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Comment by agleason | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious, when wind farms do go into the ocean bed, how does it affect the ecosystem? I'm guessing it might not be a problem since I've never read about it, but it seems like it could cause reverberating problems in the ocean which is one of our biggest natural tools in fighting climate change

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Sunken ships and pier pilings are generally a haven for underwater animals; this is a key principle behind the creation of artificial reefs.

One thing I do know is that putting tons of huge wind farms off of the coast of California would likely be a disaster for migratory birds that travel the pacific flyway down the coast, many of which are not found anywhere else in the world.

Can’t really comment on anything above the waterline but below typically they become more attractive to marine life, basically things grow on them... if this is good or bad depends on who you talk to (eg should barren places remain barren, is increasing the amount of marine life the right thing?).

I worked on a project decommissioning an oil rig d as no it nearly got canned because rare cold water coral started growing was found on the structure. Marine life is weird...

There's a couple of large-scale wind farms in the Irish Sea, haven't read anything about ecological impact of monopiles -- they've been used for other sea structures for a long time so longitudinal data should exist.

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