Vestas had a cyberattack recently and shut down IT systems to help contain it. How bad was it? Plus, a recent article pegged microgrids as a potential source of 500,000 jobs by 2030 – is this realistic? And, how do wind turbines protect themselves in high winds – does feathering and idling actually work better than braking? We also discuss underwater drone missions by Rovco seeking out unexploded mines and bombs, and more.

This episode is brought to you by Weather Guard Lightning Tech at Weather Guard. We make lightning protection easy. If your wind turbines are due for maintenance or repairs, install our StrikeTape retrofit LPS upgrade. At the same time, a strike tape installation is the quick, easy solution that provides a dramatic, long lasting boost to the factory lightning
protection system. Forward thinking wind site owners install strike tape today to increase uptime tomorrow. Learn more in the show notes of today’s podcast. Welcome back. I’m Dan Blewett. I’m Allen Hall and I’m Rosemary Barnes, and this is the UpTime podcast bringing you the latest in wind energy, tech news and policy.
All right. Welcome back to the Uptime Wind Energy podcast. I’m your co-host Dan Blewett on today’s show. We’ve got a really full docket number one, we’ll talk about Vestas and the recent cybersecurity incident. It’s a scary thing for all businesses all around the world.

00:01:13:12 – 00:01:28:22
Unknown
So talk about what that meant for them and if they’re back up and running. We’ll talk about Siemens energy. Their CEO has mentioned that Siemens Gamesa is doing well progressing and their turnaround, and whether we could expect a complete takeover from where they finished buying the rest of their shares.

00:01:28:22 – 00:01:46:23
Unknown
They own about 67% of the company now. So about Shell, they’ve snapped up a majority stake in another offshore wind project off of iron off of Ireland in North Dakota. Some high winds have shut down wind turbines, which we know that this happens, but it’s still always a curious about when it does.

00:01:47:15 – 00:02:02:13
Unknown
Wind speeds up to 70 miles per hour. In that case, we’ll talk about some unexploded mines from past wars just laying lurking in the North Sea and Rove Co’s drones, which are trying to help locate them. We’ll talk about microgrids.

00:02:03:07 – 00:02:21:19
Unknown
The annual energy storage modeling some interesting stuff there. We’ll talk about more supply chain crisis, whether that’s going to continue to really affect the transition to clean energy. And lastly, we’ll talk about artificial seaweed power. Is this the next big thing?

00:02:21:19 – 00:02:38:17
Unknown
I’m sure Rosemary has got strong feelings there. Spoiler, it’s probably not. But before we get going, be sure to subscribe to the podcast in general. You also find Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update about the show and great news from around the web.

00:02:39:06 – 00:02:51:08
Unknown
And be sure to subscribe to Rosemary’s YouTube channel, which you’ll find in the show notes and description as well. She’s been doing live streams and all of her regular content on everything renewables and wind energy. So let’s get started.

00:02:51:11 – 00:03:05:02
Unknown
Obviously, the, you know, cybersecurity is on everyone’s front of mind nowadays. It seems like every other week there’s another company that’s been hit hard this week, it’s been investors. So but there still seems like a little bit mum is the word at the moment.

00:03:05:03 – 00:03:22:17
Unknown
They have mentioned that their crisis management team is on its. And besides that, I’m not really sure what the extent of of what’s happened. Alan, what’s your take here? Obviously, there’s not a lot of information that we’ve found in the news cycle yet, but it sounds like maybe investors is OK.

00:03:23:01 – 00:03:33:22
Unknown
Yeah, it didn’t sound like they were in a hostage situation where everything gets locked out and then you have to pay a ransom that it didn’t sound like that, did it? Not that they would, you know? I didn’t.

00:03:34:03 – 00:03:51:17
Unknown
Yeah, but it does sound like files got infected and they caught it maybe a little bit too late. It seemed to spread around the different manufacturing facilities they had in the different offices that they had. The question that popped up early was does it affect operations of Vestas wind turbines to get all the way out to the

00:03:51:17 – 00:04:11:02
Unknown
turbines? And the answer to that was no. So it’s just an operational manufacturing issue, which is huge, right? Because pretty much everything today in a in a modern office complex or manufacturing facility runs on the internet from the phones to obviously the computers to cell phones.

00:04:11:06 – 00:04:29:06
Unknown
Pretty much everything in the factory is running wide open on the internet. So if you get a bug or a virus? Let me stop you there. Investisseurs carrier pigeon division was completely unaffected, completely unaffected. Yes, genius. That’s the fallback plan.

00:04:29:06 – 00:04:44:21
Unknown
It’s just put it action, right? Yeah. So do you think that? Do you think that they’re going to learn from this, though, at the moment, because my guess is that they had a plan, not for this not to occur.

00:04:45:02 – 00:04:56:18
Unknown
So some there was a breach somewhere in the system. I mean, I think with a lot of these things, it does sound like this wasn’t that big of a deal because it said they shut down computer systems to try to prevent it from spreading.

00:04:58:08 – 00:05:09:21
Unknown
So it almost seems, I would guess, and I mean, any of these CEOs are welcome to call and correct me if I’m wrong. But it would seem like if you had a minor cybersecurity incident is probably a blessing because you’re going to be OK.

00:05:10:07 – 00:05:25:09
Unknown
This did happen. This was scary. Now you’re going to really take it extra super serious, even if you’re already are. I feel like any time something really happens to you, you have like a small break into your home that really kicks you in the pants to be like, OK, this is for real.

00:05:25:22 – 00:05:39:15
Unknown
So who else can we bring in? What else can we do? You know, I feel like everyone when they have this little like life threatening moments almost that really like clicks things into place. I mean, rosemary, how do you view the situation?

00:05:39:15 – 00:05:47:16
Unknown
I mean, is this just one of many that’s going to continue to happen? I mean, do you think there could be any, any? Like I said, a silver lining to it, like a small incident like this happening for a big company.

00:05:47:16 – 00:06:04:17
Unknown
Yeah, I think so. I mean, I don’t think it’s really specific to to any one company. It’s something that any any company is going to face. Everybody is interconnected. And I mean, if you your response to this was like, Okay, well, we’re going to abandon the internet, then obviously that would be much I would have a negative

00:06:04:17 – 00:06:19:04
Unknown
effect on your business. The Luddites were pretty, yeah, pretty major one. I mean, in terms of the manufacturing facilities, I think it’s probably not as pervasive, although, you know, being online and networked at everything as you might think.

00:06:19:04 – 00:06:35:18
Unknown
I think there’s still plenty of, you know, paper instructions going around, paper work instructions. And yeah, like I think that just because the, you know, so that the whole network went down, I think that the factory probably would not immediately shot.

00:06:36:07 – 00:06:49:12
Unknown
I think it would have a more of a a larger impact the longer it went on. But I would be surprised if everything just ground to a halt immediately and just kind of stopped waiting for everything to come back online.

00:06:49:14 – 00:07:09:07
Unknown
Yeah, these cyber incidents are scary, and it’s also interesting just to see the continuing evolution of cryptocurrency because we know a lot of the anonymity that cryptocurrency provides has allowed a little bit of the rise in cybercrime. And I’ve been really wondering personally just in the last year whether cyber, you know, cryptocurrency is going to come under

00:07:09:07 – 00:07:26:20
Unknown
any more regulation or if they were going to outright ban it just because it seemed like the the number one currency of the underworld, right? But as of now, cryptocurrency is thriving, right? So companies just need to continue to batten down the hatches and do their best.

00:07:26:20 – 00:07:44:10
Unknown
But I’m sure we’ll see, unfortunately more of these. But it sounds like on a positive note about this, it sounds like they they caught it quick enough, and it wasn’t a major ransomware event yet. So moving on Siemens Energy, their CEO has talked about, you know, just made some public praise of Siemens Gamesa renewable energy.

00:07:44:10 – 00:07:57:18
Unknown
Of course, Siemens Energy owns a 67% stake in Siemens Gamesa, and there have been talks earlier in the year about whether they would, you know, complete that buyout and take out the rest or buy buy up the remaining 33%.

00:07:58:11 – 00:08:08:10
Unknown
Alan, do you think that’s going to happen at some point or what is Siemens Energy looking at to their, you know, their little brother company? I don’t think they’re going end up buying the rest of it. That’s a continual talk about it.

00:08:08:11 – 00:08:29:03
Unknown
But I think if you’re just hedging your bets over this next couple of years because of the economic conditions worldwide, you want to leave options open. And my guess is that, well, Siemens Gamesa really wouldn’t want it seem really doesn’t really want it either in the sense that they’re trying to be independent things and for good reason

00:08:30:12 – 00:08:51:10
Unknown
. As the push is going to be an ongoing discussion, a little bit the inflationary pressure and the reduced margins that are happening in the United States and around the world and wind energy. And if you if you even just watched Vestas stock recently, there is a lot of plummeting value in wind energy.

00:08:51:23 – 00:09:08:03
Unknown
And it’s going to be really touch and go for at least the next six months. So I think it’s going to stay put right? Hold your cards, try to weather through it and then get to more stable territory where you feel like you can make some long term cash.

00:09:08:12 – 00:09:30:08
Unknown
We’re just not there yet. In other news. Shell is taking a stake in the simply blue floating windfarm, which is off the coast of Ireland. Of course, this is not Shell’s first foray into offshore wind. Other companies, such as Chevron, have been vocal opponents of the value of wind energy, so a shell has shown an eagerness to

00:09:30:08 – 00:09:50:06
Unknown
invest in it and work towards, you know, the zero carbon footprint. Rosemary, what’s unique about Ireland is as far as offshore wind. Obviously, there’s this project is looking at 1.35 gigawatts of energy. So this is not a small one that will power up to 1,000,000, 1.1 million Irish homes.

00:09:50:19 – 00:10:03:05
Unknown
But I mean, as this, this seems like a pretty nice piece of a pie. It be a majority stakeholder in one of these really big offshore wind farms. Yeah, I mean, it’s a great area for offshore wind and we’re seeing a lot of development in that that region.

00:10:03:11 – 00:10:23:07
Unknown
I don’t know if that’s a specific strategic goal of shelving it in that region. I kind of feel like it’s more of a global pattern of just in general, they’re trying to get more into renewables. And so it’s interesting because, you know, there’s a lot of anger, maybe is the right word to say among people, renewable energy

00:10:23:07 – 00:10:42:00
Unknown
advocates. There’s a lot of anger towards fossil fuel companies for, you know, their role in climate to causing climate change and then kind of delaying action on it. But then you see, with Shell, they really they are definitely putting significant effort into cleaning up, whether it’s because they feel it’s the right thing to do.

00:10:42:00 – 00:10:55:08
Unknown
Or probably, you know, most cynical, probably think that they just say that that’s where the future money to be made is. And then, you know, like people still kind of seem to harbor some sort of resentment. It was interesting.

00:10:55:09 – 00:11:16:13
Unknown
That’s another thing. And another acquisition shell acquisition in the news is like in Australia, they announced that they’re acquiring Meridian Energy, who own Power Shop, which is an energy retailer in Australia, a clean energy retailer. Well, they they have this climate active certification, which you get if you have net zero for your whole, your whole overall business

00:11:16:13 – 00:11:35:15
Unknown
and they supply electricity and gas to mostly to households and small businesses. And so it’s really interesting because the customers of Power Shop, you know, have specifically gone for, you know, net zero energy retailer. And a lot of them are really upset that now that that’s owned by Shell.

00:11:35:15 – 00:11:50:05
Unknown
So, you know, on the one hand, they’re getting their clean energy like they always have. But on the other hand, the business’s profitability is now going to shell. Is it still a fossil fuel company in addition to the renewable stuff?

00:11:50:05 – 00:12:08:16
Unknown
So it’s kind of raising some really interesting kind of political and philosophical points, I think. But for me, I mean, I I think that the the companies like the fossil fuel companies like Shell that are moving into renewables, I think they definitely don’t deserve to be punished for it.

00:12:09:14 – 00:12:27:20
Unknown
Maybe, you know, they don’t deserve any more credit than any other company that’s moving in that direction now as well. But I think that the transition will go faster. The more of these, you know, fossil fuel companies that, you know, get on board with the energy transition, and it does seem like Shell is doing in a legitimate

00:12:27:20 – 00:12:39:07
Unknown
way. You know, investing in in wind farms is different to, you know, like pushing blue hydrogen or something that still uses a lot of fossil fuels. So I can’t get behind what Shell is trying to do here. Definitely.

00:12:39:10 – 00:12:58:15
Unknown
Well, and you also wonder if the more a company like Shell invests in wind, the more they start to just like, become a renewable company. Like, they don’t even realize they’re doing this just like maybe they’re, I don’t know, slowly killing that side of them, you know, by being profitable and successful.

00:12:58:15 – 00:13:23:00
Unknown
And the other part, maybe, you know, they don’t mean to do that, but it happens on its own. I don’t know. Now, what do you think of the implications here with with with Shell? Well, I I don’t hold animosity towards oil companies that provided the lifestyle and the standard of living across the world that we enjoy today

00:13:23:08 – 00:13:39:07
Unknown
. I think those things needed to happen. Otherwise we’d be living in an agrarian economy back in the 1800s. And I don’t think that’s good for society. I think there’s a lot of things that energy has corrected in terms of making living more livable.

00:13:39:23 – 00:13:59:03
Unknown
The question right now is do we make a transition to more renewables? And obviously we’re going to make that in a variety of different ways. We already are in in so many ways, I think in the way that the oil companies, quote unquote oil companies are into natural gas more than than they were 20 years ago, and

00:13:59:11 – 00:14:17:15
Unknown
they’re reducing emissions and a lot of different fronts. The question, I think, is will more companies like Shell and be going into more renewables because like, like you said, Dan, Chevron is not one of them. And so they’re both they’re all going to play that, play their bets down.

00:14:17:15 – 00:14:35:10
Unknown
And, you know, only the. Probably a handful will make the transition over if we grab more renewables, because these businesses are very difficult to manage right, and they’re taking Billion-Dollar risks every day, and some some of them win some of them loose.

00:14:35:21 – 00:14:53:20
Unknown
That’s what’s going to happen. But I do think Rosemary is right in this sense that. You’re going to have to keep options open. You’re going to see more changes in, particularly in wind, that we’re going to use more and more offshore wind because the winds are better.

00:14:53:20 – 00:15:12:14
Unknown
We’re going to have bigger and bigger turbines, which means we have bigger and bigger risks every turbine. We’re talking like 15 20 million to probably put a turbine out in the ocean right now. Those are huge financial risks. And it’s going to take companies like Shell that have the cash and the wherewithal to go do that.

00:15:12:14 – 00:15:27:10
Unknown
And we were taking some looks at Dan and I were just talking about this earlier today, taking some looks at who owns wind turbines in the United States. And what you’re finding is you’re getting larger and larger energy companies buying more and more wind turbine sites.

00:15:27:10 – 00:15:44:03
Unknown
So there’s been it said this homebrew thing we saw 25 years ago. We have some really big players in wind because of of the potential upside in the end, the ability to generate cash and profit. Those are great things.

00:15:44:03 – 00:15:58:18
Unknown
And I think Rosemary, you’re right, is that renewable energy is going to be profitable, which is going to change the industry because only if it’s profitable, I think, can we really make the transition to a cleaner, less carbon dioxide society.

00:15:59:13 – 00:16:19:06
Unknown
Does that make sense? I definitely think that it’s at the very least makes it much faster. You know, the energy transition can be much faster because it’s profitable. Yeah. And I think that’s why, you know, like I’m not like a I’m not like a die hard defender of capitalism, but I do think that that is likely the

00:16:19:06 – 00:16:37:04
Unknown
fastest way to solve the energy transition is to, you know, like fix our system of capitalism so that it can solve the problems, you know, get rid of this, you know, failure of capitalism and climate change is caused by a failure of capitalism because we didn’t put any value on the atmosphere.

00:16:37:11 – 00:16:52:05
Unknown
So we need to fix that and then set things up so that, you know, companies can can make money off the energy transition. I think that that will be the fastest, fastest way to solve the transition. So, yeah, in this aspect, I’m definitely a fan of capitalism.

00:16:53:14 – 00:17:11:02
Unknown
Yeah. Well, let’s let’s talk about that for a second, because I think this is a very interesting point. So where we go as a society is sort of based on these two arguments. I think a lot of the scientists and even the oil companies are giving them till the night to midnight seventies, early 1980s before they really

00:17:11:02 – 00:17:27:07
Unknown
realize that they’re changing the planet on some level. That’s what I recollect, having lived through those time periods. So from early 1900s into the 1980 was call it like, there really wasn’t a lot of discussion about climate change on a sort of a global level.

00:17:27:08 – 00:17:43:05
Unknown
Right. It’s I think there’s a lot of well-intentioned people working in the oil and gas industry that are trying to provide a product which people want and makes lives better. That’s that’s all a plus. So, so now we’re in this sort of sort of punishment stage.

00:17:43:05 – 00:18:02:08
Unknown
I call it what I see a lot of discussions about new types of renewable energies. one of the first things that the designer, creator, inventor, CEO will say is like, Well, my technology will work, but I just need you to attack the tax a living heck out of everybody else so that my product becomes the best one

00:18:02:23 – 00:18:17:20
Unknown
. Not that that’s that’s sort of an anti capitalistic way of looking at the world, but it doesn’t make renewables better. It just puts a burden on the other side. And I’m not sure that gets you to the best solution.

00:18:17:20 – 00:18:36:12
Unknown
Overall, unlike wind, which has been making, I think, dramatic improvements in capabilities without so much of that. I disagree a little a little bit because I think that like a carbon tax or a price on carbon, it’s not like a way to subsidize renewables.

00:18:36:12 – 00:18:51:23
Unknown
It’s a recognition that there are actual costs of putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Not just, you know, climate change, but also health costs and stuff. And we know about that. And so I think that normally you wouldn’t get to harm somebody, somebody else without paying for it in capitalism.

00:18:51:23 – 00:19:07:12
Unknown
And so I do see the lack of a price on carbon as a as a failure like initially. Yeah, up until like the nineties, because we just didn’t realize the extent of what was happening. And then afterwards, because, yeah, it’s just been quite politically difficult.

00:19:08:00 – 00:19:27:17
Unknown
That said, like, I almost never consider a carbon tax as any kind of solution now, just purely because of the politics and Australia has had it worse than anywhere else, like the word carbon taxes, just like I had zero 0% likelihood that we will have one in the next five years and probably ten plus years in Australia

00:19:27:17 – 00:19:48:09
Unknown
because it’s just so toxic. And I’m so pleased to have been part of the technology revolution. You know, over the last couple of decades that has seen that the technologies can make it on their own merits even. Without making fossil fuels, you know, pay for the damage that they’re causing, so yeah, kind of both agree and disagree

00:19:48:09 – 00:20:01:02
Unknown
with you there on that. Well, except of a conference, because you’re part of that change, though, Rosemary, I think you’re part of that change and everybody working to investors and the Siemens Gamesa Nordics and all the different winter Remainer factors are part of that change.

00:20:01:02 – 00:20:19:04
Unknown
And so we need your your brains to be applied to these problems because that’s the only way you’re going to get to that next level because it’s not just making the wind turbine right, it’s about making the turbine more efficient, cost less to manufacture, less to operate, more profitable.

00:20:19:04 – 00:20:30:23
Unknown
That’s one of the things that a lot of engineers spend a lot of time on. And then you were you were there. If you could have saved $100,000 on a wind turbine manufacturer, you would do that. Now, why would you do that?

00:20:30:23 – 00:20:48:01
Unknown
Would that because it produced less CO2? Because it made the product more valuable? And I think that as engineers, that’s one of the things we are constantly picking at is I want to make this thing a half a percent better than it was six weeks ago or six months ago.

00:20:48:12 – 00:21:06:17
Unknown
And those are the kind of improvements that bright smart people are working hard at. This are going to be able to do that. You just can’t really predict the future. We think we can. And I do see wind and some of the other renewables, solar being one of them are going to really dramatically change because of that

00:21:07:03 – 00:21:23:20
Unknown
, not because of carbon taxes. Yeah. And I mean, I see a huge change since the start of my career when I was working on renewables and it was just, you know, a bunch of hippies that all thought that, you know, we should move to renewable energy, even though I didn’t really even realize at the time that it

00:21:23:20 – 00:21:39:09
Unknown
would ever be the economically obvious choice to change to renewables. And the last few years, like, say, five or so years, you start to see people working in the industry that that don’t have that ideological connection to it.

00:21:39:09 – 00:21:57:13
Unknown
It’s just, you know, a business like any other. And it’s made the most dramatic shift in the scale. That’s possible because it’s not just environmentalists anymore that care about renewables. And so I’ve seen the like the power of of the economics, kind of.

00:21:58:01 – 00:22:14:08
Unknown
Yeah. So I I think that a lot of the really passionate environmental activists kind of think nearly like it shouldn’t matter the cost, but it’s not a moral reason that the cost matters. It’s just the speed and the scale that you can reach.

00:22:14:08 – 00:22:28:06
Unknown
When you have the economically best technology, then you know, that’s that’s so powerful. Yeah, I think that’s where the power lies, right? And I think there’s a lot of idealism at COP26. There’s a lot of idealism that goes on there.

00:22:28:14 – 00:22:51:11
Unknown
But the reality is the things that we want to get to the the state of carbon dioxide emissions that we want to get to are really only possible through in part capitalism and also the results of some parts of capital and capitalism, which is really smart, educated people being wants to devote time to make these things better

00:22:51:17 – 00:23:07:09
Unknown
. And that’s sort of where we’re in that sweet spot now. We ought to take advantage of it like crazy because we can move to the next phase. And that’s I think that’s fantastic. I just wish some part of capitalism got a little bit of credit for that.

00:23:08:00 – 00:23:25:07
Unknown
It doesn’t. I mean, I give it credit, but I also say that capitalism doesn’t just happen on its own. You know, you need to make sure that the market is set up, right? So there are still some distortions in the way the energy markets run that really set up to, you know, based on the technologies that we

00:23:25:07 – 00:23:42:02
Unknown
had available at the time. And I do see that there’s a lot of regulations and market based stuff that’s in the way of a fast energy transition. And so I would really like to see governments focusing their energy on cleaning that up so that capitalism could get the right outcome.

00:23:43:02 – 00:23:53:19
Unknown
Yeah, that’s that’s what I would do if I if I was in government, which I never want to be. But well, I think you’re totally right about that, removing some of the barriers that exist. Rosemary is exactly the right answer.

00:23:53:23 – 00:24:10:19
Unknown
Moving some of the barriers that exist that would slow down these projects that slow down the development. Or are there some of the places where governments can make a difference instead of adding more regulation in certain areas? We need to kind of step back a little bit and let some of these projects develop before we decide to

00:24:10:19 – 00:24:29:15
Unknown
regulate them to Infinium. And I agree with you there. So I think we’re just at this really interesting precipice, particularly in the United States and around the world. So we’ll see. Well, doubling back to the cost of of offshore wind, obviously, it’s difficult to install these.

00:24:29:15 – 00:24:50:12
Unknown
Like you said, it might be 15 20 million per turbine. So Rove Co, which they are a company of underwater drones. And one of the things is they have really good. Video quality they shared on LinkedIn that they’ve been helping to identify unexploded mines and bombs from World War two that are in the bottom of the ocean that

00:24:50:12 – 00:25:08:08
Unknown
are potentially hazards for any new development, specifically obviously offshore wind. So this is something I think people don’t think about enough that there’s still a lot of ordnance that can explode. And I’m curious what they do with these if they have to detonate them or if they’re really going to pull them up to the to the ship

00:25:08:08 – 00:25:22:01
Unknown
, it’s like, yeah, don’t don’t bring that in here. We don’t want that. But I mean, Alan, what do you think they’re doing with? Obviously, there’s some photos from them, which is there’s a cool article we’ll link to, but they clearly have pulled some of these up to the boat.

00:25:22:13 – 00:25:41:16
Unknown
But why do you know much about unexploded bombs and mines and how they, well, dispose of these? I think they would explode them, right? I think in the past they used to explode them. Obviously, after World War two and a lot of the conflicts has been mines in the Strait of Hormuz and a bunch of other places

00:25:41:16 – 00:25:59:16
Unknown
where there’s been mines. But a lot of the new kind of magnetic mines that are sort of more to the bottom with a chain that are maybe a little bit easier to to go, get and locate. Some of these World War two pieces are just basically aluminum shells that are dropped in the bottom of the ocean and

00:25:59:16 – 00:26:21:10
Unknown
are really hard to detect. And I think the trouble is that we’re going to be putting a lot of equipment cables disturbing the ocean bottom probably more than we ever have in human history. Besides, when we were dragged netting the bottom of the ocean for fish or whatever that we’re going to come across is World War two

00:26:21:10 – 00:26:37:17
Unknown
ish minds, I don’t really think Europe is the only place we’re going to find them. I think we’re gonna find them off the coast, the United States and some places, I think off the coast of a lot of islands in the Pacific, we’re going to find things like this that is going to be hazardous duty and rosemary

00:26:37:18 – 00:26:51:00
Unknown
. I don’t know what you’re going to be able to possibly do to find all these things. I don’t I don’t even know if there’s any record of where they were planted. Well, not on public land anyway. I mean, I wouldn’t I wouldn’t make them public if I was involved.

00:26:51:07 – 00:27:06:08
Unknown
But I mean, drones is the answer, right? I mean, like, how else are we going to be able to to map all these areas? So are we going to go map the whole? I guess we are. We’re going to map all of the locations where the cables may run and where the turbines would be?

00:27:06:08 – 00:27:21:11
Unknown
And are we going to have to scan the entire floor of the ocean before we move forward? Wow. Wow. That’s a big 10 million result in the sights that you’re proposing to to put stuff. Yeah, yeah. Otherwise, yeah, yeah.

00:27:21:12 – 00:27:32:17
Unknown
That’s going to get blown up, isn’t it? But I mean, it’s not just mines looking for you, also looking for, you know, like trenches and I don’t know other other weird stuff. So yeah, I mean, you’ve got to have at least a decent understanding.

00:27:33:07 – 00:27:49:18
Unknown
Yeah. Well, Dan, you know, as if you’re talking about putting wind turbines essentially from Georgia all the way up to up to Maine in the United States, that’s a lot of coastal areas that’s been had a lot of warfare along it throughout the ages.

00:27:50:05 – 00:28:07:15
Unknown
I, even during World War two, I think there were Nazi submarines and in New York Harbor. So who knows what’s out there? I can’t imagine trying to scan all that territory, but you, rosemary, you may be right. They may have to go scan that territory before they go out there just to make sure that there’s nothing out

00:28:07:15 – 00:28:20:11
Unknown
there that can be treacherous or dangerous or explosive. Wow. Yeah. I mean, I hate to say I told you over this lens more and more credence to my bringing Godzilla back to life. He could step on all of these.

00:28:20:11 – 00:28:33:07
Unknown
It’s not going to hurt him. Come on, he’ll be totally fine. It is a really fascinating problem, though. I mean, to think that and such a scary thing that you could be laying subsea cable and the operation just a mine.

00:28:33:13 – 00:28:49:11
Unknown
I mean, oh, huge. Yeah, it’s crazy. That’s it’s a really interesting thing that people aren’t thinking about, but there is a lot of stuff out there. So let’s switch to North Dakota. Obviously, we know this happens. We know that wind turbines, they have to get shut off and the blades feathered in really high wind conditions.

00:28:49:11 – 00:29:06:13
Unknown
But I just don’t think you hear about that much. But up in North Dakota right now, they’ve had a wind gusts as high as 70 miles per hour. Rosemary when when is typically the cutoff point? Is that around 6070 when they start to need to shut turbines down to prevent them from getting out of control and destroying

00:29:06:13 – 00:29:20:11
Unknown
themselves? Are you trying to make me think and miles per hour now? No one thinks in kilometers, except for the whole world, just meters per second. That’s like, that’s a nice that’s a nice engineering unit. I don’t know.

00:29:20:22 – 00:29:34:09
Unknown
This reminds me of because, you know, I studied in in the U.S. for one year and studied at UC Davis, and I did all the aerospace engineering units while I was there. And engineers, for the most part, do prefer the metric system.

00:29:34:09 – 00:29:53:17
Unknown
I think that that I mean, Neil exclusively, everything works. All of your equations, just just. Work out without any gravitational concern or something, so, you know, like all through the semester, you would be doing all of your examples in the metric system and I got into an exam and I think it was literally in jet propulsion.

00:29:53:18 – 00:30:08:07
Unknown
So effectively rocket science. Read this question. And it had the word slug in it like, that’s a unit I had. I had seriously never even heard of that as a unit, let alone was supposed to know what to do with an exam in an exam.

00:30:08:07 – 00:30:21:06
Unknown
So I had to put my hand up in the exam and ask the professor what a slug was and the whole the whole exam hall just erupted in laughter because it was like a fun final year aerospace subject, and I didn’t know this unit.

00:30:21:21 – 00:30:35:19
Unknown
So, yeah, anyway, I won’t be answering your question in miles per hour. But yeah, obviously every wind turbine has a cut out wind speed. It’s written on the brochure. It’s not a surprise and a secret. It’s not something we’re trying to, you know, like sneak in without letting anyone know.

00:30:36:12 – 00:30:49:05
Unknown
And I guess what I would say to like the average person on the street that was not an engineer, why it’s like that. We could make wind turbines that could withstand higher wind speeds. And it’s a matter of economics.

00:30:49:05 – 00:30:59:20
Unknown
Do you want to pay more for all of your wind so that you can capture this extra little bit because you know, they they choose every parameter so that it ends up in the lowest cost of energy overall?

00:31:00:04 – 00:31:13:08
Unknown
It’s kind of like, do you build or your dams twice as high as they currently are so that you know, you have like a tiny bit more energy security? Do you build your hospitals with twice as many beds and twice as many emergency doctors just, you know, sitting around waiting for?

00:31:14:03 – 00:31:29:01
Unknown
Yeah, like the once in a century pandemic or whatever. It’s just an optimization. And if you go plant everything, then everything costs more. And then, yeah, like obviously you spend more on your energy, then you’ve got less money to spend on food or, you know, whatever.

00:31:29:01 – 00:31:46:05
Unknown
So it’s it’s just a really normal kind of not just an engineering problem, like any anybody that’s building anything, any product, you know, you have to decide to, you know, where you where your boundaries are. I was looking at the U.S. maps for wind speed in and off the eastern shoreline.

00:31:46:06 – 00:32:03:20
Unknown
The wind speeds are really high, much higher than they are on land. Do they require a completely different kind of blade and a completely different setup in terms of the the style, the structure, how it’s designed because its average wind speeds are just higher?

00:32:03:21 – 00:32:15:00
Unknown
Well, I mean, you’re going to so you’re going to take there’s a whole range of load cases that you need to design. Let’s talk about blades because that’s the you know, what I know about every other component will be similar.

00:32:15:07 – 00:32:33:20
Unknown
So there’s a range of different wind conditions and one is like, you’re your maximum wind speed when it’s actually producing power. You know, what are the lights under those conditions? And if you want a higher cut out wind speed, then you’re going to have higher loads and you’re going to have to add more material to withstand those

00:32:34:06 – 00:32:51:15
Unknown
. Then there’s also other ones that you don’t have any control over, like you can’t choose the maximum once in 100 year wind speed and that you have to be able to withstand, regardless of what design decisions you choose.

00:32:51:16 – 00:33:07:11
Unknown
So, you know, you’ll you’ll know what’s the maximum wind speed we see on gust that we see at this site. You have to design for that, but that’s with the blades would be feathered out of the wind. So the, you know, it’s not necessarily the hardest load case to withstand.

00:33:07:21 – 00:33:21:19
Unknown
So, yeah, it answer questions. Some of them you have a choice over and some of them you don’t have a choice over and all of them affect how the components are designed. So the hurricane case, which is pretty much the whole eastern seaboard of the United States.

00:33:22:02 – 00:33:34:20
Unknown
So you’re going to have the design speed you’re aiming for and it’s going to be a normal operation where you’re generating power. So if you do get those 60, 70, 80 mile an hour winds, you just go straight to feather and braking.

00:33:35:20 – 00:33:52:08
Unknown
No, they’re usually on these days or just let them idle. Okay. Yeah. Like in the past, they used to break them, but it’s actually easier on the turbine and also on the bearings, especially if you let them idle because the bearings hate to have a strong load when they’re stationary because flat spots.

00:33:53:09 – 00:34:11:05
Unknown
Yeah. So usually you’re, you know, you’re not braking as like an operational kind of regular regular thing. So these wind turbines up in North Dakota were brake, though, and that’s really interesting because what Rosemary is saying as as as these wind turbines, as a figuring it out now is probably not a great idea to break them as

00:34:11:05 – 00:34:26:22
Unknown
maybe just a feather then and let them spin slowly. That’s that’s a hmm, that’s interesting. I wouldn’t have guessed that, and it would depend what the turbine is designed for, obviously. And I mean, I couldn’t say categorically that none of them today are designed to actually break in strong winds.

00:34:26:22 – 00:34:39:17
Unknown
But the ones I’ve worked with a feathering. I did want to want to add one other thing when they build a plan, a new wind farm, they do check the loads for that site. You know, it’s not just that you make a wind turbine, you certify it and then you put it in.

00:34:39:17 – 00:34:53:05
Unknown
Wherever you like, they are checking it for the site that they’re there, they’re going to, and sometimes it may be the case that you’ve got a really big, nice, profitable wind farm. And the lows are just a little bit higher than what the blazes designed for.

00:34:53:05 – 00:35:09:03
Unknown
You might go through and out of go, throwing out a couple of extra layers of of glass or carbon fiber to be able to withstand a lot if it’s worth it. You know, if the business case is there to go through the change and you have to make sure you don’t go through the whole certification process again

00:35:09:03 – 00:35:27:18
Unknown
, but you would probably you need to get that new blade certificate. So you’d say it’s very similar and we’ve made these changes and this is, you know, why we make sure that it’s going to be OK. Otherwise, your option is to just, you know, reduce the loads on the on the turbine.

00:35:27:18 – 00:35:38:02
Unknown
So, you know, it might reduce to cut out one speed or something. Sure. So they are they are tailored to each site a little bit. Or they can be the sites big enough then that they have to check every site.

00:35:38:11 – 00:35:57:17
Unknown
You can’t. You can’t ever put in that. You wouldn’t get a certificate there. The developer and the developers insurance company especially wouldn’t be happy without a certificate that was based on the conditions, the local conditions. Yeah, but whether or not you’re actually going to make a new design for that site depends on the business case if it’s

00:35:57:17 – 00:36:19:09
Unknown
a big, profitable wind farm. So we’re going to shift and talk about microgrids. We’re a lean on rosemary here. Interesting article from Clean Technica talking about basically a projection that microgrids might generate a half a million jobs and 72 billion in GDP growth by 2030, which is, you know, about eight years off.

00:36:20:07 – 00:36:30:22
Unknown
Rosemary, fill us in real quick. Just on the basic definition. What is a micro microgrid? Where are they popping up and why and why? What do people need to know about it and why should they care? It’s bigger than you’d think.

00:36:30:22 – 00:36:50:21
Unknown
It’s not like two solar panels, and a battery is a microgrid. It’s more like, you know, like a small an island or a small community. A grid like a normal grid is a huge thing. So to be micro relative to, you know, like the whole of the east coast of Australia is, you know, there’s there’s a lot

00:36:50:21 – 00:37:09:12
Unknown
of space in between household, off grid, household and yeah, like the east coast of Australia’s grid. So microgrid, let’s just say it’s basically not. It’s not like a normal utility grid with all these really huge power generators like a fossil fuel power generator.

00:37:10:03 – 00:37:27:03
Unknown
A lot of them connected together so enough for like a college campus hospital system, small community. All those would qualify as microgrid. Yeah, yeah. And I think a little bit bigger than that as as well. And so in the past, they’ve mainly just been used for places where it’s not economic to connect it to the normal grid

00:37:27:03 – 00:37:42:00
Unknown
. And I think Australia has a lot more of them than most places because we have, you know, a very spread out. There’s a lot of communities that are a small community, but the thousand or maybe not thousands, but like 1000 kilometers away from a real grid.

00:37:42:07 – 00:38:04:19
Unknown
And so, you know, you just can’t weigh enough power lines. It would just cost too much to connect them. So we’ve always had microgrids, and they’ve usually been heavily reliant on fossil fuel generators like diesel generators. And as soon as solar panels kind of started to get cheaper a couple of decades ago, even that was like the

00:38:04:19 – 00:38:24:02
Unknown
first place where you could really see the value in them because they’re directly displacing diesel. And I think most microgrids today still have some diesel in them, but they are more and more becoming just solar panels and batteries for, you know, the majority and the fossil fuel as a as a backup.

00:38:24:23 – 00:38:39:05
Unknown
Yeah, and less commonly wind. But I think we’ll see more of that. And I think what’s interesting about microgrids now is that people, now that the technologies are kind of cheap passive, it’s not like a big economic reason not to do it.

00:38:39:05 – 00:38:55:11
Unknown
People are starting to see some of the other benefits of a microgrid, and I talked a little bit last week about how in California, they want to be able to operate there, that whole grid connected, but they want to be able to operate in island mode, which is, you know, effectively operating like a microgrid when they’re, you

00:38:55:11 – 00:39:12:05
Unknown
know, like bushfire conditions. So they would have to, you know, turn off power lines in case there was, yeah, a fire. So there’s a lot of benefits to a microgrid, even if you don’t have to have one just, you know, because of the logistics of connecting to the grid.

00:39:12:06 – 00:39:26:00
Unknown
Alan, do you really think that this is going to generate that amount of jobs in an eight year period? I mean, I don’t know if that’s really that many jobs in eight years, a half a million, as always, seems like a big number, but it might not be that big of a number globally, really.

00:39:26:00 – 00:39:46:05
Unknown
Yeah, I mean, where do you see microgrids coming in to play here? Well, the question about jobs and renewable energy is always a catch 22. I think, because as Rosemary and I were talking about earlier, your. Trying to drive down the cost of energy, and if you have to continually provide maintenance to it and put a bunch

00:39:46:05 – 00:40:01:11
Unknown
of people on it, it just drives up the cost of energy. So a nuclear power plant, you would hope it has very few people in a sense relative to thousands of individual wind turbine sites or in individual solar sites.

00:40:01:11 – 00:40:15:14
Unknown
That’s why that’s why you see this sort of conglomerate happening now in terms of wind, where you have one major operator running gigawatts of power because you can just do it much more efficiently, which lowers the cost of energy down.

00:40:16:04 – 00:40:33:02
Unknown
So I think it’s a real odd tradeoff to say, Well, the microgrids are awesome because it’s going to create a bunch of jobs, but they’re just going to raise the price of energy also. So you have to find that really funky balance between what is minimally needed and what the advantages of the system are.

00:40:33:12 – 00:40:48:06
Unknown
And I don’t I’m not sure California’s really figured that out in terms of a large state in the United States. Maybe taxes because they’ve got their own and Texas is a huge, massive state, right? But they don’t they don’t interact with any other surrounding states on the power grid.

00:40:48:15 – 00:40:59:21
Unknown
They’re their own little island there. So maybe they’re that really the place where you could actually ask the question of, you know, are smaller grids and because Texas is kind of west and east and south a little bit.

00:41:01:18 – 00:41:18:00
Unknown
Are there advantages to that? And does it really need that many people to maintain it? That’s a that’s a great question. I think I would like to see renewable energies just be more efficient overall and and having microgrids, I think, makes sense.

00:41:18:10 – 00:41:38:09
Unknown
But there should be much more resilient and reliable than what we’re proposing right now. And so how will this figure into this whole ecosystem of energy storage and energy production? I mean, do microgrids, rosemary need more batteries? Do they need or do they not need anything different than a Full-Size grid would have?

00:41:38:16 – 00:42:01:00
Unknown
Well, so a microgrid is small, right? And it’s geographically small as well. So with variable renewables, especially when the further apart that you can put your wind farms, the less variable it is overall. And same with solar. If you can connect them east to west at least, then you’ll get, you know, solar power over a bigger period

00:42:01:00 – 00:42:23:06
Unknown
. So a microgrid doesn’t have that benefit of geographic dispersion. And you may also say your your demand more kind of correlated as well. I guess it would depend what kind of a microgrid it was. So in some ways, like the smaller the grid, the just more you kind of concentrate than just the regular challenges that we know

00:42:23:06 – 00:42:36:15
Unknown
about already with adding a lot of variable renewables to any kind of any kind of a grid. So energy storage is a really important part, and I think especially the cost of lithium ion batteries have come down so much in recent years.

00:42:36:15 – 00:42:57:20
Unknown
And I think that that’s probably been the number one biggest thing that has impacted on making microgrids a viable solution for a much larger range of people than, you know, five, ten years ago, it was purely if you’re forced to do this, that would be the only reason that you would, whereas now it is starting to yet

00:42:58:00 – 00:43:19:09
Unknown
to make sense because of the other benefits that you get, like the reliability is not inherently better in a microgrid. It’s probably, you know, harder to start off with. But when you change your, you know, your normal grid, when you get more distributed energy and add the capability to run in the islands, then that gives you the

00:43:19:09 – 00:43:40:11
Unknown
opportunity to add resilience to the grid. So I think it’s pretty, pretty complicated. Actually, it is. Yeah, like, there’s no it’s not like building microgrids is definitely going to increase or definitely going to decrease reliability. But there’s the potential, if you don’t right to increase reliability, to bring costs down and make you know everything more renewable that

00:43:40:11 – 00:44:01:12
Unknown
you do have to to do it right to get those benefits. And then let’s transition into, you know, the supply chain crisis that has been quite a bit in the news cycle recently, obviously, to make any of this stuff happen, whether it’s new technology is getting adopted, whether it’s battery prices coming down and becoming ubiquitous, all these

00:44:01:12 – 00:44:22:15
Unknown
supply chain issues are going to really come to a head, whether it’s materials, whether it’s shipping, logistics, all these different things there. You know, the supply chains have been pretty, pretty screwed up recently. Obviously, we’ve seen inflation go up as well, you know, and depending on where geographically things are located or where they’re manufactured, that’s also another

00:44:22:15 – 00:44:38:19
Unknown
major player. This is why you’re seeing more and more companies partner up trying to, whether it’s doing a mining operation or control shipping costs, whatever it is. Alan, how do you see all these things tying together the energy storage, the microgrids, some of these new technologies technologies that.

00:44:38:23 – 00:44:52:01
Unknown
We need to mature to make both of these things also mature. How does this this clean energy crisis of of logistics? How does that continue to play out and what do you think is going to happen with it?

00:44:52:02 – 00:45:06:04
Unknown
Well, I think the big variable is time. I think eventually we’re going to get to the spot we want to get to. The question is when we put shortened timeframes on it of having everything working in the United States on the East Coast by 2030 in terms of like offshore wind.

00:45:06:18 – 00:45:25:20
Unknown
There’s a lot of infrastructure that has to happen and a lot of dollars it has to be poured into to that infrastructure and having people to be able to go do it it it’s going to take several years to get to the point where we’re actually getting up to speed.

00:45:26:16 – 00:45:41:19
Unknown
You know, it’s just this is a bigger this 30 gigawatts off the coast of the United States is like a space program, if you remember, well, I know you were alive, then I was barely alive. Then when the Apollo space program was in how many people it took to go do that.

00:45:41:19 – 00:45:53:18
Unknown
And you’re talking about roughly, you know, 78 years of just like intensive work to put three men up and around the moon and to the lander to to to land on the moon right and bring it back home.

00:45:53:18 – 00:46:13:06
Unknown
That was a tremendous effort in that we’re talking about basically building infrastructure projects all and up and down the east coast of the United States and having all the materials, the raw materials and the capability to make those materials and the technology to make those materials and the people to to ship those materials all magically appear.

00:46:13:12 – 00:46:31:05
Unknown
That’s not realistic. And I think the the I think that the into the states that are sort of more tied into that like taxes. And I think North Dakota, because North Dakota is in the middle of building a pipeline not very long ago, they realize how difficult those things can be.

00:46:31:14 – 00:46:48:03
Unknown
And and yet when we talk about expanding renewables, we seem to forget about all the other components that have to happen for it to become reality. So the key issue here is time giving a little more time. It takes some stresses off.

00:46:48:03 – 00:47:03:14
Unknown
You’re probably actually spend less money to get some of these projects up and running. You know, it’s a question of right now of political will because I don’t think today the U.S. can pull off what we’re trying to make happen.

00:47:04:23 – 00:47:21:10
Unknown
And this is there’s a whole political 2030. Sounds nice, right? It has a nice ring to it, 2030. But if it’s 2031, is it all that bad? I don’t think so. We’re 2034. It’s not terrible, right? We’re still going to get where we want to get to and we can do other things in the meantime.

00:47:22:02 – 00:47:44:01
Unknown
But I just really struggle with thinking that the US can turn around and create some of these industries in such a relatively short timeframe. I think it’ll be really difficult to do. Yeah, anytime you see round numbers like 2030, 2040, 2050 and like, that’s just a sign that it was a pretty nice rounding to call that number

00:47:45:10 – 00:47:58:04
Unknown
. Yeah, I mean, are we going to continue to see a pinch of materials like, I mean, some of these materials that are maybe a little bit scarce now won’t necessarily be scarce forever. And we develop new mining techniques, new mines.

00:47:58:04 – 00:48:15:14
Unknown
Maybe you find one that really, you know, like, really hit pay dirt. I mean, a lot of these problems will probably be alleviated just through, I don’t know, continued effort and happenstance. Rosemary, what do you what do you see here for this supply chain crisis?

00:48:15:15 – 00:48:25:07
Unknown
I mean, is this really just kind of like riding the coattails of COVID because it just seems like the last two years have been messy in general and that life might kind of get back to normal a little bit.

00:48:25:08 – 00:48:35:18
Unknown
I mean, what do you see from this? I think there’s two different kinds of supply chain crisis, and one is just related to the time we’re in now, and it affects every industry and any kind of product that you want to get from one place to another.

00:48:35:18 – 00:48:54:04
Unknown
It takes longer now than it used to, and there’s some specific crisis points, like with computer chips and stuff. But I think the more relevant stuff for renewables is around certain minerals. So, yeah, like lithium and rare earths and a few others.

00:48:54:10 – 00:49:13:02
Unknown
And I think with most of those there, some of those are legitimately scarce and only available in a few places on Earth. And so those are going to cause challenges, but mostly those are things that you can get away with not using by just, you know, moving technology in a different direction.

00:49:13:03 – 00:49:28:03
Unknown
Like you don’t have to use that much cobalt even in a lithium ion battery. You can, you know, you can move to different chemistries that don’t rely on it. And I think that will will happen. But then a lot of the other things like, yeah, like lithium is not a scarce is not scarce.

00:49:28:11 – 00:49:40:11
Unknown
It’s everywhere in the world. And the U.S. has plenty of places where you could start to to extract it if you if you wanted to for, you know, the price. Signal was there and the political will as well.

00:49:41:23 – 00:50:02:00
Unknown
And I think like it’s illustrative to look at the example of solar cells, you know, they’re using silicon and then polysilicon, which is made mostly from from sand, basically from quartz. So a very abundant thing. It was mostly used in electronics until the solar panel boom started.

00:50:02:00 – 00:50:16:08
Unknown
And then suddenly the demand was but really, all of a sudden, the demand was much higher than it had been. The price went massively up. Bunch of companies saw heaps of money to be made at this, you know, like huge price for something that’s made from sand.

00:50:17:04 – 00:50:30:19
Unknown
And I don’t think that the process is that complicated. You need energy and you need you need sand, basically, and then you can make polysilicon. So then you saw, you know, like huge rise in companies that were that wanted in on that.

00:50:31:08 – 00:50:50:12
Unknown
So the price crash and now we’ve got some more, some more uncertainty on that. It’s mostly made in China now, but there’s no reason why other countries can’t make their own. It’s just about whether or not you value making something locally for the security of that versus cheap prices.

00:50:50:12 – 00:51:02:05
Unknown
Buy it from China, who have already figured out how to make it cheaply. You know that that they’re the ones there, the companies that have put their effort into learning how to make it cheap. And same with with lithium.

00:51:02:05 – 00:51:15:04
Unknown
I mean, it mostly comes through China, but they’re not. They’re not mining it. They’re, you know, the natural resource comes from other places. And yeah, if you want to if you want to have security in that, then most countries could.

00:51:15:04 – 00:51:32:22
Unknown
But it’s a tradeoff between the cost and the security. And so I would expect that we’ll see a bit of bit of both into the future. You know, you start off with some local, relatively expensive options and and gradually, as those get better and cheaper than, you know, you’ll say, the balance shift.

00:51:33:10 – 00:51:53:10
Unknown
And I mean, I personally hope that we do move to more local production of things like this in the future, partly because, you know, some of these Moore’s minerals environmentally harmful to mine at the moment. And so, you know, especially with rare earths that there is rare earth mining in the U.S. and Nevada.

00:51:54:09 – 00:52:05:18
Unknown
And it’s just it’s easier and cheaper to get it from a country that doesn’t care about the environmental impacts of it. So I would like to see it move to countries that do so that, you know, we don’t have these environmental impacts.

00:52:06:06 – 00:52:20:13
Unknown
And also, obviously, the more that you produce locally, the less shipping there’s going to be. And shipping is one of the hard, the hard things to decarbonize. So I kind of see us moving away from globalization for, you know, a combination of all those.

00:52:20:17 – 00:52:44:02
Unknown
Those trends will say we’ll see less of we won’t say no globalization, but we’ll say I think less. All right, so we’re going to transition to our last thing today. Get Rosemary all fired up before we depart for the holiday here because it is Thanksgiving weekend here in the U.S., rosemary seaweed inspired underwater power generation a future

00:52:44:02 – 00:53:00:11
Unknown
of renewable energy bloom fast company. Yes. Yes. It wouldn’t get eaten by any animal at all. What do you think about this? Obviously, people are pushing the envelope, trying to develop new technologies to harness different types of power from the Earth.

00:53:00:22 – 00:53:19:14
Unknown
And obviously, you know, we had Glenn Ryan, founder of Bumbler Wave Energy on the show is Seaweed Power, this other company. This new technology, is this going to be something that we see in the future? I think we’ll see it in like a lot of YouTube videos and science shows and stuff.

00:53:19:14 – 00:53:37:08
Unknown
People really like anything bio biomimetic and, you know, mimicking nature. I mean, don’t get me started on all the other kinds of, you know, nature inspired solutions that let cool, you know, like, it’s interesting. And I think that this research is interesting, and I looked at it and I’m like, Oh, that’s that’s so cool.

00:53:37:08 – 00:53:53:22
Unknown
You know, there’s like more seaweed like thing, and it’s gently floating back and forth, and it’s generating enough electricity to power some ladders, which, as we all know, need practically no power to to run. Yeah, it made a wind turbine out of gingerbread that could power a string of LEDs.

00:53:53:22 – 00:54:12:03
Unknown
So like I will say that that’s not a high bar to reach with the new renewable energy technology. So I mean, like, I think it’s cool and it’s interesting. But what I would like to see journalists when they’re covering this sort of story, what I would like to see them ask questions like, does this address any of

00:54:12:03 – 00:54:28:05
Unknown
the real issues that are currently causing problems for more advanced technologies? So I mean, this is kind of funny because usually I’m looking at wave energy and saying why that is unlikely to, you know, be a solution for me for the energy transition.

00:54:28:11 –