Environmental Impact of Wave Energy Converter Technology

By Kathryne Olivia Lovell, Nicholas James Mancini, Ryanne Leora McKenna, and Ariel Waldman
Renewable Energy
iCons Year 1
2020
Environmental Impact of Wave Energy Converter Technology
Executive Summary 

Our main goal for this project will be to measure the effect that tidal plants have on the ecosystem. We would complete a field study by surveying possible locations to implement smaller models of tidal energy plants. Each of the 3 locations (Alaska, Maine, and Washington) will house a control group (no tidal energy system) and an experimental group (with installed tidal energy system) within a 5 miles radius of each other. To be consistent, we decided to plan implementation of the oscillating water column for our studies so that we have a consistent form of energy converter. For our purposes, we decided it would be best to pick a tidal energy converter that is land based, so therefore maintenance and data collection of the system will be easier. We examined the relatively similar prices of tidal energy converters due to all using very similar materials arranged in different orientations.

For the experimental group, changes in ecosystem viability will be measured. Ecosystem viability is its capacity to preserve both its integrity and stability for supporting its original biodiversity (Nasiri, Fuzhan). Ecosystem viability can be measured by dissolved oxygen levels, suspended sediment concentration and organism counts made by SONAR devices. These values will be compared to the control group where an oscillating water column tidal energy system has not been installed. We hypothesize that the dissolved oxygen, suspended sediment concentration, and average number of organisms will all decrease slightly, but that these effects will have no effect on the greater ecosystem.

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Problem Keywords 
tidal plants
ecosystem
oscillating water column
tidal energy converter
electricity

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