It’s the the scariest place under the sea – and what turbines aren’t telling you

The deep ocean has long been a mysterious space of human imagination. Beneath miles of water, sunlight ceases to exist; crushing pressure causes even steel to buckle; and millions of square miles of water remain largely unexplored. However, in recent years, the unknown waters of the deep ocean have begun to collide with modern energy technologies, resulting in disturbing questions about what actually occurs beneath the waves.

Fears arise about the deep ocean and the effect of turbines

Fears about the deep ocean and what industrial technology may be secretly placing into one of the Earth’s most extreme environments have arisen again after a viral video. The video clearly illustrates how foreign these environments are to us humans and how little we know about the implications of developing them.

The video of underwater turbines shows the enormous size of this ocean-based infrastructure disappearing into total blackness due to the extreme depths. The turbines shown in the video were surrounded by slow-moving currents that are intended to capture energy from either wind or tides (and thus provide clean and renewable energy), yet the video provides a feeling of being in a horror documentary rather than a clean energy success story.  

The viral video circulating through social media was uploaded to TikTok by the user @whoisdatabase, who is well-known for creating short, unnerving educational videos focused on unusual or unknown facts, places, or science/cultural-related subject matter. Although @whoisdatabase does not include a formal bio, their TikTok channel includes “who is”-style videos explaining obscure facts, interesting places, and lesser-known scientific or culturally related facts.

With over a hundred thousand views, @whoisdatabase’s video on deep-sea energy infrastructure using turbines in the deep ocean effectively utilizes factual claims combined with frightening images of the ocean floor to create a chilling video.

The visual appearance of the deep ocean is not the only thing that sparks concern

It is not just the visual appearance of deep-ocean turbines that creates concern for many people, but also their operating environment. Deep-ocean turbines are located in near-total darkness, subjected to extreme pressure, and reside in ecosystems that are uniquely suited to extreme stability. Any disturbance, large or small, to such stable systems will likely result in disproportionate impacts to those systems.

Many individuals who oppose offshore wind and subsea turbines, which are presented as clean and renewable sources of energy, contend that there is very little long-term data available regarding the impact of continuous vibration, electromagnetic fields, and low-frequency noise on marine organisms.

The negative impact on marine life

One of the most common claims made regarding the negative impacts of underwater turbines is the transmission of extremely high voltage electricity through subsea power cables, which generate electromagnetic fields believed to potentially interfere with species that use the Earth’s magnetic field to navigate.

There are also psychological concerns in addition to biological concerns

In addition to the biological concerns associated with underwater turbines, there is also a psychological component. The images of gigantic, spinning structures barely visible in pitch-black water evoke the same instinctual responses that humans experience while viewing shipwrecks, underwater caverns, and the deepest parts of the ocean.

While industry advocates point out that subsea turbines and offshore wind farms represent an important tool to meet our future energy demands without increasing greenhouse gas emissions, critics argue that the ocean is not an empty resource pool.

Once damaged, deep-sea ecosystems may never fully recover – and recovery times may take centuries. Ultimately, @whoisdatabase’s video captures a growing uneasiness as to what is occurring beneath the waves as humans begin to industrialize this alien frontier at unprecedented levels. The question facing developers and policymakers is no longer simply whether underwater turbines function, but what unforeseen costs are being incurred in the most remote place on earth.