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An Evaluation of the U.S. Department of Energy's Marine and Hydrokinetic Resource Assessments (2013) / Chapter Skim
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8 Overarching Conclusions and Recommendations
Pages 91-96

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From page 91...
... have been reexamined for this report, and those that are relevant have been reiterated in this and other chapters. A DEFENSIBLE ESTIMATE OF THE MHK RESOURCE As first expressed in its interim report, the committee continues to have strong concerns about the usefulness of aggregating theoretical and technical resource assessments to produce a single-number estimate for any one of the five MHK resources.
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From page 92...
... Inevitably, some of these theoretical and technical resource estimates include large areas where the energy density is so low that energy development would be impractical. Such practical limits will undoubtedly affect the power available from all MHK resources, but some resources may be more significantly reduced than others, and the resource with the largest theoretical resource base may not necessarily have the largest practical resource base.
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From page 93...
... electricity supply. Recommendation: Further evaluation of the MHK resource base should use the theoretical and/or technical results of the DOE resource assessments and appropriate decision support tools to identify the constraints that affect the practical resource and to help identify individual, highly promising sites for continued study of the practical resource.
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From page 94...
... Recommendation: DOE should develop or adopt a conceptual framework that clearly defines the theoretical, technical, and prac tical MHK energy resource. Each of the resource assessment groups provides a useful contribution to understanding the distribution and possible magnitude of marine and hydrokinetic energy sources in the United States.
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From page 95...
... The tidal resource database is currently hosted by the tidal resource assessment group and will be integrated with other NREL products; however, the visualization and analysis tools developed by the assessment group will not be implemented in the MHK Atlas. Given that one of DOE's objectives is to compare the various MHK resources with one another and with other renewable energy resources, stronger initial coordination among the assessment groups could have led to products developed in a common format.
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From page 96...
... Clearly, both the ocean current and OTEC resource bases have very limited geographical extent in the United States. The main potential for ocean currents is in the Florida Straits, and the coastal regions of the Hawaiian Islands and Puerto Rico are the most likely places for efficient OTEC siting.
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Key Terms

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  • five mhk
  • technical resource
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  • mhk energy
  • extractable energy

  • mhk atlas
  • tidal resource
  • extractable mhk
  • resource bases
  • theoretical resource

  • renewable energy
  • potential extractable
  • common set
  • energy community
  • renewable resources

  • power generation
  • geographical extent
  • defensible estimate
  • energy resource
  • tical mhk

  • otec resource
  • ous mhk
  • various mhk
  • cal mhk
  • five resource


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