Who are the stakeholders and what are they saying?

Establishing commercial-scale harvest of power from ocean tides, waves, and rivers (also known as marine and hydrokinetic, or MHK) is a relatively new concept, and is attracting significant attention from many organizations and individuals.  Key among these groups are the regulators who will permit devices in waterways, users of coastal and ocean space for fishing and recreation, MHK project and device developers, and members of the public. The stakeholders with an interest in MHK energy development have not yet self-sorted into neat manageable groups with clear messages or concerns.  The challenge of parsing ocean energy stakeholders into logical groups, understanding their needs, and fashioning outreach messages and vehicles to deliver useful information requires a number of techniques.  Sponsored by the US Department of Energy, staff from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have identified the breadth of stakeholders with an interest in ocean energy, developed an understanding of their key environmental and socioeconomic issues of interest, identified information stakeholders can contribute to understanding MHK environmental effects, and developed unbiased information about MHK development for stakeholders. This paper will present the results of working with MHK stakeholders, and propose steps to meet the needs of all parties, while establishing this renewable energy source.