The article presents an overview of the technical, economic, and environmental arguments in favour of wider use of the gigantic energy potential of sea tides to solve the most important climate problem today – the reduction of anthropogenic pollution of the Earth's atmosphere with carbon dioxide.
The main idea of the considered solution is the replacement of carbon fuels for thermal power plants and transport with "green" hydrogen. The production of such hydrogen is carried out by electrolysis using the energy of carbon–free renewable sources.
Tidal hydroelectric power plants are the cheapest, largest and most economically safe electricity supplier for the production of green hydrogen today. Until now, this direction of the energy sector has not become widespread due to the high capital intensity, as well as due to the geographic remoteness of the places where tidal energy is concentrated from large centres of electricity consumption.
The explosive growth in global hydrogen demand in recent years alleviates the problem of very expensive transport and large losses in long distance transmission of electricity. Hydrogen can be transported without loss and relatively cheaply by pipelines and sea tankers over unlimited distances.
The use of the energy of the highest tides and flow in the Pacific Ocean for the production of "green" hydrogen is proposed in the revived project of construction of the world's largest Penzhinsk Tidal Hydroelectric Power Plant (the Sea of Okhotsk’ north–east, Russia).