Oregon public wants cautious approach with potential efforts



Most folks generally support developing wave energy potential in Oregon’s territorial sea, but many want a cautious approach that encompasses careful research and testing before launching significant commercial projects.

Those are the underlying conclusions of a report prepared for the Oregon Wave Energy Trust by Oregon State University (OSU) researchers.

“Different people and different groups have varying opinions, depending on whether they’re more interested in jobs, energy, fishing rights, the environment, or other issues,” said Flaxen Conway, an OSU sociology professor and the report’s editor and co-author. “Many coastal residents and others want to be heard. They are often skeptical of change, and it’s clear they want answers to their questions before going to commercial scale. They recognize the value of space and place in the ocean. And a lot of concerned people in the fishing industry don’t want this to be just one more thing working against them.”

Wave energy has gone from almost nonexistent a decade ago to a form of alternative energy getting megawatts of consideration at the national level, along with the scientific, commercial, political, and public attention it generates.

Because of its huge wave energy potential off its 360-mile shoreline, Oregon is a focus of much attention. State officials have committed to deriving 25 percent of Oregon’s electricity needs from renewable energy sources by 2025.

Conway said OSU is leading the way in wave energy research efforts, looking to answer many of the technological and environmental questions, such as whether wave energy would work, how cost-effective it could be, what technologies show the most promise, and what impacts commercial wave energy projects could have on marine life and the sea bed. Much public focus, however, is on the “human dimensions” of wave energy.

During the past two years, a major social research effort involving six different, but interrelated projects were launched to determine those dimensions.

Conway said they want “to fully listen to and understand the knowledge about and perspective of wave energy by the many vested groups, among them coastal communities, the energy industry, conservation groups, commercial and recreational users, and government officials.

“There’s a lot of work still to do before everyone feels informed and engaged,” she noted. “It’s difficult for a lot of people to know what to believe or who to trust.”

Research findings suggest folks trust local government officials and academic experts most, private industry and the news media the least. Despite that, the report noted the Internet and local news media as the primary public information sources on wave energy, and efforts to inform various interest groups must include those sources.

Other observations indicate that some of the biggest conflicts relate to permits and sites for proposed wave energy developments. Strong support exists for complete technological and environmental research before allowing large-scale commercial projects.

Conway said “a collaborative and inclusive approach” to siting wave energy plants and monitoring environmental issues could help avoid political battles later.

Significant work is still needed on mapping the ocean floor, and “truly sustainable energy sources” - including wave energy - must consider all economic, environmental, and social dimensions.

“It’s not just a case of developing technologies that work and finding industrial partners who want to develop them,” Conway said. “People care about the environment, they care about existing uses of the ocean, they care about their concerns, and they care about the ocean view from their porch. All of these things matter.”

No one, she added, should underestimate the social dimension of the issue.

Maria Stefanovich, an Oregon Sea Grant Malouf Scholar at OSU, agrees. Writing in the September 2009 issue of “Sea Technology” magazine - a leading international publication for marine business, science, and engineering - she referred to the results of the statewide September 2008 Oregon Energy Policy Survey conducted by OSU researchers.

“Demographics should inform wave energy policy,” she concluded.

The survey, she noted, indicated that policymakers might get the public to adopt renewable energy more quickly if they “stress the socioeconomic benefits that wave energy could provide,” instead of focusing on issues such as climate change and depletion of traditional energy resources.

All this leads to what Onno Husing, executive director of the Oregon Coastal Zone Management Association (OCZMA), considers absolutely essential: ocean spatial planning. For the first time ever, many new uses are under consideration for Oregon’s territorial sea, including wave energy development.

The difference, he noted, is that - unlike today’s temporary, non-exclusive uses such as fishing and navigation - each of the proposed new uses would physically occupy for decades at a time “defined pieces of ocean real estate.” Private corporations could get exclusive access to what are now public places in the ocean, blocking those offshore areas to commercial and recreational fishing, boating, and shipping.

“Through a planning process, new industrial uses of the ocean can be steered to places with the least impact on the marine environment and our economy and culture,” Husing said. “We can also protect important viewsheds on the Oregon coast, and recreational amenities.”

In other words, it means focusing on the socioeconomic human dimensions so many consider critical to the on-going conversation.



Terry Dillman is the assistant editor of the News-Times. Contact him at (541) 265-8571, ext 225, or terrydillman@newportnewstimes.com.



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