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

 ReNews-

Marine wildlife appears largely unaffected by operational wave and tidal renewable energy devices. Scottish Natural Heritage said observations over 10 years off Orkney indicated that a variety of species “will continue to use the waters” around devices.

Military.com/The Honolulu Star-Advertiser ~

The Navy, the Marine Corps, representatives from energy companies and local lawmakers joined together Tuesday at a blessing ceremony for a wave-energy test site at Marine Corps Base Hawaii, Kaneohe.

The Navy and Marine Corps are testing different wave-energy conversion technologies that connect to the grid at a wave-energy test site (WETS) approximately 2.5 miles from shore. These are technologies that lawmakers and the electrical utility say could help the state reach its 100 percent renewable energy goal by 2045.

Portland Business Journal ~

The federal government moved closer to selecting where to build a long-planned wave energy test center — the facility that Oregon wave energy backers see as vital to the future of the industry in the state.

The U.S. Department of Energy on Thursday said it would soon issue a funding opportunity announcement that would offer up to $40 million in federal funding for the test center.

Hants Journal-  Fisheries and Oceans Canada says tidal energy proponents in the Minas Passage have more environmental monitoring and planning to do before deploying turbines.

The federal department, responsible for managing Canada’s fisheries and safeguarding its waters, published a Review of the Environmental Effects Monitoring Program for the Fundy Tidal Energy Project in April 2016.
 

Boston Globe -

For about a quarter-million dollars, a nonprofit research organization will build a modest test facility at the Cape Cod Canal that may help prove that producing electricity from ocean currents can be commercially viable.

The Marine Renewable Energy Collaborative will soon install the nation’s first permanent facility to evaluate submerged turbines that generate electricity from tidal power, in 25 feet of water at the west end of the canal, near the Buzzards Bay Railroad Bridge. The simple trestle-like stand will make it vastly easier — and less expensive — for companies and researchers to subject their prototypes to real-world conditions.

Maritime Executive- 

Developing world investments in renewables topped those of developed nations for the first time in 2015, according to the Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2016 report.
Additionally, coal and gas-fired electricity generation last year drew less than half the record investment made in solar, wind and other renewables

The New York Times- 

​REDMOND, Wash. — Taking a page from Jules Verne, researchers at Microsoft believe the future of data centers may be under the sea.

Microsoft has tested a prototype of a self-contained data center that can operate hundreds of feet below the surface of the ocean, eliminating one of the technology industry’s most expensive problems: the air-conditioning bill.