Analytical Tools for Addressing Ecological Risk from Wave and Current Energy Technologies

For commercial marine and hydrokinetic (MHK) energy development to proceed in the United States, projects must comply with a variety of federal and state environmental regulations and be acceptable to government agencies with resource management responsibilities.  The U.S. Department of Energy MHK Market Acceleration Program is a collaboration of national laboratories, industry, and universities that is developing tools to assist MHK developers in siting and conducting resource-specific scientifically defensible environmental analyses that will be acceptable to regulatory and resource management agencies and other stakeholders.  Here we describe conceptual models (CMs) that can be used to identify potential ecological risks from the development and operation of MHK devices.  Creating a CM is a critical early step in the risk assessment process, serving to identify (a) biological receptors and processes within an ecosystem that could be affected by physical, chemical, or biological stressors, and (b) the potential direct and indirect ecological effects that may result from the stressors.  We also present preliminary approaches for qualitatively and quantitatively characterizing ecological risks associated with the MHK-based stressor-receptor linkages identified in the CMs.  These approaches focus on the potential for direct effects to aquatic biota from blade strike, operational noise, electromagnetic fields, and from the leaching of toxicants from anti-fouling coatings used on MHK devices.  The characterization of potential blade strike and toxicant effects employs spatially and temporally explicit probabilistic exposure models that account for habitat preferences and seasonal movements of the species of interest.  The characterization of noise and EMF effects involves estimating the loss or degradation of feeding, juvenile, and reproductive habitat as a percentage of habitat available in the project vicinity.  The development and use of project-specific CMs and risk characterization tools provide developers with an approach for identifying and evaluating potential ecological impacts of MHK development that is consistent with accepted ecological risk assessment approaches and would provide results that would address regulatory concerns and compliance.

Argonne National Laboratory’s work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Wind and Water Technology Program, under contract DE-AC02-06CH11357.