Abstract
Marine Hydrokinetic Power is a great potential renewable energy source. However, environmental risks and other fears is a barrier against new renewable energy technologies. The need for understanding potential environmental impacts spurred the continuing development of the Environmental Risk Evaluation System (ERES). ERES is a scientific tool, which allows specific identification and prioritization of risks. It is a supplemental tool, and it is not designed to replace sound judgment. ERES will work with Tethys, which is a wiki - knowledge base that will support ERES. In addition, Tethys will facilitate knowledge creation, retention, and aggregation. Tethys will also incorporate Annex IV data.
Tethys design comes from the Knowledge Encapsulation Framework (KEF). KEF was developed to capture technosocial models (intended to manage data from scientific literature, simulation models, and social media). Although Tethys is a wiki-based site, it is conducted in the traditional wiki manner. Tethys is mostly closed, except for some key collaborators. However, from a design standpoint, it is built on familiar open source frameworks such as PHP/mysql/ AJAX. The key Tethys features includes semantic forms for incorporating documents and annotation features.