Very interesting visualisation of the sea conditions. Being based in Singapore I can attest to the very calm waters around here. However, the available area will shrink quite a bit if you consider that the waters around Singapore and the Strait of Malacca are a major shipping lane. A traffic density of that level effectively prohibits any offshore installations. Would have been nice to factor that into the graphics.
this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2023
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I wonder how much of it would be sapped up by the air conditioning required to survive near the equator after temperatures rise a few more degrees.
So cut the amount of energy going to the life that produces the oxygen we need to survive....
Well, with they way ocean temps are skyrocketing, maybe it doesn't hurt to siphon off a bit of that energy.
That was my first thought too. But then I remembered this research article saying that oceans were turning greener... https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02262-9 maybe we're at a win-win situation? Phytoplankton are the base of the marine food web, and their blooms can deplete oxygen levels in the water, endangering the marine ecosystem..
For countries in the equator it'd probably make more sense to have land-based solar panels, since they're cheap. African countries probably have the land to spare.
Africa is huge and West Africa is pretty densly populated.