CleanTech News

(Nanowerk News) Wondering what the impact on killer whales might be from a turbine installed under the sea? Curious whether crabs and other crustaceans might be attracted to underwater cables carrying electricity to homes and businesses on the mainland? Interested in which country is harvesting the most energy from the world's oceans?

The answers to these and many more lie with Tethys, a robust online resource available for free to anyone interested in ocean energy and offshore wind resources. Tethys — named after the goddess of the sea in Greek mythology — focuses on the environmental effects of energy projects that are proposed, underway or completed in the ocean and above it.

The database includes hundreds of scientific papers, technical reports, regulatory applications on file with federal and internationalbodies, and clickable maps that show the locations of research studies and project sites under development around the world. A robust search function allows a user to filter results, for instance, to find all tidal energy projects in the United States, offshore wind projects in Europe, and so on.

A wind turbine on a floating platform off Portugal. (Image courtesy of Wikimedia)

The resource was created by marine scientists and IT specialists at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, based in Richland, Wash. PNNL is the only DOE laboratory with an ocean research facility, the Marine Sciences Laboratory, which is located on Washington state's Olympic peninsula west of Seattle.

"There is enormous energy capacity within our oceans," said Andrea Copping, an oceanographer at PNNL who heads Tethys. "Can we