Global Marine Renewable Energy Conference 2009: Profile – Elizabeth R. Butler

We’re in the final countdown towards the Global Marine Renewable Energy Conference 2009 .  In anticipation, we’re running a series of mini-profiles of our OREC members who will be moderating our conference panels to give you a sense of the quality and substance that we intend to deliver.

Elizabeth R. Butler
Partner
Pierce Atwood LLP

What changes have you noticed in the industry since the time that you began working in the field until now?
Ms. Butler: 1. More money has been promised for support of marine renewable energy R&D through federal and state governmental programs. But there is less private sector investment funding due to the economic downturn.  (Swift implementation of public sector funding programs is critical to advancing the industry).
2. There is an increasing understanding among many stakeholders that a collaborative approach is needed to develop marine renewable energy resources on the accelerated timeline needed to protect our environment and our national security.
3. There are an increasing number of public-private partnerships to support marine renewable sector R&D and coastal zone demonstration projects.

How do you see the  marine renewable industry helping our economy?
Ms. Butler: The marine renewable industry is critical to our national security and to protection of our environment – both of which are critical to our economy.  In addition, the marine renewable sector will drive tremendous new growth in the related manufacturing, construction, and clean energy fields.  Finally the marine renewable industry, along with land-based renewables, opens the opportunity to design a more efficient transmission system and a more rational demand-side management system that will make our economy more productive.

What, if anything, makes the marine renewables industry different from other industries that you’ve worked with?
Ms. Butler: The broad range of participants from many different nations and backgrounds, often working ininternational partnerships to solve a common problem.

What do you find most exciting about the marine renewables industry?
Ms. Butler: While the marine renewables industry will face the same multiple use conflicts that fisheries, aquaculture,  navigation, tourism , or extractive uses encounter in the shared space of the oceans, there is potential to minimize the conflicts through a collaborative approach and a shared mission to reduce our dependence on non-North American petroleum supplies.

What, in your opinion, are the top two to three developments needed to bring marine renewables to commercialization?
Ms. Butler: 1.  Adequate public sector money to support R&D development through commercialization
2. Interconnection and transmission grid planning and reconstruction to support new marine renewable project loads.
3. Development of collaborative working arrangements among federal, state, and local regulatory authorities, as well as scientifically sound and economically rational standard permitting conditions for development, where possible to avoid additional friction time and costs in development.

What are your predictions for the marine renewables industry over the next 3-5 years?
Ms. Butler: R&D Demonstration sites will be sited along the US coastlines in near and deepwater marine environments. More international partnerships will be formed in order to expedite R&D development
Integrated wind and marine hydrokinetic test sites will be developed, with longer term addition of offshore
aquaculture facilities.
Several near-shore wind farms and several commercial scale tidal power sites will be constructed within five years. There will be increasing focus on use of marine renewable sources of power to service coastal populations, rather than shipment of power from mid-western renewable power sources.

Ms.  Butler  is  a  partner  in  the  corporate and international practice groups of Pierce Atwood  LLP,  a  law  firm with  offices  in Portland and Augusta, Maine, Portsmouth, New  Hampshire,  Boston,  Massachusetts, and Washington, DC.   She has over thirty years  of experience with    legislative, regulatory  and   policy  issues controlling   marine   renewable  energy projects.