Why Should We Stand for Geothermal Energy ? Example of the Negative Impacts of Oil and Gas Exploration Activities over the Marine Environment
Résumé
Geothermal energy is a clean, environmentally friednly, renewable resource that provides energy around the world. Heat flowing constantly from the interior of the Earth ensure to be an inexhaustible supply of energy. However, existing traditional sources of energy, such as oil and gas are still popular nowadays. Current paper gives a remarkable example of how eco - non friendly and environmentally dangerous these sources of energy are. The given example of oil and gas operations within the Timan-Pechora basin in the shelf and the coast of the Pechora Sea causes contamination of waters by phenol and its accumulation in the bottom sediments and life tissues of the marine habitants. At the same time, the ecosystems of the south-eastern part of the Barents sea, the Pechora Sea, are characterized by their high biodiversity and high level of primary production. The last one is the fundamental biological characteristics for the marine ecosystems meaning the formation of the organic substance in the water by the chlorophyll-contains organisms - phytoplankton. The primary production plays an exceptional role in the functionality of the marine ecosystem's components as the level of primary production is a basic element in the ecological food-chain hierarchy and therefore, the ecosystem with damaged phytoplankton operation and low level of primary production dooms to die. Therefore, the broad objective of the study was to identify location of main carbon deposits as sources of phenol contaminations accordingly to the nature features of the Pechora Sea ecosystem and to compare them with the distribution of the areas with high biological productivity and higher level of the primary production within the Pechora Sea. The results of the research demonstrate that both are located in the south-eastern part of the Pechora Sea. Thus, the major deposits of oil in Pechora Sea and amongst the Prirazlomnoe oil-field with large reserves of hydrocarbons are situated exactly in the eastern part of the Pechora Sea, some of them are located in immediate proximity to the coast. At the same time, shelf zone of the Pechora Sea is distinguished for its high level of the primary production, high bioproductivity and uniqueness of its natural resources, extremely hardly renewable under the conditions of the polar environment. This paper details question of the ecological interrelation of the natural ecosystems and man's activities in this region, where any negative industrial human impacts can have an un-compensable consequences for the unique environment of this little sea. Also, the capability of aquatic ecosystem to resist towards human negative effects was examined, depending on the structure and character of its fundamental ecological components (e.g. types of bottom sediments, relief of the sea floor, and the direction of currents transferring).
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