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Ocean Energy Needs a Lift to Go Mainstream

1/4/2022

Wall Street Journal

Technology to harvest energy from waves and tides has been proven to work, but costs need to come down.

Oceans contain energy that is both renewable and predictable—an appealing combination given the challenges posed by fluctuating wind and solar power. But the technologies for harvesting marine energy will need a boost if they are to go mainstream.

The COP26 summit to fight climate change has started. Here's what to expect

11/2/2021

NPR
A climate extravaganza got underway in Glasgow, Scotland, on Sunday. President Biden showed up. So have other world leaders and a small city's worth of diplomats, business executives and activists. It's billed as a potential turning point in the struggle to avert the worst effects of climate change, and it has a curious name: COP26.
Is it worth the hype? What might it accomplish? Here's what you need to know.

Q. What's a COP?
These climate meetings began in 1992, when countries signed a treaty promising to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere and prevent dangerous changes to the climate. Almost every year since then, the parties to this agreement have met to talk about what still needs to be done. It's called a Conference of Parties, or COP. This is the 26th such meeting. So, COP26.

Genetic Analysis Shows Beluga Whale in Puget Sound Likely Arrived from Arctic Waters

10/28/2021

NOAA Fisheries
Scientists have collected genetic material from the beluga whale that was first sighted in Puget Sound in early October. It indicates that the whale is likely from a large population of beluga whales in the Beaufort Sea, part of the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska.

The whale appears to have traveled thousands of miles south around Alaska through the Bering Sea and south to Puget Sound. It was last sighted on October 20 near Tacoma. The whale does not appear to be from the small and endangered Cook Inlet beluga population near Anchorage, Alaska.

The genetic analysis involved sequencing DNA extracted from a water sample collected near the beluga whale in Puget Sound earlier this month. This material is known as environmental DNA, or eDNA, because it comes from skin, fecal, or other cellular debris found in the environment near the animal.

A major new facility in Oregon could help transform the prospects of wave energy

4/29/2021

CNBC

With snow-capped mountains, shimmering lakes and vast swathes of forest, Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, does not lack for natural beauty.

In waters off its coastline, one project is attempting to harness nature’s power by testing and analyzing wave energy converters, a technology which could have an important role to play in a transition to renewables.

Known as PacWave, the project is based around two locations: PacWave North, “a test-site for small-scale, prototype, and maritime market technologies,” and PacWave South, which is under development and has received grants from the Department of Energy and the State of Oregon, among others.

More management measures lead to healthier fish populations

1/20/2021

UW News

Fish populations tend to do better in places where rigorous fisheries management practices are used, and the more measures employed, the better for fish populations and food production, according to a new paper published Jan. 11 in Nature Sustainability.

The study, led by Michael Melnychuk of the University of Washington’s School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, draws upon the expertise of more than two dozen researchers from 17 regions around the world. The research team analyzed the management practices of nearly 300 fish populations to tease out patterns that lead to healthier fisheries across different locations. Their findings confirmed, through extensive data analysis, what many researchers have argued for several years.

“In general, we found that more management attention devoted to fisheries is leading to better outcomes for fish and shellfish populations,” Melnychuk said. “While this won’t be surprising to some, the novelty of this work was in assembling the data required and then using statistical tools to reveal this pattern across hundreds of marine populations.”

Tire-related chemical is largely responsible for adult coho salmon deaths in urban streams

12/17/2020

UW News

Every fall more than half of the coho salmon that return to Puget Sound’s urban streams die before they can spawn. In some streams, all of them die. But scientists didn’t know why.

Now a team led by researchers at the University of Washington Tacoma, UW and Washington State University Puyallup have discovered the answer. When it rains, stormwater flushes bits of aging vehicle tires on roads into neighboring streams. The killer is in the mix of chemicals that leach from tire wear particles: a molecule related to a preservative that keeps tires from breaking down too quickly.

What’s Green, Soggy and Fights Climate Change?

10/11/2020

NY Times

You might be surprised: Protecting peat bogs could help the world avert the worst effects of global warming, a new study has found. Protecting intact peatlands and restoring degraded ones are crucial steps if the world is to counter climate change, European researchers said Friday.

In a study, they said peat bogs, wetlands that contain large amounts of carbon in the form of decaying vegetation that has built up over centuries, could help the world achieve climate goals like the limit of 2 degrees Celsius of postindustrial warming that is part of the 2015 Paris agreement.

How salmon can transform a landscape

11/29/2019

BBC News

Protecting salmon in coastal Canada could have benefits that extend beyond the water they swim in and can have profound impacts on the surrounding landscape.

Skeins of wispy clouds obscure the tops of distant forested mountains, reflected in calm waters. On this midsummer morning at least, the Pacific is living up to its name on this stretch of Canada’s west coast. Backpacks and thermoses in hand, four researchers tread down a wooden strutted ramp to board a boat named the Keta. Scientist Allison Dennert starts the boat, steering away from the dock into the broad channel, glancing at the map on the video console. A brief stop at the Bella Bella dock, to pick up research technician Sarah Humchitt, completes our crew of five.

UW engineers test tidal energy turbines on Lake Washington

8/19/2019

King 5 News

A team of engineers are testing turbines in Lake Washington that are designed to turn tides into usable energy.

Every day the tide rolls in and out of Puget Sound, and engineers at the University of Washington would like to harvest some of that energy for public use. Tides are a renewable energy source that is more predictable than wind or sun, but the technology has not accelerated at the same pace as other renewables. Tests of cross-flow turbines on Lake Washington are a step forward in the development of this new source of power.

Willapa Bay Oyster Farmers Struggle As Shrimp Population Booms

7/10/2019

NPR - OPB

By Molly Solomon

On an early spring morning at low tide, Kathleen Nisbet-Moncy hops out of the small boat as it nears a tide flat near the mouth of Cedar River in Washington’s Willapa Bay.

Even at seven months pregnant, the second-generation oyster farmer easily sloshes through the mud in waders, stopping every now and then to point out a cluster of glistening oyster shells nestled among the eelgrass.

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