Preface Facing the Challenges of Resource Characterization and Physical System Effects of Marine Renewable Energy Development

Many nations have expanded their national energy portfolio to ameliorate the effects of climate change and to ensure the security and certainty of energy availability. These efforts have led to scrutiny of marine renewable energy (MRE) as one of several viable new renewable energy sources. In addition to the need to prove the reliability and efficiency of current and wave energy converters, effective siting and operation of MRE devices requires detailed and accurate characterization of the tidal stream, ocean current, and wave resource, as well as assessments of the potential risk to the physical marine environment from MRE development. The desire to understand the many challenges to characterizing marine energy resources and the effects of energy extraction on physical systems motivated the compilation of the chapters in this book, which represent research and review efforts that address these two important topics. Chapters Wave Energy Assessments: Quantifying the Resource and Understanding the Uncertainty through Marine Hydrokinetic Energy in the Gulf Stream Off North Carolina: An Assessment Using Observations and Ocean Circulation Models address resource characterization of wave, tidal stream, and ocean current energy using laboratory experiments, field measurements, and numerical models. Chapters Effects of Tidal Stream Energy Extraction on Water Exchange and Transport Timescales through Planning and Management Frameworks for Renewable Ocean Energy cover topics related to the effects of energy extraction on physical systems, such as water exchange in coastal estuaries and bays, sediment transport, underwater noise, and marine spatial planning for MRE development. In many parts of the world, harvesting wave energy seems very promising because of the very large potential resource located near many coastlines. Chapters Wave Energy Assessments: Quantifying the Resource and Understanding the Uncertainty through Analyses of Wave Scattering and Absorption Produced by WEC Arrays: Physical/Numerical Experiments and Model Assessment are devoted