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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.

How the internet travels across oceans — a lot of cable laid very, very slowly

3/15/2019

The New York Times

Like a freeway for all, companies typically pooled resources to lay the many thousands of miles of undersea cables that support global communications. Now, Google is going its own way to connect the United States to its data center in Chile.

Washington state to regulate federal dams on Columbia, Snake to cool hot water, aid salmon

1/31/2019

Seattle Times

Dams and climate change are the leading cause of high temperatures in the Columbia and Snake rivers that are killing salmon, according to an EPA draft analysis. Now the state wants to get involved.

Summer temperatures in portions of the Columbia and Snake rivers are up by 1.5 degrees Celsius since 1960 because of the combined effects of climate change and dams, according to a new draft analysis by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Upper-ocean warming is changing the global wave climate, making waves stronger

1/14/2019

Phys.Org

Sea level rise puts coastal areas at the forefront of the impacts of climate change, but new research shows they face other climate-related threats as well. In a study published January 14 in Nature Communications, researchers report that the energy of ocean waves has been growing globally, and they found a direct association between ocean warming and the increase in wave energy.

Underwater sensors for monitoring sea life (and where to find them)

12/14/2018

UW News

Paul Gibbs, a mechanical engineer at the UW’s Applied Physics Laboratory, inspects the newest Adaptable Monitoring Package, or AMP, before a test in a saltwater pool. AMPs host a series of sensors that allow researchers to continuously monitor animals underwater.

Harvesting power from the ocean, through spinning underwater turbines or bobbing wave-energy converters, is an emerging frontier in renewable energy.

New tool lets citizens help reveal toxic cause of salmon death

10/30/2018

The WSU Insider -

Salmon exposed to toxic stormwater runoff can die in a matter of hours, and scientists are asking for Puget Sound area residents’ help in identifying affected streams to study the phenomenon.

Closing the High Seas to Fishing Probably Won’t Hurt Global Food Security

9/12/2018

Hakai Magazine-

Recent research suggests a ban would have minimal effect on global food security, but some scientists think the case isn’t so clear cut.

800,000 more farmed Atlantic salmon coming to Puget Sound before industry’s permits expire

8/31/2018

The Seattle Times-

The juvenile fish will be places in pens this fall, more than a year after thousands of fish escaped rom a Cooke Aquaculture facility.

How Saving Southern California’s Steelhead Trout Could Also Help the State’s Watersheds

8/10/2018

The Relevator-

A coalition of public and private entities hopes to revive both fish and water supplies in a hotter, drier climate.

Can saving an endangered fish help heal some of California’s regional water woes? Masses of steelhead trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) once migrated freely between the sea and river headwaters along the California coast. That began to change about a century ago as dams, stream realignments, bridges, invasive species and degraded estuaries all took their toll on steelhead, putting this intriguing member of the salmon family on a path toward near-extinction.

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