Biodiversity Lending Instruments for Coastal Restoration and Protection
Substantial research and development efforts have been applied to core energy transition technologies such as solar panels, wind turbines, and transmission equipment, leading to substantially lowered costs for renewable energy in recent years. However, the vast majority of the habitat interface of these systems consist of traditional structural and armoring materials such as painted steel, rock & concrete. For example, a Natrx analysis of a planned US offshore wind farm indicates that 98% of the marine surface area consists of rock and concrete armoring of turbines & cables. Unfortunately, design and construction techniques for infrastructure protection are decades or even centuries old and generally have not been developed with ecological considerations in mind. These represent excellent candidates for eco-engineering. There is a growing consensus that nature based techniques can provide lower costs, higher community resilience, and enhanced biodiversity, and the current scale of alternative energy demands examination of alternative infrastructure designs.
We will share examples of nature-based deployments in traditional and emerging energy infrastructure applications refined during our residence in the CFA accelerator program, including comparisons of hurricane resilience for nature-based systems versus traditional infrastructure. The session will examine alternatives to traditional heavy construction techniques with a data-driven design & adaptation approach. Finally, we will address new opportunities for innovative financing to accelerate the adoption of nature-based techniques in the industrial and energy sectors.