Discuss the opportunities and difficulties associated with reusing Essay

Discuss the opportunities and difficulties associated with reusing decommissioned offshore installations for generating renewable energy - Essay Example Decommissioning solutions in accordance with the UK legislation concerns about safety and security of the environment, legitimate uses of the sea and support all the economic considerations whenever required. By definition, renewable power sources are those that do not require any fuel as their energy is replenish naturally. There is no constraint on their siting, therefore, because of any requirement to transport fuel rather, the location of the power unit is usually determined by natural features (DoEn, 1988). A basic constraint underlying some of these limitations is the impracticability of storing electricity on a large scale. However the renewable sources require nuclear fusion and fission power plants for the small masses of fuel required, so they can be conveniently sited on the coast with direct cooling for their steam condensers from seawater. Coal-fired power stations, on the other hand, require the transport of very large quantities of fuel and therefore tend to be near coalfields, with air-cooling towers for steam condensation and with makeup water from rivers. Tidal and wave power schemes must of necessity be on the coast or at sea: wind systems, because of their large area requirement, may well be sited offshore. Geothermal plants will probably not be economic for power production but may supply hot water for community heating; this is unlikely to be economic over long transmission distances and so the schemes will be confined to local 'hot dry rock' regions. Solar heating wou ld probably not involve distribution, but would be constrained to direct production and use in buildings in the south of England where there are more hours of sunshine (Peak Energy, 2006) Decommissioning Standards Opportunities Reusing Decommissioned installations is an opportunity in itself that conforms with technicalities like sea-bed clearance, removing installations as and when required, dealing with wastes, observing and analysing remains and monitoring and maintaining a decommissioned site. The Decommissioning Program instead of removing or doing 'from the scratch' installation, abides to the rule of removing partial installations which not only saves time and efforts of the developer but also helps him maintaining a particular standard. In this context the Government is providing full technical support to the renewable energy installation sector by not enforcing any excessive burden onto those who have been declared liable to protect the users of sea and environment. Government provides opportunities to the renewable energy sector to support IMO (International Maritime Organisation) to get along with a standard that conforms to the Removal of offshore installation and structures the Exclusive Economic Zone. In order to protect the Marine environment, the Government is keen to provide full guidance for the offshore oil and gas installations in compliance with the OSPAR Convention (December 2006, Guidance Notes for Industry) which includes support in the form of documents on offshore wind farms. Cost Reduction Reusing decommissioned offshore renewable energy has enabled the BPEO (Best Practicable Environmental Option) to provide least damage to the environment by cutting down the excessive costs in the long and short run. In this way risk is reduced using safety standards of navigation.