A new textbook on offshore renewable energy has been released by M. Reza Hashemi with the University of Rhode Island, in collaboration with Simon Neill with Bangor University in Wales, the United Kingdom.
The University of Rhode Island says offshore renewable energy is an emerging and rapidly growing industry in the U.S. and around the world, with, for example, projects in motion to install about 24 GW of proposed capacity for offshore wind energy in the U.S.
Fundamentals of Ocean Renewable Energy: Generating Electricity from the Sea was written by Hashemi, assistant professor in the Department of Ocean Engineering and Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island, in collaboration with Neill, a reader in physical oceanography in the School of Ocean Sciences at Bangor University. It was published by Academic Press Elsevier.
“With the recent investments in academic and industrial research for the development of tidal, wave, offshore wind and other ocean renewable energy projects, the time was right for such a textbook,” said Hashemi. “There is an enormous untapped energy resource in the ocean with the potential to increase our energy independence and reduce our impact on the environment.”
The 336-page textbook covers a range of ocean renewable energy topics. It presents the fundamental physics and theory behind ocean energy systems, covering both oceanographic and engineering aspects of ocean energy, and explores the most widely adopted conversion technologies, including tidal, wave, offshore wind, ocean thermal and currents.
Hashemi has published more than 35 peer-reviewed journal articles, primarily focused on ocean renewable energy and coastal engineering. His research focuses on ocean physics, mostly related to ocean renewable energy and coastal resilience (e.g. flooding and erosion). In addition, he has developed/co-developed and taught several undergraduate and graduate courses about renewable energy, including “Ocean Renewable Energy” and “Energy and the Environment,” at URI. Part of the motivation behind this book sprang from his desire to provide a textbook for these courses, according to a press release.
