The Reef Tank dot com is an informative website about reef keeping and many other aspects of marine life. They just posted this interview with yours truly on marine energy. Thought we'd cross link it here as one does not always have the opportunity to appear in a reef tank!

What is your background in energy research, marine science?

I'm an engineering and computational mathematics professor who designs innovative computational tools to assess energy resources, optimize their production, and reduce their environmental impacts. Central question to my work is how we can provide energy to an increasingly energy hungry world in a way that is sustainable, both environmentally and economically. I specialize in the production of nonconventional fossil fuel resources, such as shale oil and oil sands, as well as tidal energy production and assessment of large scale wind and solar projects.

I've been a professor in Energy Resources Engineering at Stanford since 2001. Originally I trained as a computational mathematician and fluid mechanician. I received a PhD in these areas from Stanford University in 1997. In between 1997 and 2001 I was a professor at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. 
 
As faculty for the Department of Energy Resources Engineering at Stanford U, you work to develop new tools to enhance production of existing oil and gas reservoirs.  What are some of these tools? 

I am strongly motivated to mitigate negative environmental impacts of oil and gas production. One way to do this is to enable production techniques that are cleaner, another to find ways to squeeze more oil and gas out of existing reservoirs so that nonconventional resources in remote and/or vulnerable areas will not be tapped as much.

I worked for several years on gas injection processes that allow more oil to be produced from older reservoirs. One gas that can be injected is carbon dioxide, thereby killing two birds with one stone (enhanced recovery and sequestration). I now mostly focus in this area on developing cleaner production techniques for heavy oil, in particular oil sands. In all of this work, I contribute by the design of efficient computational models that can be used to optimize production strategies and also improve our understanding of the reservoir processes.

Why the decision to create Smart Energy? 

I started Smart Energy as a way to help disseminate important research findings to the general public, to policy makers as well as investors in energy resources. I was frustrated by the lack of knowledge on energy issues in the general media and amongst the general public and wanted to do my bit to improve that situation. Energy is such an important topic! It is already and will increasingly be very very challenging to supply energy to the world in a sustainable manner. We will have some tough decisions to make in order to improve current energy supply and develop cleaner energy resources. The better the public is informed, the better the decisions we will make.

What does the site offer? 

A combination of things: videos of interviews with leading scientists and engineers, opinion pieces, guest editorials, background information on energy resources, special feature documentaries. 

Your site asks, “How do we meet this rising demand for energy without inflicting permanent damage to a fragile environment?” How does your Smart Energy site answer this question.  Give an example, particularly one that’s marine energy related if possible.

We try to facilitate answers by providing reliable information and analyzing research findings. We also try to establish dialogues between important partners. In the area of marine energy there are many unanswered questions. It is an energy resource that has not been tapped into at any commercial scale and most of the designs are pre-commercial or just commercial. Environmental impacts are mostly unknown. Technology is not yet commercially attractive. At this time we just assess what's out there. I personally research tidal energy systems and hope to answer some of the questions related to optimal design of tidal turbines and the possible environmental impact of large scale tidal turbine systems in the next years.

How important is marine energy research and marine energy resources? 

Resource estimates vary widely. In my opinion marine energy will never be a big slice of the energy pie, but locally it can play a very important role. For example, remote communities (island communities, say) that have large wave and tidal energy resources but lack solar or wind resources, may greatly benefit from having local devices for marine energy generation. As I said earlier, marine energy is in its infant stage, so research in the design of systems, placement of systems and impact of systems on the environment is very important.

What are some of the marine energy resources currently available? 

Mostly wave energy and tidal energy. Wave energy systems include the so-called point absorbers that are positioned in the ocean wave field offshore and extract energy as they are bobbing up and down waves. They also include devices such as the oscillating water column that extracts energy from the waves as they crash onto shore.

Tidal energy can be extracted both by using the potential energy difference of a water body between low and high tides. Barrages, such as the well-known and now rather old barrage in La Rance, France, are examples. But most of the effort in tidal energy now focuses on extracting energy from tidal flows, that is from ocean currents that are created by the tides. This technology is rather similar to wind energy: large turbines are positioned in areas of high flows. Tidal turbines can be seen as beefed up wind turbines really. Their design is more challenging than wind turbines though because water is so much more dense, is salty and has all sorts of debris in it. Cavitation can be a problem on blades and the flows are generally bi-directional.

What are some of the issues with using marine energy as a resource or alternative energy?

Access to the sites that are often in remote and hostile areas. Design challenges (see above question). Unknown environmental impacts. Competition with other water users such as fisheries, transportation and marine protected areas. 

Do you see marine energy replacing some of the energy sources we are currently using? 

Probably at some scale, but not huge. Mostly local. Ideal for local supply in remote areas that do not have many other resources to tap into.

What are some of your energy projects for the future? 

Tidal turbine design. Site optimization of tidal turbine systems. Study of environmental impacts of tidal turbine systems.

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