Institute for Energy Studies Speaker Series Presents: Reducing Fish and Wildlife Impacts

From Marine-Hydrokinetic (MHK) Energy Projects

Renewable energy sources: wind turbines, solar panels, tidal turbines, and wave energy converter.

Event Details

When:

Tue, Jun 2, 2026, 4pm - 5:15pm

Location:

Online: Zoom

Price:

Free

Brought to you by:

Institute for Energy Studies, The Foundation for WWU & Alumni

Description

Check out this video to watch the Reducing Fish and Wildlife Impacts.

We need to add marine-power production to our alternative-energy portfolio, in the face of climate change and the extractive nature of fossil fuels and nuclear power. Although hydropower dams provide “green” energy, there are major fisheries impacts that might be better served by employing more marine-hydrokinetic (MHK) power, which the Biden administration thought might contribute 20% of future American energy production, when also including inland (river) hydrokinetic (RHK) devices. Together, MHK and RHK devices work underwater, in contrast to offshore windfarms. There are many different types of MHK devices that operate based on tides, waves, offshore-current, or thermal or salinity gradients.

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Featuring:

A man in an orange jacket smiles, with a vast, colorful canyon behind him under a cloudy sky.
Dr. Bob Vadas

Dr. Vadas is a Research Scientist with WDFW-Habitat on biophysical issues for riparian/wetland, instream-flow, dam, fish-passage, overwater-structure, and marine-hydrokinetic topics for western > eastern Washington. Bob has over four decades of field experience on the habitat and ecohydrologic needs of freshwater and estuarine fishes, over half of it for western North America (the rest is for the East Coast). This includes sampling and modeling fish habitat across spatial scales, but also research at other trophic levels: wildlife, invertebrates, and plants of riparian and aquatic status.

Questions and Accommodations

  • Contact The Foundation for WWU & Alumni for this event if you have questions or need disability accommodations by calling (360) 650-3353 or emailing Alumni@wwu.edu.
  • Advance notice for disability accommodations and special needs is greatly appreciated. Please indicate your special needs on the registration form.
  • There will be auto-captions available for the Zoom webinar.

The views expressed by our speaker do not necessarily reflect those of Western Washington University.