Ecological impact due to extraction of energy from estuaries

It is for the reader in the worldwide: following the recent research papers in the International Journal of River Basin Management by Haddout and Priya (2020) and Haddout et al. (2020), estuaries renewable energy, salinity gradient energy (SGE) as example, can be gained from the controlled mixing of two solutions with different salt concentrations, taking advantage of the chemical potential difference. This energy promises to assist in the effort to reduce carbon emissions worldwide. But we have not ignored that the estuaries are among the most biologically productive ecosystems on the planet critical to the life cycles of fish, other aquatic animals and the creatures which feed on them. Recently the wider estuarine community asks if this energy could have significant effects on the fisheries and marine life caused by the diverted flow. In this comment, we focus on the degree of the impact of estuary energy on ecology; and finally we hope that this comment has not given a too idiosyncratic or personal view.