In the final episode of 2021, in which we saw huge growth in offshore wind, Allen and Rosemary give their big takeaways from the year along with predictions for what’s to come in 2022. Will we see 20MW wind turbines? A development slowdown due to inflation? Regulatory hurdles? Go here for the video about McDonald’s ice cream machines mentioned on the show.

Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! 

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Welcome back.

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I’m Dan Blewett.

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I’m Allen Hall and I’m Rosemary Barnes,
and this is the Up Time podcast

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bringing you the latest in wind
energy, tech news

00:00:48:03 – 00:00:49:18
and policy.

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All right.

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Welcome back to the Uptime
Wind Energy podcast.

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I’m your co-host, Dan Blewett on today’s
show,

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we’re going to do a sort of 2021
a year and wrap up.

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So aside from a couple topics
which we’re going to talk about,

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including balsa wood harvesting, obviously
that’s used in wind turbine blades.

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And as they’ve expanded in size,

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that harvesting has sped up,
which is threatening the rainforest.

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We’ll talk through that

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as well as maybe some possible
replacements for that material

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in the near future.

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What about Germany phasing out
nuclear power and Siemens Gamesa

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accepting bids to sell off the wind
development arm of their business?

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And then, as we do our sort of 2021

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wrap up, we have five questions
we’re going to throw to our experts here

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about, you know, developments.

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They see predictions
and maybe some surprising things

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about the year behind us.

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So look for that
in the second half of today’s show.

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Before we get going, be sure to subscribe
to Uptime Tech News, which you will find

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in the show notes of this podcast,
as well as Rosemary’s YouTube channel.

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Where is you doing twice a month?

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Live streams
and all things renewable and wind energy

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shows a great job there, so check out
both in the description below.

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So first thing on the docket today,
we’re going to talk about balsa wood.

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So obviously this is used structurally
in wind turbine blades, and the bigger

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they get, the more this has been useful
and necessary to increase harvesting.

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And of course, just like anything
as demand goes up,

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this is putting strain
on this natural resource.

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Rosemary, obviously working for Elm Wind
Power, you have a pretty good idea of,

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you know, the vendor relationships
and all of the materials

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that go into these blades.

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Can you take us through this situation
with balsa wood?

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Like, where does balsa wood
fit in to blade construction?

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Yeah.

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So Balsa Wood is a sandwich material,
a core core material

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for making composite sandwiches.

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So it’s just like the name suggests you.

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You make a sandwich

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before, like a fiberglass

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or sometimes carbon fiber skins.

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And then in the middle of the sandwich

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is a core material,
so it has to be really lightweight.

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Its whole point is to keep the composites
separated from each other.

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That’s that’s most of what it’s doing.

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So the lighter, the better,
and you just get better, better stiffness

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without increasing the waste
by making that sandwich structure.

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And it also helps a lot
with with buckling, you know, like

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when you tread on an aluminum
can the it’s very thin walled

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and the sides will buckle a wind
turbine blades could do that, too.

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If you didn’t make sure that you made
the panels stiff enough to avoid that.

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So you put the the core structure,

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you put that in the big flat
areas, basically.

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So you have it
a lot on the trailing edge of the blade

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and then in the shear webs as well
so that, you know, the like inside.

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And sometimes it’s
called like a box box beam

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the walls that are connecting the upwind
and the downwind side of the blade.

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So that’s where it is.

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And it was traditionally
usually balsa wood.

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And I mean, it just comes from other

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that’s just a really common
lightweight material.

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People use it to make model airplanes and
stuff for the same types of properties.

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It’s definitely not the only core material
that you can use.

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And actually,

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when I saw that we were going
to be talking about this topic,

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I had to do some research
because I started.

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I was with l’m from 2016 to 2021.

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And when I started there,
I think pretty much all the sheer

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webs were already made
out of foam called material.

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So it’s like a plastic foam

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preferably made from recycled
plastic bottles or something like that.

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And they were also

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moving towards a foam for the
the blade shells as well.

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So on the trailing edge part,

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when I was there, not every single blade
was made entirely from foam,

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but definitely
I feel like most of them were.

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I didn’t go through and count,
but to me it felt like

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the older ones used Balsa
and the newer ones were using this foam.

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And to be honest,
it wasn’t like an environmental reason

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that was chosen for that.

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I mean, the recycled materials
was because it was possible to have a more

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environmentally friendly material.

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But there’s a lot of problems with balsa
wood and the supply chain especially.

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I mean, it’s a natural product,
so you get varying quality.

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That’s 11 issue

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that’s just, you know, that’s built
into any kind of a natural product.

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You can’t control how the
tree grows that that closely

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it’s affected by seasonality as well.

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You know, it doesn’t.

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Yeah,
you can’t just harvest all year round

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and then, yeah,
the supply chain issues as well.

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I know in 2019 there was like a big
a big problem for manufacturers

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that were using exclusively balsa wood
and that in that blades

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because the demand rose
and supply couldn’t keep up.

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And they’re having shortages.

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And some people have to say
production of it’s due to that.

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So I think those are the main reasons why

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manufacturers are moving away from.

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Balsa Wood, yeah,
but that’s certainly not the only material

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that you can use to make your wind
turbine flight.

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Well, it sounds like I mean, there’s
besides obviously just the deforestation

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in Ecuador and Peru and some other places.

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There’s also just the fact
that when people are making

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their way into a forest to cut down trees,

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they’re doing so with, you know,
with canoes, they’re taking trucks

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and they’re bringing in the ways
they’re bringing in food products,

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leaving trash behind.

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Apparently,
they’re eating some of the local animals.

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I guess that’s
where they’re getting their lunch.

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We’re getting some eating turtles
and all these other things.

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So they’re just like a lot of ecological
damage in general that this is causing.

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I don’t know, Alan, do you think this?

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I mean, could we start farming balsa or
is it not maybe a product that would work?

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Can we not just domesticate balsa
wood trees?

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I don’t.

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Well, not in the US.

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Don’t think it’s the right temperature and

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amount of rainfall for balsa wood.

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And that’s why it just grows in specific
regions.

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Peru is one of those places where it grows

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the I think that the issue with also
it is a renewable resource, obviously,

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and we have grown it for years
and I do think there are

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regrowth.

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Farms that have happened over time,
but when the demand goes up so fast,

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you can’t keep up with it.

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It takes time for a tree to grow, right,
so you’ve got to be thinking

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several years in advance.

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And if the wind turbine industry explodes
in terms of demand,

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you’re kind of in trouble.

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And that’s that’s what’s happening.

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And the switch to petty
and some other plastic

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materials is probably the easier solution.

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Obviously, it’s the supply chain
is probably a little more stable

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than Balsa will be, particularly now.

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But on the recycling end,
when we talk to Veolia about this

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a couple of episodes ago about blade
recycling, the the petty material wasn’t

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one of those things you could recycle
very easily or burn as one.

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I think it’s one of the things
that they would set aside

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that they would find another way
to try to reuse it.

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It wasn’t like Balsa, where you could just
burn it and use as an energy source.

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So the there’s a real big tradeoff here
because you’re talking about large amounts

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of either balsa or something else
acting as the core material.

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And what we would
do is I think the relationship is here

00:08:15:19 – 00:08:18:23
in aerospace and aerospace
would use essentially paper, right?

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No honeycomb

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is a standard product
which is made out of paper.

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That’s aramid fiber basically paper,
and it’s put into this really funky shape.

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The problem is it’s expensive and the wind
turbine industry has never used it.

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And I think to
some other things about water

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that are valid
that water regressions are big problems.

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So I’m not sure what’s going to happen
with this bolt balsa industry.

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You know, what will likely happen
is that the whole wind turbine industry,

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besides maybe a couple of players
will leave Balsa behind

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and move on to other materials
that are more supply chain stable.

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Can I just add not Adobe also comes
from illegal logging of rainforests.

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They have that balsa plantations.

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And until I read this article,
I really haven’t had enough opportunity

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to look in depth to see to what extent
you know this.

00:09:10:12 – 00:09:15:04
This rain rainforest
deforestation is a big problem.

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Yeah,

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my understanding was that
Balsa was pretty sustainable.

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It’s grown in plantations.

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It takes six to ten years for a

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the trade and reach maturity,
and then you regrow it.

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So, you know,
as long as the industry isn’t growing

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and it’s just like
with any other wood product, you know ,

00:09:31:16 – 00:09:35:04
you have to make sure that you’ve got
sustainable forest management.

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But I don’t see any reason why

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we need the rainforest.

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Deforestation needs to be
part of the Bolsa supply chain.

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I think definitely we need to.

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You wouldn’t want the industry
to just grow and grow and grow

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because then you would
definitely say problems like that.

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But I think if people are responsible
with their supply chains,

00:09:55:13 – 00:09:59:11
it would be possible
to keep on using similar amounts of Balsa

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to what we do now,
and we shouldn’t have any problems.

00:10:02:15 – 00:10:06:18
It should be sustainable and carbon
neutral and, you know, everything

00:10:06:18 – 00:10:07:13
like that.

00:10:07:19 – 00:10:10:23
Right now, though, isn’t
it really supply and demand as we need?

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We were just more demand
that’s going to drive the supply

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to find other ways
to get also into the marketplace.

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I think this is quite normal situation,
right?

00:10:22:02 – 00:10:22:17
The problem is

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you don’t have you’re not planning
for that kind of huge growth and in wind

00:10:26:19 – 00:10:30:18
and the use of Balsa at the moment
and who would have seen five years ago

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when you would
you had to plant those trees

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that the demand would have grown like
it is right now.

00:10:35:11 – 00:10:37:15
I think that’s a problem.
We had similar problems.

00:10:38:03 – 00:10:41:08
If you remember way back
when we were making tires

00:10:41:08 – 00:10:44:17
that our rubber from rubber trees, right,
that that same problem,

00:10:45:06 – 00:10:49:16
same problem, and it’s going to it’s
going to change dramatically,

00:10:49:16 – 00:10:53:22
I think, into synthetic materials
or alternative materials

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or new ways of thinking about
the core material because

00:10:59:06 – 00:11:01:04
maybe
on smaller blades, balsam makes sense.

00:11:01:04 – 00:11:03:21
I don’t think that there’s
that that many brand new

00:11:04:11 – 00:11:07:15
blade designs
that that have a lot of balsa.

00:11:07:15 – 00:11:10:17
I could be wrong because, you know,
I only know the one manufacturer,

00:11:10:17 – 00:11:15:11
although that they are manufacturing for
many, many other turbine manufacturers.

00:11:15:20 – 00:11:18:10
But yeah, I think you’re right.

00:11:18:12 – 00:11:21:08
Like,
even if we keep the same amount of balsa

00:11:21:15 – 00:11:23:17
but increase number of blades,
then you know, obviously

00:11:23:17 – 00:11:26:17
the amount of balsa is going to increase
and you would need to make sure

00:11:26:17 – 00:11:29:09
that that doesn’t doesn’t happen too
severely.

00:11:29:11 – 00:11:33:21
And I think that there’s already
the strong, strong feedback in the system

00:11:33:21 – 00:11:37:02
where people were in 2019
especially really were affected

00:11:37:02 – 00:11:38:10
by their reliance on balsa wood.

00:11:38:10 – 00:11:41:03
So I think that the message
has got through even.

00:11:41:07 – 00:11:44:14
Well, aside from the environmental impact,
which is important.

00:11:44:14 – 00:11:48:13
But yeah,
there’s a real supply chain problem.

00:11:48:13 – 00:11:52:15
If everyone stays reliant on on Balsa
and I feel like it’d be a risky bet

00:11:52:15 – 00:11:54:16
for a big manufacturer
anyway, where if they’re like, Hey,

00:11:54:16 – 00:11:58:11
we’re going to need a lot more turbines
in five years than we have now.

00:11:58:22 – 00:12:01:23
And, you know, Balsa
has some environmental issues with it.

00:12:01:23 – 00:12:03:14
It could be really bad PR

00:12:03:14 – 00:12:07:10
if if it continues to come
from illegal sources or the rainforest,

00:12:08:11 – 00:12:10:14
maybe we should start making the switch
to the.

00:12:11:06 – 00:12:14:14
Or other sources of foam now and then,
so then at that point,

00:12:14:14 – 00:12:18:05
if some companies are maybe
trying to forecast and switch away early

00:12:18:11 – 00:12:20:12
others, maybe you’re sticking with it
for a little longer.

00:12:20:12 – 00:12:22:03
It’s probably hard to figure out.

00:12:22:03 – 00:12:26:14
Like, do you know, does a company invest
in a new also plantation?

00:12:27:01 – 00:12:28:18
Like, is that a good bet? Like today?

00:12:28:18 – 00:12:32:16
Would you would you want to start
growing new balsa plants or trees?

00:12:32:16 – 00:12:34:21
I don’t know,
because it might not be there at all

00:12:34:21 – 00:12:37:09
if they phase it out
with artificial material.

00:12:37:14 – 00:12:41:07
It’s hard to say, and I should add, it’s
not totally trivial to just swap.

00:12:41:07 – 00:12:43:08
It’s not like
you just keep your blade design

00:12:43:08 – 00:12:45:17
exactly the same
and then it’s up to the foam.

00:12:45:17 – 00:12:50:20
You have to redesign and do a lot more
testing and manufacturers always nervous

00:12:50:20 – 00:12:54:00
to change something like that because,
you know, they’ve got these history

00:12:54:00 – 00:12:58:11
of dozens of different designs
with the old materials.

00:12:58:11 – 00:13:01:05
They know exactly how they behave
in the field, and they’re very confident

00:13:01:05 – 00:13:05:12
that their test test results in the lab
or in test hall .

00:13:05:12 – 00:13:10:07
They’re very confident that that matches
the reality of operational experience.

00:13:10:07 – 00:13:15:03
And so it definitely isn’t something
you can just switch overnight

00:13:15:03 – 00:13:16:14
and you’re actually like,
Oh, hey, we’ve got

00:13:16:14 – 00:13:18:11
we’re also firm
now instead of Rolls Balsa.

00:13:19:12 – 00:13:19:21
Yeah.

00:13:19:21 – 00:13:22:15
So it it takes a while.

00:13:22:15 – 00:13:26:06
And at Elm,
I think they would have worked on it

00:13:26:06 – 00:13:30:12
for around a decade before it was kind of,
you know, like really ready to go on

00:13:31:11 – 00:13:33:17
on four big blades.

00:13:41:08 – 00:13:43:09
So let’s let’s switch
gears here to Germany.

00:13:43:17 – 00:13:47:14
So obviously,
the UK government is supporting

00:13:47:14 – 00:13:50:11
the construction of the country’s
first nuclear power station

00:13:50:11 – 00:13:54:03
and more than two decades, and it’ll be in
south southwestern England.

00:13:54:14 – 00:13:57:04
Yet at the same time, Germany is scaling

00:13:57:04 – 00:14:00:07
back on their nuclear power
in favor of natural gas.

00:14:00:08 – 00:14:04:05
They’re planning to phase out
nuclear in 2022.

00:14:04:14 – 00:14:06:05
Alan, why this shift?

00:14:06:05 – 00:14:10:13
As as some countries, including the U.S.,
are starting to give nuclear

00:14:10:13 – 00:14:11:05
a second chance?

00:14:11:05 – 00:14:14:07
Why is it Germany sort of going
the opposite direction?

00:14:14:22 – 00:14:18:21
It’s part of a political movement,
essentially watching

00:14:18:21 – 00:14:22:05
some news stories come out of Germany
in the nuclear movement.

00:14:22:19 – 00:14:24:00
There’s a big political action.

00:14:24:00 – 00:14:25:21
Remember that Germany not long ago

00:14:25:21 – 00:14:29:17
was East and West Germany,
and they were in the middle of a nuclear

00:14:30:00 – 00:14:33:14
showdown between the
then Soviet Union and the United States.

00:14:34:01 – 00:14:37:00
And the United States
still has troops in Germany,

00:14:37:08 – 00:14:40:06
and that sort of nuclear arms race then

00:14:40:07 – 00:14:43:03
sort of got tied to nuclear power.

00:14:43:10 – 00:14:46:08
And that’s evolved over time,
where nuclear

00:14:46:08 – 00:14:50:22
power, as has been seen
as being more dangerous than coal

00:14:50:22 – 00:14:54:21
plants in some places are more
dangerous than natural gas.

00:14:56:01 – 00:14:56:23
And the

00:14:56:23 – 00:15:00:20
reality is is that nuclear
power kills a lot

00:15:00:20 – 00:15:05:10
less people over its lifetime than coal
or gas or anything else.

00:15:06:07 – 00:15:09:11
It’s one of the safest energy sources
that we have.

00:15:09:18 – 00:15:12:23
So the only explanation we are
all right now is it’s

00:15:12:23 – 00:15:17:12
just part of a political movement,
and political movements can ebb and flow.

00:15:17:12 – 00:15:21:17
And I think the real, real thing
that will drive Germany to rethink

00:15:21:17 – 00:15:26:06
it is really high energy prices
coming from Russia, and

00:15:27:21 – 00:15:30:00
nothing changes the populous opinion.

00:15:30:00 – 00:15:32:09
Then hard times

00:15:32:09 – 00:15:35:21
that’s likely to happen because of
the choices the politicians have made

00:15:36:09 – 00:15:38:15
and then are backed
by the electorate clearly.

00:15:39:05 – 00:15:43:09
And you see the same no country
is immune to this come out in America

00:15:43:09 – 00:15:47:22
when it has gone through
this numerous times and reverse direction.

00:15:48:05 – 00:15:49:03
That’s OK.

00:15:49:03 – 00:15:52:12
I think what my hope is that
Germany doesn’t get too far down the line

00:15:52:12 – 00:15:57:00
where they can’t do it,
or they’re going to have a lot of coal

00:15:57:00 – 00:16:02:12
fired plants to take the gap time
to restart the nuclear growth.

00:16:02:12 – 00:16:06:20
Mideast sees that happening in Germany,
that it’s eventually going to bring arts

00:16:06:20 – 00:16:10:13
and coal plants just to tie them over
so they can put some nuclear back in.

00:16:11:01 – 00:16:12:05
Yeah, maybe.

00:16:12:05 – 00:16:17:11
And I think we probably have already seen
that as they’ve been reducing

00:16:17:14 – 00:16:21:06
nuclear over the last few years
since Fukushima.

00:16:21:18 – 00:16:27:17
I think coal would have been shot down
faster if it wasn’t for.

00:16:27:17 – 00:16:31:18
For that, it’s hard
to, you know, do do both at the same time.

00:16:32:05 – 00:16:35:13
I I don’t have strong feelings
about nuclear.

00:16:35:14 – 00:16:38:20
I think maybe I’m unusual in that respect,
as most people

00:16:38:20 – 00:16:41:17
seem to be very passionate
one way or the other.

00:16:42:03 – 00:16:47:06
I think, yeah, like, like you say,
if you look at the overall safety numbers,

00:16:47:07 – 00:16:49:21
it’s one of, if not the safest

00:16:50:06 – 00:16:54:15
method of generating electricity,
definitely much safer than coal,

00:16:54:15 – 00:16:57:23
which has a lot of deaths associated
from the particulate pollution.

00:16:57:23 – 00:17:01:16
I think it’s millions around the world
each year dying from coal

00:17:01:16 – 00:17:02:19
particulate pollution.

00:17:02:19 – 00:17:05:15
So, you know, it’s it’s better.

00:17:05:16 – 00:17:10:02
And if I was in charge of Germany’s
energy transition,

00:17:10:02 – 00:17:14:01
then I don’t think that I would have
prioritized shutting down nuclear.

00:17:15:02 – 00:17:16:16
Yeah, my main issues with nuclear

00:17:16:16 – 00:17:20:12
are mostly just to do with the cost
and whether it’s the fastest,

00:17:20:13 – 00:17:24:08
cheapest way
that we can move towards decarbonization.

00:17:25:05 – 00:17:27:11
And I know that the British plant

00:17:27:11 – 00:17:30:15
is, you know, it just keeps on
getting more and more and more expensive.

00:17:30:15 – 00:17:33:18
And if you ever get a British
and French person in the room together,

00:17:34:03 – 00:17:36:10
if that energy energy nerds like us,

00:17:36:18 – 00:17:38:16
they’re definitely going
to start talking about nuclear.

00:17:38:16 – 00:17:42:01
And you know, there’s
going to be the Brits.

00:17:42:16 – 00:17:45:23
Some of them don’t feel they feel like
they’ve been a little bit swindled.

00:17:45:23 – 00:17:49:14
I think when it came to this new nuclear
power plant

00:17:49:14 – 00:17:52:23
because it is
just so much more expensive than expected.

00:17:52:23 – 00:17:55:02
And if you look at the price
that they’ve agreed to pay

00:17:55:02 – 00:17:57:13
from the electricity from it, it’s it’s
high.

00:17:57:14 – 00:18:00:14
You know,
no one’s paying that much for offshore

00:18:00:14 – 00:18:04:20
wind or any
any other kind of electricity generation.

00:18:05:10 – 00:18:09:06
And I think in Australia,
I mean, because I’m Australian, I’m

00:18:09:13 – 00:18:10:20
in a slightly different situation.

00:18:10:20 – 00:18:13:07
When we don’t have nuclear, it’s illegal.

00:18:13:15 – 00:18:17:23
Currently, it’s not allowed
by the law that we do develop nuclear.

00:18:18:08 – 00:18:19:16
Maybe we will in the future

00:18:19:16 – 00:18:23:07
since we’ve now got this agreement
to get nuclear submarines.

00:18:23:22 – 00:18:26:17
But yeah, for me,

00:18:27:02 – 00:18:29:02
I’ve never been pro-nuclear for Australia

00:18:29:02 – 00:18:32:02
because I just don’t say
that we could develop that as fast

00:18:32:02 – 00:18:37:02
or as cheaply as we could develop a fully
actually renewable electricity grid.

00:18:37:02 – 00:18:40:07
So that’s my reason for opposing it
in Australia. But.

00:18:40:17 – 00:18:41:16
For places in the world

00:18:41:16 – 00:18:43:04
where they don’t have those constraints,

00:18:43:04 – 00:18:45:20
if they’ve got an existing
nuclear industry,

00:18:45:20 – 00:18:49:08
I think that you make your job harder
by rolling it out, but I definitely think

00:18:49:08 – 00:18:51:20
you can also make a system
that doesn’t use it.

00:18:52:12 – 00:18:54:05
But yeah, it’s

00:18:55:14 – 00:18:55:22
I don’t know.

00:18:55:22 – 00:18:57:23
It comes down to economics
at the end of the day,

00:18:57:23 – 00:19:00:19
like like most of the topics
that we that we talk about.

00:19:01:22 – 00:19:05:09
Well, last topic today
before we get into some 2021

00:19:06:01 – 00:19:08:14
wrap up and some 2022 predictions

00:19:09:02 – 00:19:13:10
is Siemens Gamesa,
so they are accepting bids for

00:19:13:21 – 00:19:17:21
to sell off their wind farm development
unit of their company.

00:19:18:23 – 00:19:20:05
You know, people are saying that this deal

00:19:20:05 – 00:19:23:13
could be worth about €300 million or $340
million.

00:19:24:08 – 00:19:26:19
And Alan, why? Why are they doing this?

00:19:26:19 – 00:19:27:12
Is it just sort of

00:19:27:12 – 00:19:30:22
to focus on their core business
of actually manufacturing turbines

00:19:30:22 – 00:19:33:12
that are trying to get out
of the operation business?

00:19:34:23 – 00:19:39:01
It provides cash to a business
that is using a lot of cash.

00:19:39:16 – 00:19:42:17
And I think you’re going to see, well,
you saw it with GE, right?

00:19:42:17 – 00:19:44:17
You saw GE is going to split into three.

00:19:44:17 – 00:19:46:10
Again, that’s a cash issue.

00:19:47:15 – 00:19:49:13
Vestas is running into cash issues.

00:19:49:13 – 00:19:52:11
I think every wind turbine manufacturers
run into cash issues.

00:19:52:16 – 00:19:55:10
So if you have hard assets

00:19:55:16 – 00:20:00:01
that you can sell off
to, to firm up or to reduce the debt load

00:20:00:01 – 00:20:03:14
you have on your manufacturing business,
you’re going to do that.

00:20:03:21 – 00:20:04:18
What you see?

00:20:04:18 – 00:20:06:20
I’ll give you the example
in the United States.

00:20:06:20 – 00:20:08:12
So Siemens is going to sell off
a basically a

00:20:08:12 – 00:20:11:23
division that does not really core
essential things for them.

00:20:12:07 – 00:20:14:05
But in the United States,
what you’re seeing right now,

00:20:14:05 – 00:20:16:05
because of the prices of real estate,

00:20:16:05 – 00:20:19:08
the companies that own real estate
are selling that real estate

00:20:19:08 – 00:20:22:10
, they’re selling that real estate
and then leasing the office space back.

00:20:22:11 – 00:20:23:23
So if I had an office building

00:20:23:23 – 00:20:27:20
and it was worth 10 million bucks
or 100 million bucks, I would sell it.

00:20:28:02 – 00:20:31:00
I would lease back
my employees back in that same building.

00:20:31:00 – 00:20:32:21
And I keep that cash right.

00:20:32:21 – 00:20:35:10
And that’s what’s happening
across the world right now.

00:20:35:10 – 00:20:38:02
So companies are becoming constrained

00:20:38:02 – 00:20:42:12
because of inflationary pressures
or because of the price drop drop.

00:20:42:12 – 00:20:44:23
Prices of raw materials are going up.

00:20:45:19 – 00:20:48:21
You need to have cash
and that on their back end

00:20:48:21 – 00:20:54:12
because the abilities of you to to borrow
money are going to be limited, I think.

00:20:54:21 – 00:20:58:13
So you want to stash cash,
which is what Siemens

00:20:58:14 – 00:21:02:10
Gamesa is doing
and I think other wind turbine OEMs

00:21:02:10 – 00:21:03:11
are going to be doing

00:21:03:11 – 00:21:05:03
if they’re not doing it right now,

00:21:05:03 – 00:21:07:05
they’re going to be doing it
within the next six months.

00:21:07:15 – 00:21:09:12
I think this makes sense.

00:21:09:12 – 00:21:13:08
Rosemarie, do you see that way
as kind of a lot of these manufacturers

00:21:13:08 – 00:21:14:18
are trying to just weather this storm

00:21:14:18 – 00:21:17:01
where their margins have gotten thin
and inflation’s

00:21:17:10 – 00:21:19:17
putting more pressure on them
and the supply chain issues?

00:21:19:17 – 00:21:21:12
You think maybe more this will be coming?

00:21:21:12 – 00:21:23:09
Yeah, probably.

00:21:23:09 – 00:21:26:02
But it’s kind of a short term
fix, isn’t it?

00:21:26:02 – 00:21:30:11
I mean, do we expect that the margins
are going to go up again

00:21:30:11 – 00:21:33:13
on wind turbines
and, you know, in five years?

00:21:34:06 – 00:21:37:16
I actually have been changing my mind
a little bit on this topic over

00:21:37:21 – 00:21:39:07
the last couple of months.

00:21:39:07 – 00:21:42:13
And partly it’s because
coming back to Australia, they have a bit

00:21:42:13 – 00:21:46:12
of a different model here of development

00:21:46:12 – 00:21:49:13
and ownership operation of wind farms.

00:21:49:21 – 00:21:51:17
It’s nearly always there

00:21:51:17 – 00:21:55:11
the manufacturers, the OEMs
that get the service agreement.

00:21:55:17 – 00:21:58:11
And I actually listened to an interview
with somebody

00:21:58:11 – 00:22:02:00
from from Vestas Australia recently,
and he was saying that,

00:22:02:07 – 00:22:06:09
you know, there’s a way
bigger margin on their service,

00:22:07:00 – 00:22:11:14
their service division
than there is on the turbines themselves.

00:22:12:00 – 00:22:14:12
And so I can see that,

00:22:15:06 – 00:22:18:16
you know, going forward, it might be more,
you know, like when you buy a printer,

00:22:18:19 – 00:22:21:14
the printer itself is really cheap,
but then you pay

00:22:21:22 – 00:22:24:07
a lot of money
for the cartridges that you put in it.

00:22:24:14 – 00:22:26:05
And I wonder if you know

00:22:26:05 – 00:22:29:03
they gave up on having this price pressure
on wind turbines.

00:22:29:08 – 00:22:34:07
I was going to say the same kinds
of business models develop in the industry

00:22:34:07 – 00:22:38:05
where people accept the higher wind
turbine itself has become basically

00:22:38:05 – 00:22:42:01
like a commodity and, you know,
they feel interchangeable to the market.

00:22:42:19 – 00:22:46:02
So then we need to make
our money off of service.

00:22:47:04 – 00:22:50:12
And I haven’t seen people
selling off their service divisions yet,

00:22:50:12 – 00:22:53:12
but it does feel like,
you know, the development could be

00:22:53:12 – 00:22:56:14
could be part of that as well,
because I think that there’s also

00:22:56:23 – 00:23:01:21
some innovations to be more innovations
to be made in the development

00:23:01:21 – 00:23:05:00
and construction and service part
than there is actually

00:23:05:00 – 00:23:07:13
in the wind turbine itself.

00:23:08:09 – 00:23:11:12
I think there’s a lot of inefficiencies
in the way that projects are run

00:23:11:12 – 00:23:15:04
and the order
that construction projects get get done.

00:23:15:09 – 00:23:18:06
Sometimes, you know, like you
bring in the person to build the roads

00:23:18:06 – 00:23:20:03
after you’ve got the whole wind
farm laid out

00:23:20:03 – 00:23:22:14
and they’re like , Oh, well, yeah,
I can do it, but it’s going

00:23:22:14 – 00:23:25:18
be really expensive to to build the roads
where you think they’re going to go.

00:23:25:18 – 00:23:30:01
If you got us involved a few years ago,
that could have done this much cheaper.

00:23:30:01 – 00:23:32:02
And I mean, that’s just one tiny example.

00:23:32:02 – 00:23:35:08
I feel like there’s opportunities
to go through and really

00:23:37:05 – 00:23:39:22
develop
a instead of just using construction

00:23:39:22 – 00:23:43:21
methods from, you know,
every other kind of construction project.

00:23:43:21 – 00:23:45:14
If we could get somebody that was,

00:23:45:14 – 00:23:48:15
you know, like really doing
the whole project from start to finish

00:23:48:15 – 00:23:52:03
and developing
wind turbine wind farm specific

00:23:53:23 – 00:23:55:04
technologies.

00:23:55:04 – 00:23:58:08
I think that there’s some some money
to be saved there.

00:23:58:08 – 00:24:02:02
And I personally, I think that’s
where the main cost reductions for

00:24:02:12 – 00:24:04:09
for wind
energy is going to come in the future.

00:24:04:09 – 00:24:07:10
It’s going to be from the construction
and from the operation and service.

00:24:07:10 – 00:24:10:21
So yeah, I think it would be interesting.

00:24:10:21 – 00:24:14:10
I hope that we see somebody, you know,
go in that direction and try and,

00:24:14:20 – 00:24:18:04
you know, think about the whole lifetime
of the wind farm

00:24:18:04 – 00:24:22:05
as a holistic thing and see how it can get
improved efficiencies there.

00:24:22:06 – 00:24:26:07
So I hope everybody doesn’t
doesn’t fill up their development part,

00:24:26:07 – 00:24:29:16
and I hope people get the service as well.

00:24:30:01 – 00:24:32:07
Yeah, you don’t really see this
in other industries.

00:24:32:07 – 00:24:33:23
I mean, even Apple.

00:24:33:23 – 00:24:37:15
Bill, which has great margins
on their phones or laptops, or

00:24:37:16 – 00:24:40:02
you pay a premium for Apple stuff,

00:24:40:22 – 00:24:43:08
especially when you compare it
to like a similar , you know,

00:24:43:09 – 00:24:48:03
Windows computer, even they like,
they want recurring revenue, right?

00:24:48:03 – 00:24:50:02
They want that stability.

00:24:50:02 – 00:24:51:21
You see this
with all sorts of hardware products,

00:24:51:21 – 00:24:53:09
especially the ones that are more durable,

00:24:53:09 – 00:24:55:12
that don’t have like the planned
obsolescence in it.

00:24:56:08 – 00:24:59:06
There’s a baseball product
that’s a couple of thousand dollars that’s

00:24:59:06 – 00:25:00:19
marketed mostly to coaches,

00:25:01:21 – 00:25:04:20
and they it’s
clear to me that they have a tough time

00:25:05:01 – 00:25:07:16
getting more revenue out of these people
after they’ve sold them all one.

00:25:08:17 – 00:25:09:03
They don’t like.

00:25:09:03 – 00:25:12:08
So they’ve been upping their subscription
things as a site example.

00:25:12:08 – 00:25:14:03
But you see this all over
where people are.

00:25:14:03 – 00:25:15:05
Yeah, we’ve made hardware.

00:25:15:05 – 00:25:17:20
If we make really good hardware,
we sell at once

00:25:18:07 – 00:25:20:00
and then we got to find more customers
where it’s

00:25:20:00 – 00:25:22:05
probably easier
just to continue to extract cash

00:25:22:05 – 00:25:26:10
from your existing customers
rather than continue to find new new ones.

00:25:27:16 – 00:25:28:19
Yeah. So I don’t know.

00:25:28:19 – 00:25:31:12
I think, yeah,
I think try to be well-rounded.

00:25:31:12 – 00:25:33:11
You want to keep all these arms.

00:25:33:11 – 00:25:35:09
But maybe it’s just a short term thing.

00:25:35:09 – 00:25:36:00
I don’t know, Alan.

00:25:36:00 – 00:25:40:09
I mean, have you either of you heard about
the McFlurry thing the FCC in the U.S.

00:25:40:11 – 00:25:41:00
in the U.S.

00:25:41:00 – 00:25:45:06
is actually investigating McDonald’s
and this company,

00:25:45:13 – 00:25:48:12
Taylor, that manufactures
ICE, their ice cream machines.

00:25:48:12 – 00:25:49:13
Have either of you heard the story?

00:25:49:13 – 00:25:51:11
No, no.

00:25:51:11 – 00:25:54:03
Well, there’s a really interesting
YouTube video about this.

00:25:54:03 – 00:25:55:12
If you know McDonald’s,

00:25:55:12 – 00:25:59:01
you know that their ice cream machines
are kind of constantly broken, right?

00:25:59:14 – 00:26:01:22
Right? Yeah,
they’re manufactured by this company.

00:26:01:22 – 00:26:06:05
Taylor, which manufactures Wendy’s like
all the other places, ice cream machines.

00:26:06:05 – 00:26:09:02
Theirs are almost never broken,
like 1% downtime.

00:26:09:02 – 00:26:11:12
McDonald’s is like 15% downtime.

00:26:11:12 – 00:26:13:17
Someone looked into this,
and it seems like there’s some

00:26:13:17 – 00:26:17:00
real serious collusion between McDonald’s
and this company

00:26:17:14 – 00:26:20:22
about keeping them broken
because there’s like a 30 or 40 million

00:26:20:22 – 00:26:24:13
dollar service contract that they
that they made like a significant chunk

00:26:24:13 – 00:26:28:16
of their money on service because of these
broken McDonald’s machines.

00:26:29:04 – 00:26:32:21
And the FCC is now looking into it,
which is so funny that they’re like

00:26:32:21 – 00:26:38:06
the FCC is sending an investigation
about their ice cream machines.

00:26:38:12 – 00:26:40:08
But it’s a real thing.
It’s it’s really fascinating.

00:26:40:08 – 00:26:43:06
There’s a really good YouTube video
I’ll link to in the description.

00:26:43:07 – 00:26:44:06
It’s very fascinating

00:26:44:06 – 00:26:48:19
if you like McDonald’s outfit sundaes,
but I can totally believe that.

00:26:49:04 – 00:26:51:21
Well, you know, that raises
an interesting point, actually,

00:26:51:21 – 00:26:57:00
that you’re talking about
really a subscription model

00:26:57:10 – 00:27:00:18
for wind turbine operations or how do you
how do you do that?

00:27:00:18 – 00:27:03:14
You provide the service
right, becomes a subscription model

00:27:03:21 – 00:27:07:16
because you have to continually pay
to keep your wind turbine serviced, right?

00:27:08:02 – 00:27:10:02
So you’re going to get that contract year
after year after year.

00:27:10:02 – 00:27:14:08
I think if you have look for wind
turbine parts online

00:27:14:15 – 00:27:18:08
or a wind turbine repair manuals online,
there is zero.

00:27:18:13 – 00:27:19:03
All right.

00:27:19:03 – 00:27:23:07
That’s
that’s unusual in the sense that active,

00:27:23:14 – 00:27:26:14
you have to actively try
to keep this stuff off the web

00:27:27:13 – 00:27:30:07
because you got manuals and people

00:27:30:07 – 00:27:33:18
and just thousands of thousands of people
who have access to that stuff.

00:27:34:21 – 00:27:35:21
So in the airplane world,

00:27:35:21 – 00:27:39:22
you see manuals come up on on
Boeing airplanes or Airbus airplanes.

00:27:40:09 – 00:27:43:21
But you see Zippo zero about wind turbine

00:27:44:15 – 00:27:46:22
design features, schematics,

00:27:48:11 – 00:27:49:17
repairs.

00:27:49:17 – 00:27:51:15
That’s not available on the web.

00:27:51:15 – 00:27:54:10
And that tells you
that it has a huge value

00:27:54:10 – 00:27:59:05
that there’s there’s been
a conscientious effort to keep that stuff

00:27:59:10 – 00:28:02:10
like behind lock and key,
and that’s a pay subscription only.

00:28:02:22 – 00:28:06:19
That tells you that there’s a huge
amount of value in that service, right?

00:28:06:19 – 00:28:10:13
And that the OEMs want to control that,
that service market.

00:28:11:00 – 00:28:16:09
And that’s what is fascinating, I think,
because it’s sort of a different thing.

00:28:16:09 – 00:28:18:13
If I’m an airplane owner,
I own the manuals.

00:28:18:13 – 00:28:20:18
I get the manuals with the
with the airplane

00:28:20:18 – 00:28:23:05
and I get to kind of do my own thing
a little bit.

00:28:23:22 – 00:28:28:11
You’re seeing the wind turbine industry
kind of go away from that, that

00:28:28:18 – 00:28:33:12
what if Vestas sells a wind turbine versus
is going to maintain a wind turbine?

00:28:33:14 – 00:28:37:13
You’re going to be paying Vestas for the
20 year lifespan of the of the turbine,

00:28:37:13 – 00:28:41:11
and that may be a totally agreeable
by both sides situation.

00:28:41:22 – 00:28:45:19
But it just makes sure that there’s
no outside repair companies.

00:28:47:01 – 00:28:48:03
Now there’s been a huge

00:28:48:03 – 00:28:51:04
consolidation, I think, in wind turbine
repair companies because of it.

00:28:51:14 – 00:28:53:17
And it does help.

00:28:54:06 – 00:28:55:10
And Rosemary is right.

00:28:55:10 – 00:28:59:13
It does help the bottom line long term
because you go into more of

00:28:59:17 – 00:29:03:07
a subscription model, which every business
is being pushed into right now.

00:29:03:07 – 00:29:09:09
So I don’t see wind turbines, operators,
OEMs backing away from the repair market.

00:29:09:09 – 00:29:11:18
If anything,
they’re going to get more constructive

00:29:12:01 – 00:29:15:23
and maybe not let anybody else
or DePaul warranties

00:29:15:23 – 00:29:20:00
on their turbines
of somebody else, a non GE person.

00:29:20:07 – 00:29:22:10
Repairs are turbot

00:29:22:11 – 00:29:25:12
that’s already happened
in the United States, and I don’t think

00:29:25:12 – 00:29:26:08
they’re going to go away with that

00:29:26:08 – 00:29:29:10
because the margins are getting so tight
that they need to control that.

00:29:29:15 – 00:29:31:15
I just say that they do.

00:29:31:16 – 00:29:35:05
You do get a manual
and you buy a wind turbine.

00:29:35:07 – 00:29:38:02
Do you do you get a manual
for the yeah, for the blade?

00:29:38:02 – 00:29:44:00
And if it’s got a deicing system
that it has a deicing manual that was

00:29:44:00 – 00:29:48:19
partially produced by my own blood, sweat
and tears in many, many cases?

00:29:48:22 – 00:29:53:14
So yeah, I I don’t know why they haven’t
found their way onto the internet

00:29:53:14 – 00:29:57:22
because I definitely I mean, other
than in Australia, there are plenty of

00:29:58:12 – 00:30:03:07
owner operators that have nothing to do
with, you know, with the OEM.

00:30:03:08 – 00:30:08:06
So I could say, what’s what’s stopping
them from putting it up on the internet?

00:30:08:06 – 00:30:11:11
Maybe they, you know, very often
they’re not writing them.

00:30:11:11 – 00:30:12:02
I know that.

00:30:12:02 – 00:30:13:01
I know that for sure.

00:30:13:01 – 00:30:14:07
They’re like, Oh man, you’re

00:30:14:07 – 00:30:16:12
okay with this when they have a problem
a few years later.

00:30:17:05 – 00:30:18:04
Yeah, yeah.

00:30:18:04 – 00:30:19:08
That maintenance manual

00:30:19:08 – 00:30:21:21
had a whole bunch of things
that you’re supposed to do if you want to.

00:30:22:05 – 00:30:25:17
If you wanted to keep your warranty like,
Oh yeah, right now and now, we didn’t

00:30:25:17 – 00:30:26:20
do any maintenance, and I

00:30:27:21 – 00:30:31:05
say, yeah,
maybe that that’s the conspiracy

00:30:31:05 – 00:30:36:11
is that people find these documents
very boring and just don’t look at them.

00:30:36:16 – 00:30:40:08
I can confirm that they are boring
possible, but anything that has value

00:30:40:08 – 00:30:42:12
like a wind turbine
where it’s a couple of million dollars

00:30:42:12 – 00:30:45:08
to buy the thing
the manual is worth something.

00:30:45:08 – 00:30:48:01
And weirdly enough,
you’d never see manuals online.

00:30:48:01 – 00:30:52:04
And I can go on to the technicians forums
and I can see technicians asking

00:30:52:04 – 00:30:55:08
every day, Is
anybody have a schematic for x y z?

00:30:55:08 – 00:30:58:06
Does anybody have the repair manual
for this bearing configuration

00:30:58:16 – 00:31:02:17
or for this oil cooler or whatever it is,
you just don’t see it right?

00:31:02:22 – 00:31:05:13
I think in every other part of humanity,

00:31:05:21 – 00:31:10:17
I can find a manual for my refrigerator
that was manufactured in 1990.

00:31:10:23 – 00:31:14:00
Right now, that doesn’t make any sense
when I can’t find

00:31:14:07 – 00:31:16:17
something from a wind
turbine manufacturer in 2000.

00:31:17:09 – 00:31:18:22
There’s something going on there.

00:31:18:22 – 00:31:20:12
I’m not a conspiracy theorist here,

00:31:20:12 – 00:31:24:00
but it does seem like there’s
a lot of controls about what gets out.

00:31:24:01 – 00:31:25:13
I would disagree.

00:31:25:13 – 00:31:28:10
I mean, maybe your 1990 refrigerator

00:31:28:10 – 00:31:31:21
the no one cares about
or even mayor is still running.

00:31:31:21 – 00:31:34:09
But the right to repair
movement in the U.S.

00:31:34:14 – 00:31:37:05
is like actually getting some steam
now because

00:31:37:23 – 00:31:41:12
I mean, with your Apple product
or a car or a John Deere tractor

00:31:41:12 – 00:31:45:11
like people like I own a 250,000 dollar
combine.

00:31:45:23 – 00:31:48:13
Farmers are right at the forefront of this
right to repair movement

00:31:48:15 – 00:31:51:11
like I own this quarter quarter
Million Dollar Carmine.

00:31:51:11 – 00:31:53:15
I’m not allowed to fix it. Yeah,
they’ll take me to.

00:31:54:01 – 00:31:57:13
And this is starting
to move in in Congress.

00:31:58:00 – 00:32:00:04
And there’s actually a couple of prominent
YouTubers.

00:32:00:11 – 00:32:04:16
one specifically, Louis Rossman,
who’s a computer repair

00:32:04:16 – 00:32:08:17
guy in in New York, has a huge YouTube
following, and he’s been like really

00:32:08:17 – 00:32:10:16
using his platform
to push right to repair.

00:32:10:16 – 00:32:14:10
Because, yeah, whether it’s a turbine
or an iPhone, it’s like, I own it.

00:32:14:15 – 00:32:16:04
Why can’t I fix it?

00:32:16:04 – 00:32:19:13
And you’re right
that they want to keep these this valuable

00:32:20:11 – 00:32:22:18
intellectual property locked up
so that you have to pay

00:32:22:18 – 00:32:25:23
technicians
and pay their their rates and all that.

00:32:25:23 – 00:32:27:06
So. Right?

00:32:27:06 – 00:32:29:21
That’s exactly all that foot,
how all that flushes out.

00:32:29:23 – 00:32:30:16
And it’s interesting.

00:32:30:16 – 00:32:31:01
The right Joe

00:32:31:01 – 00:32:34:05
Premiere movements are really interesting
to follow in the U.S., so let’s just.

00:32:34:08 – 00:32:36:14
To end of your questions.

00:32:36:14 – 00:32:40:03
Number one, we’re going to get right
into it, Rosemary, so with you

00:32:40:07 – 00:32:43:20
most surprising development
in wind energy or renewable energy

00:32:43:20 – 00:32:46:05
in general here in 2021?

00:32:47:03 – 00:32:47:11
Yeah.

00:32:47:11 – 00:32:51:19
OK, so mine is mostly a solar solar thing,
but also a bit wind.

00:32:51:22 – 00:32:55:03
So it’s about the South
Australian electricity grid,

00:32:55:03 – 00:32:59:23
which is it’s connected to the rest of the
the east side of Australia.

00:32:59:23 – 00:33:01:11
But they kind of, you know, it’s

00:33:01:11 – 00:33:05:07
got a couple of interconnectors,
so it’s a gigawatt scale grid.

00:33:05:15 – 00:33:09:11
And so I think it was actually in 2020
that for the very first time,

00:33:09:16 – 00:33:14:05
it became the first gigawatt scale
grid in the world to run purely off solar.

00:33:15:09 – 00:33:17:15
And so it just it’s done that a few times.

00:33:17:15 – 00:33:20:02
And then if you look, we’ve got to

00:33:20:02 – 00:33:23:11
you can look at this website called Open
Nym and see what

00:33:23:11 – 00:33:27:19
the current mix of electricity
of electricity generation sources is.

00:33:28:10 – 00:33:33:17
If you go on the South Australian grid
I saw last Sunday from 7:30 a.m.

00:33:33:17 – 00:33:37:16
to 7:30 p.m., it was
they were making more than enough wind

00:33:37:16 – 00:33:41:10
and solar power to power that grid,
so they were exporting some.

00:33:42:12 – 00:33:46:16
So even it’s got a huge proportion of
that is from rooftop solar.

00:33:46:18 – 00:33:51:22
So their record for rooftop
solar is 88.7% of South

00:33:51:22 – 00:33:55:11
Australian demand
was met by rooftop solar on its own,

00:33:55:18 – 00:34:00:00
and they’re expecting that sometime soon
that’s going to reach 100%.

00:34:00:16 – 00:34:02:23
The grid overall

00:34:03:13 – 00:34:07:14
was in the last twelve months, 62.3%
wind and solar.

00:34:07:15 – 00:34:09:17
So I mean,
we have a lot of grids in the world

00:34:09:17 – 00:34:11:17
that are close to 100% renewable.

00:34:11:17 – 00:34:15:21
But I always use a whole lot of hydro
and sometimes geothermal,

00:34:15:21 – 00:34:19:10
which are much easier to handle as

00:34:20:10 – 00:34:22:11
an electricity source because

00:34:22:11 – 00:34:25:16
they’re all hydro places controllable

00:34:26:17 – 00:34:28:20
and they’re, yeah, more constant.

00:34:28:21 – 00:34:33:20
So I think South Australian grid
is really changing what people think

00:34:33:20 – 00:34:39:00
is possible for full variable
for grid served by variable renewables.

00:34:39:16 – 00:34:42:06
And one thing that is going

00:34:42:06 – 00:34:46:00
to come next year,
probably in the same grid, is

00:34:46:11 – 00:34:49:21
currently
you need to have a couple of gas turbines

00:34:50:02 – 00:34:53:19
turning for the inertia
to keep the frequency of the grid correct,

00:34:54:05 – 00:34:57:02
and they are actually looking
at getting a few.

00:34:58:13 – 00:35:02:02
Right now, they’re that commissioning
for synchronous condensers,

00:35:02:02 – 00:35:05:04
which is a way to artificially well
without.

00:35:05:19 – 00:35:09:05
It’s a way to set the grid frequency
without having any kind

00:35:09:05 – 00:35:11:02
of thermal generation in the system.

00:35:11:02 – 00:35:15:12
So I think probably next year we’ll see
periods where the grid is operating

00:35:15:18 – 00:35:18:19
without any kind of fossil fuel in it
whatsoever.

00:35:18:22 – 00:35:23:14
And I think that’s really exciting
because it shows what you can do

00:35:23:14 – 00:35:26:19
with purely variables,
which I think a lot of people

00:35:26:19 – 00:35:30:20
would be surprised to to see
that you can already take it that far

00:35:31:05 – 00:35:34:17
62.3% wind and solar
over the last twelve months.

00:35:34:18 – 00:35:38:02
So, yeah, I’m really excited for
what’s happening there.

00:35:38:18 – 00:35:43:04
Alan, I think there have been
two big changes over the last year.

00:35:43:18 – 00:35:49:20
first is recycling that we went
from essentially burying all blades

00:35:50:19 – 00:35:51:01
in the

00:35:51:01 – 00:35:54:11
springtime of this year
to now massively pushing

00:35:54:11 – 00:35:58:17
recycling around the world,
and that happened in a matter of weeks.

00:35:58:20 – 00:36:03:08
I think I think the engineers behind
it were working for years before

00:36:03:13 – 00:36:05:21
it had to like,
get the go button and say, All right,

00:36:05:21 – 00:36:08:18
we’ve got to turn it on
because the PR and the press is bad.

00:3