU Commissioner for Climate, Net Zero and Clean Growth.
Whales are not just big, they're a big deal for healthy oceans. Whale poo is responsible for moving tonnes of nutrients from deep water up to the surface.
Now new research shows that whales also move vast quantities of nitrogen thousands of kilometres in their urine - a process scientists have dubbed 'the great whale pee funnel'.
These tons of nitrogen support the health of tropical ecosystems and fish, especially in areas where nitrogen is otherwise in limited supply. In some places, like Hawaii, the input of nutrients from whales is bigger than from local sources.
In 2010, scientists revealed that whales, feeding at depth and pooing at the surface, provide a critical resource for plankton growth and ocean productivity.
A new University of Vermont-led study shows that whales also carry huge quantities of nutrients horizontally, across whole ocean basins, from rich, cold waters where they feed to warm shores near the equator where they mate and give birth.
Much of this is in the form of urine, though sloughed skin, dead whale carcasses, calf faeces, and placentas also contribute.
"These coastal areas often have clear waters, a sign of low nitrogen, and many have coral reef ecosystems," says Joe Roman, a biologist at the University of Vermont, who co-led the new research.
"The movement of nitrogen and other nutrients can be important to the growth of phytoplankton, or microscopic algae, and provide food for sharks and other fish and many invertebrates."
The study, published in March in the journal Nature Communications, calculates that in oceans across the globe, great whales - including right whales, gray whales, and humpbacks - transport around 4,000 tonnes of nitrogen each year to low-nutrient coastal areas in the tropics and subtropics. They also bring more than 45,000 tonnes of biomass.
Before the era of human whaling decimated populations, scientists believe these long-distance inputs may have been three or more times larger.
One major example of this process can be seen in the thousands of humpback whales that travel from a vast feeding area in the Gulf of Alaska to a more restricted area in Hawaii where they breed each year.
There, in the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary, the input of nutrients - tons of pee, skin, dead bodies and poo - from whales is roughly double what is transported by local sources, the team of scientists estimate.
"We call it the 'great whale conveyor belt'," Roman says, "or it can also be thought of as a funnel because whales feed over large areas, but they need to be in a relatively confined space to find a mate, breed, and give birth.'
This means that nutrients spread out over the vast ocean get concentrated in much smaller coastal and coral ecosystems, "like collecting leaves to make compost for your garden," Roman says.
In the summer, adult whales feed at high latitudes (like Alaska, Iceland, and Antarctica), putting on tonnes of fat. According to recent research, North Pacific humpback whales gain about 14 kilos per day in the spring, summer, and fall.
They need this energy for their epic ocean journeys. Gray whales travel over 11,000 kilometres between feeding grounds off Russia and breeding areas along Baja California. Humpback whales in the Southern Hemisphere migrate more than 8,000 kilometres from foraging areas near Antarctica to mating sites off Costa Rica.
Once in their breeding spots, whales urinate vast amounts of nitrogen-rich urea. One study in Iceland suggests that fin whales produce nearly 1,000 litres of urine per day when they are feeding. For comparison, humans produce less than two litres of urine daily.
"Because of their size, whales are able to do things that no other animal does. They're living life on a different scale," says Andrew Pershing, one of ten co-authors of the new study and an oceanographer at the nonprofit organisation Climate Central.
"Nutrients are coming in from outside - and not from a river, but by these migrating animals,' he adds. 'We don't think of animals other than humans having an impact on a planetary scale, but the whales really do."
Before industrial whaling began in the 19th century, the nutrient inputs would have "been much bigger and this effect would've been much bigger," says Pershing.
In the Southern Ocean, blue whale populations are still greatly reduced after intense hunting in the 20th century. The study highlights the importance of pushing conservation efforts to boost populations around the globe.
"Animals form the circulatory system of the planet,' Roman says, 'and whales are the extreme example."
