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    Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of multi-use of marine space: A comparative analysis of offshore wind energy and mussel farming in the Belgian Continental Shelf with terrestrial alternatives
    (Elsevier Sci Ltd, 2024) De Luca Pena, Laura Vittoria; Bas, Bilge; Dewulf, Jo; van den Burg, Sander W. K.; Taelman, Sue Ellen
    The Belgian Continental Shelf is a highly used part of the North Sea, where many different maritime activities thrive, such as shipping, fishing and energy production. Offshore wind energy in particular has gained importance in the region and concessions zones are allowed to be combined with aquaculture activities. It is unclear what the environmental impact of maritime multi-use is, from a life-cycle perspective, where there is potential to create synergies in the value chains, and how similar the impact compares to currently used alternatives. Therefore, this study performs a Life Cycle Assessment on a combination of a full scale existing wind energy farm and a mussel farm design. When analyzing the net environmental impact results of the multi-use offshore farm at the level of three areas of protection, i.e. human health, ecosystem quality and natural resources, it shows that the mussel farm contributes relatively the most to the net impacts, while the majority of the avoided burdens are attributed to the wind farm. Mainly the supply chain of materials required to manufacture its components followed by the operational activities of the multi-use offshore farm contribute to the environmental footprint. Moreover, taking advantage of joint activities, i.e. combined transport between the wind and mussel farm during operational activities (Scenario 1) and at decommissioning phase (Scenario 2) did not show a significant reduction in the overall net impacts of a multi-use farm. The life cycle assessment results of a multi-use offshore farm are furthermore compared with relevant terrestrial benchmarks in Belgium, i.e. nuclear energy and pork meat production. While the benchmarks have a high burden on the area of protection ecosystem quality due water and land use requirements, the multi-use farm mainly impacts the remaining areas of protection, i.e. human health and natural resources, again as a consequence of the burdens of its supply chain. This study reveals the potential of offshore multi-use farms in terms of environmental sustainability, offering valuable insights to policy-makers and value chain actors, and generally contributes to well-informed decision-making.
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    Monetized (socio-)environmental handprint and footprint of an offshore windfarm in the Belgian Continental Shelf: An assessment of local, regional and global impacts
    (ELSEVIER SCI LTD, 2023-10) Pena, Laura Vittoria De Luca; Taelman, Sue Ellen; Baş, Bilge; Staes, Jan; Mertens, Jan; Clavreul, Julie; Preat, Nis; Dewulf, Jo
    Renewable offshore wind electricity is as one of the major renewable energy sources on our path towards carbon neutrality. As for all energy technologies, offshore wind farms (OWFs) will have both local and global negative and positive impacts. Understanding and quantifying these burdens and benefits requires a holistic sustainability assessment. This study tests and applies a novel (socio-) environmental impact assessment framework to quantify the monetized (socio-) environmental footprint and handprint of an offshore wind farm located in the Belgian Continental Shelf. This framework consists of a combination of two ways of integrating Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Ecosystem Services Assessment (ESA) to quantify both the site-specific and site-generic impacts on ecosystem services (ESs) over the lifetime of a human intervention. For the operation and maintenance stage of the OWF, impacts on three local ESs were quantified, i.e. offshore wind energy provisioning, nursery and habitat maintenance and aesthetic value, while for the other life cycle stages site-generic impacts on multiple ESs were calculated. A comprehensive list of data was inventoried to conduct both the LCA and ESA studies. The monetized impact results were then aggregated and monetized at the level of three areas of protection, i.e. human health and well-being, natural resources and ecosystem quality. The results show that the OWF has a net handprint of +euro85,196, mainly due to electricity production, while the absolute footprint (-euro4039) consists largely of impacts associated to the supply chain of materials to manufacture the offshore windfarm. Furthermore, this study compares the (socio-) environmental performance of an OWF with nuclear energy, which is used as benchmark because of its high importance for electricity supply in Belgium. This study is a first step towards a valuable contribution to understanding the multi-scale burdens and benefits of offshore wind energy, which can support decision-and policy-making.