By Gianmaria Sannino – Senior Researcher at ENEA English Version Gianmaria Sannino opened his speech during ReThink – Circular Ocean Forum in Genoa, with a brief and current introduction concerning the correlation between climate change and sea-level rise, explaining how the oceans absorb heat and they expand by increasing their volume. In addition to melting glaciers, in fact, the oceans’ temperature increase, is the second reason that causes the raising of the level, which is among the causes of the disaster that took place in November in Venice. The sea can also be exploited as an intelligent energy source, Sannino showed a quote by Joseph Conrad from the book Typhoon, which says “… he had never seen the immeasurable force and excessive anger, the anger that passes and runs out without ever subsiding – the anger and fury of the irritated sea”, which turns out to be a fictionalized definition of what marine renewable energy is. Even Victor Hugo already in 1874, with a quote taken from the novel “Novantatrè”, emphasizes how the sea is a source of energy that the earth should make use of: “Think of the movement of the waves, the ebb and flow, the coming and going of the tides. What is the ocean? a huge lost force. How stupid the earth is, not to use the ocean! “ The global marine energy potential can be a very powerful resource, it is estimated that the amount of marine energy we can extract is equal to 1,200 TWh / year, while the global wave is estimated to be 29,500 TWh / year, these data are surprising if we consider that the current global electricity demand is 25,600 TWh / year. It would be easy to ask why it is not exploited, the first reason is that this energy is...
