Co-Convenors: George
Boehlert (U.S.A.), Michael Foreman (Canada), Glen Jamieson (Canada)
and Kuh Kim (Korea)
Renewable energy projects are increasing worldwide,
and many types involve the marine environment. Those under active development
are typically designed to directly extract energy from waves, tides,
currents, wind, or thermal gradients or indirectly from biomass energy.
These novel technologies will require new emplacements, moorings, or
other structures in marine and estuarine environments with attendant
intrusions upon the environment, including acoustic signals, changes
to mixing, and electromagnetic fields. Marine renewable energy sources
are able to provide clean energy, but their effects on the physical
and biological environment are not well understood. This session will
examine the technologies under development in PICES nations and address
the current state of our knowledge on how they will interact with estuarine,
coastal, and offshore environments.
This session seeks contributions that deal with any topics pertinent
to marine renewable energy development, including: (1) status of marine
renewable energy in PICES countries; (2) economic costs and benefits
of different approaches; (3) marine spatial planning for renewable energy;
(4) physical effects of marine renewable energy development (current
flow, energy reduction, mixing, sediment transport); and (5) ecological
effects (larval transport, entrainment, entanglement, behavior, habitat
changes, communities) on all trophic levels.