Waiting for wave energy

Apr 27

From: Oregon Business

By Lee van der Voo

At the center of the debate is an oyster. It has no shell, stands over three stories tall and the muscle of its jaw is a pair of hydraulic pistons. When it anchors to the ocean floor, it arrives on a crane. More than $80 million is behind the scouting effort for its next home.

The Oyster (capital O) is Aquamarine Power’s answer to ocean energy. It generates power by capturing waves and pushing them to drive a hydroelectric turbine onshore. Fashioned in arrays, an Oyster farm can generate 100 megawatts of power a year, more lucrative than pearls. For the past six years, Scotland-based Aquamarine Power has been intensely focused on deploying it in wave-rich parts of the world, Oregon included.

As the search to bed the Oyster off Oregon mounts, this hulk of technology has become a symbol of the state’s planning savvy for some, a case in point for why Oregon has spent nearly three years drawing invisible lines around the ocean, zoning where such projects can locate.

Read the full post
Comments (0)

What is the Best Approach for Planning Uses of America’s Coastal Waters, Oceans?

Apr 19

From: Environmental Protection

Policymakers are very familiar with land-use planning. But what is the best approach for planning uses of America’s coastal waters and oceans? That question has gained importance since President Obama formed the National Ocean Council last summer and charged it with developing an ecosystem-based stewardship policy for the nation’s oceans, coastal waters and the Great Lakes.

A team of natural and social scientists led by Brown University offers some guidance. Published in the scientific journal Conservation Letters, the team’s paper offers policy recommendations based on a two-year investigation of marine protection efforts by more than two-dozen local and regional projects from California to Maine. The authors find no group has a one-size-fits-all solution to managing a marine or freshwater area. But they write that many have come up with individual practices that, when combined, could help create an effective national ocean-management policy.

“Every project is engaged in some new and effective ecosystem-based practices, but none of them is doing them all,” said Leila Sievanen, a postdoctoral researcher in the Center for Environmental Studies at Brown University and the paper’s lead author. “Together, though, they are demonstrating what could work on the national level.”

Read the full post
Comments (0)

Ocean/Tidal/Stream Power: Identifying How Marine and Hydrokinetic Devices Affect Aquatic Environments

Apr 12

From: HydroWorld.com

Significant research is under way to determine the potential environmental effects of marine and hydrokinetic energy systems. This work, being guided and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, is intended to address knowledge gaps and facilitate installation and operation of these systems.

By Glenn F. Cada, Andrea E. Copping, and Jesse Roberts

A relatively new generation of waterpower technologies, broadly categorized as marine and hydrokinetic (MHK) energy systems, offers the possibility of generating electricity from water without dams and diversions. The potential power that could be derived from currents, tides, waves, and ocean thermal gradients is enormous, and there are numerous plans in the U.S. and internationally to develop these technologies.

But because the concepts are new, few devices have been deployed and tested in rivers and oceans, and even fewer environmental studies of these technologies have been carried out. Thus, their potential environmental effects remain mostly speculative.1,2,3,4 Movement is under way, particularly by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), to perform the research necessary to address the uncertainties about the environmental effects of MHK technologies, with a view toward getting devices in the water.

EISA report to Congress

Read the full post
Comments (0)

Schrader roundtable awash in ocean issues

Apr 06

From: South Lincoln County News

BY: Terry Dillman 

 

Marine spatial planning, the pros and cons of catch shares, and the plight of salmon fishermen were the main topics during a fishermen’s roundtable held Thursday afternoon at the Oregon Coast Aquarium.

A panel of about 25 local, state and federal fishing industry leaders gathered to discuss those and related matters with U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader as part of the congressman’s series of public sessions in Lincoln County. Will Stelle, regional administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) Northwest Region, started things off, joining the conversation via telephone from Portland.

Stelle said most of the news “is good, but not all of it,” noting the recent spate of “heavy weather” was a culprit in making things more difficult for fishermen.

He pointed to “an incredible crab season,” good water conditions, and good projections for coho and chinook salmon. He also noted the first year of the new “catch shares” program in the groundfish fishery, where there’s “a lot of learning going on,” and “frustration for folks on the water” over certain aspects, most notably the slow influx of observer data.

Read the full post
Comments (0)