While not natural structures, their platforms have been embedded into the muddy seabed long enough to become part of the ocean environment, providing a home for creatures like mussels and barnacles, which in turn attract larger fish and sea lions that find safety and food there.
After two and a half decades of studying the rigs, Bull says it’s clear to her: “These places are extremely productive, both for commercial and recreational fisheries and for invertebrates.”
Now, as California and the US shift away from offshore drilling and toward greener energy, a debate is mounting over their future. On one side are those who argue disused rigs are an environmental blight and should be removed entirely. On the other side are people, many of them scientists, who say we should embrace these accidental oases and that removing the structures is morally wrong. In other parts of the world, oil rigs have successfully become artificial reefs, in a policy known as rigs to reefs.
It’s not that we should build more platforms, since artificial reef technology has been a thing for several years already. We can just build more artificial reefs. Probably cheaper than platforms too. I’ve also heard of electrified reefs which sound solarpunk af. We could use wind turbines to electrify artificial reefs.
Sure but making them have a second use beyond just habitat would greatly increase the possible number that can be produced. I wasn’t really saying we should build more oil rigs, but artificial reefs that have other industrial functions is a great idea I think.
That said, if artificial reefs can be cheap enough to build many of them, that could be worth pursuing as well. I don’t know the relative costs here.