Mapping the value of commercial fishing and potential costs of offshore wind energy on the U.S: West Coast: Towards an assessment of resource use tradeoffs.

ABSTRACT: The West Coast of the U.S. has a vast offshore wind energy (OWE) electricity generation potential with value on the order of billions of USD, and pressure is mounting to develop large OWE projects. However, this seascape has numerous existing resource extraction uses, including a multi-billion dollar commercial fishing industry, which create the potential for conflict. To date, spatially explicit comparisons of OWE and commercial fisheries value have not been done, but are essential for marine spatial planning and for investigating the tradeoffs of OWE development on existing marine uses. In this analysis, we generate maps of OWE levelized cost of energy and of total economic activity generated by the top eight commercial fishing targets that account for the vast majority (~84%) of landed

SUBMITTER: Feist BE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11884673 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature