Weather Guard Lightning Tech
Repurposing Retired Turbine Blades with REGEN Fiber
Wind turbine blades are getting a fresh new life thanks to REGEN Fiber’s innovative recycling process! Their mechanical process turns old blades into top-notch construction materials. REGEN’s can turn any blade into strong, clean fiber that passes all the tests. With wind farms desperate for sustainable solutions, this Iowa-based startup is gearing up to start recycling blades at scale. Their new facilities will give old blades a new purpose in buildings, roads and more as the wind industry upgrades to bigger and better turbines. Out with the old, in with the recycled – REGEN Fiber is spearheading a recycling revolution for the wind sector.
Check out REGEN Fiber
Contact Jeff Woods! jwoods@regenfiber.com
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Allen Hall: I’m Allen Hall and I’m here with my good friend Joel Saxum and on this special edition of the Uptime Wind Energy podcast, we have a really interesting topic. As of 2020, there were over 720,000 tons of blade material around the world that needed to be disposed of or recycled. With more wind farms being built every year, this number will continue to grow.
Landfilling the blades is problematic. Their large size makes transportation and burial difficult and expensive. So finding an effective way to recycle the blades is becoming an urgent priority for the wind industry. Companies and researchers are currently exploring how to design future turbine blades for easier recycling, but wind farm operators need better recycling and disposal options for existing old blades, some promising recycling methods are being developed. And we are speaking with 1 of the companies investing in new recycling methods, REGEN Fiber. Our guest today is Jeff Woods, director of business development at Travero and Travero is the parent company of REGEN Fiber. Jeff, Welcome to the podcast.
Jeff Woods: Thank you.
Allen Hall: Obviously, we know we have a lot of problems with old blades and in the United States. It does create a lot of publicity of pictures, of blades being buried and more recently in Iowa where you are and also down in Texas.
There’s been some disposal issues where blades have been sitting out for a long time and haven’t been recycled like they were supposed to be. And this is creating quite the clamor for wind turbine OEMs and operators.
Jeff Woods: It is. It’s a problem that I think when the industry got rolling
decades ago, there was a lot of passion about getting a renewable energy resource literally up in the air and running to produce electricity in the region here, particularly in the central Midwest, where we’ve got more wind tunnels and you can shake a stick at quite literally and, for a long period of time, there really wasn’t a lot of problems.
Yeah, a few blades were getting damaged through lightning or storms or hail or whatnot. But boy, in the last I’ll Five, seven, 10 years as some of these farms have approached, the 20 year mark in particular, which is generally accepted as a benchmark time for the lifespan for some of the original blades that are out there.
They’re coming down they’re stressed, they’ve been damaged. They need to be replaced. You’ve got the inflation reduction act now which is compelling even more ferns to absolutely amp up on steroids. What the future of wind energy production in the United States looks like. So you have a lot of companies that are talking about going in and repowering existing turbines, knocking existing turbines down entirely and replacing them with much bigger much more efficient units.
And that’s all great, but if you’re in this part of the world you’re quite aware of piles of blades stack up in certain parts of Texas certain parts of Iowa Nebraska, Wyoming, a lot of blades that have been landfilled. You said 720, 000 tons of material out there that needs to be processed.
There’s obviously over 70, 000 towers in the United States today and more coming. And I just don’t thank the industry or society in general today for a wind energy source that is other otherwise sustainable and circular wants to know that these are being buried in landfills whether it’s in whole or in part.
And right now the current incumbent recycling solution is to have them used as a co combustion product with coal in cement processing in kilns around the Midwest. And I think it’s certainly better than landfilling, but I think there’s people now questioning, is that really a sustainable use. Yeah it’s better than coal, but is that longterm what we need to do with blades? I think that’s compelled a lot of firms to look at what can we do with the wind blade when it comes down out of the sky. And we’re certainly one of those firms. And since we’re here in Iowa and ultimately our parent company is Alliant Energy, the third largest regulated wind producer in the United States.
So it’s something that corporately that we have very much on our mind down the road. For what’s. What are we going to do with these blades when they come down? And it’s an active discussion topic with anybody you talk to that’s in the industry today.
Allen Hall: And I think because you’re located in Iowa, the pressure is really on for your local area.
We were looking at the stats for 2022 and 100 percent of energy delivered by MidAmerican, which is your energy provider in Iowa, was 100 percent renewable. So it tells you how much renewable energy is being generated in Iowa, and it’s typically somewhere at least 60 percent of that is wind. That’s amazing amount of wind energy, and we have driven through Iowa, and I’m from Nebraska originally, so I’m in Iowa occasionally.
It’s remarkable how the landscape has changed in terms of wind energy that it has become a really valuable resource for Iowa. But it also has to have the end of life approach, what happens at end of life, because you’re, with the IRA bill, and we were just down in Texas, where a lot of repowering is happening, there are blades all over the place.
And you, I think it has really become an imperative for companies like you have, Regen you’re bringing new ideas to the forefront here and trying to do something different besides burning the blades and I want, can you walk through what your solution is and what your regens approaches to recycling turbine blades?
Jeff Woods: Yeah, sure. And I’ll start with how this all got it’s origins, if you will .We’re partners with a firm in Des Moines, Iowa folks that come from the fiber industry that also have a materials handling background. And, as they drove around Iowa and saw all these blades and started reading the newspapers about what are we going to do with these things other than put them in a landfill or burn them with their background they thought there, there might be means to do this in a different fashion.
And there are certainly people looking at other types of processes and having some success. Those generally involve heat and chemicals, thermal reactions, and all kinds of fancy terms. Our approach is, maybe a little more Iowa right? It’s a little more simple. I use the analogy of sometimes the best things start out with a couple of guys in the garage and that’s how this started.
And then really when we met them, how can we scale this up to a point where you’re dealing with an entire blade or an entire tower coming to you in a short period of time and reprocessing it, which gets into a whole litany of other issues that the industry faces. And I would contend will be other
issues down the road, which is how are you transporting these efficiently? Are we want to make sure we’re not transporting these blades halfway across the country. Cause that’s going to be the next carbon footprint reduction thing that the industry needs to be aware of is you can’t take blades from Eastern Oregon to west of the Mississippi river or close to it.
That, that is very expensive. And It’s it just uses a lot of carbon, right? So our solution is largely, it’s entirely really mechanical. It brings together the best of some of the industries that we see out here some stuff from grain processing, some stuff from traditional recycling.
And it’s a lot of rinse and repeat. And I can’t get into too many deals. We have a patent pending on it, but it’s really, our desire is to, you talk to the folks that own the wind farms, are there major contractors that are doing the work? And it’s interesting because the industry from my perspective has a lot of different people that like to do things different ways.
Some firms like to control each piece individually. I’ll work with the contractor on getting it to the ground and I’ll work with the person doing what I call the field work and I’ll work with you separately As the recycler, if you will. To other folks that are like, just take care of my problem.
I don’t want to deal with it. I just want a sustainable solution that I can tell that I’ve got a certificate of recycling or certificate of otherwise beneficial destruction, I’ll call it. We’re really willing to work with anybody in a different way, the different way they want. We’ve met a lot of people in this space at some of the events that we’ve been to.
I think there’s a lot of very qualified and capable people out there that can do everything from the field work to the shredding the niche gets into the recycling solutions a little bit and that’s where we
stand.
Allen Hall: I bet. I think we first met your company down in, at New Orleans at ACP.
Jeff Woods: We did.
Allen Hall: Yeah. There was nobody else that was talking recycling at that convention, which was very odd because it’s such an important part of the life cycle of renewable energy. It just seemed like we would run into more companies like yours and we didn’t. So that’s why we’re talking to you. But, when we had that first discussion, I was really trying to understand what you do what is the magic here?
And I think you broke it down really well at the time, which is you’re not bringing the blaze to your facility to get machined up. They’re coming to you in football size pieces.
Is that right?
Jeff Woods: Generally speaking, if you talk football and less that’s in the sweet spot, that’s in that four to six inch chunk range and down.
Cause when the folks in the field are doing the work there, the blades land there when they show up. And they’ve got two weeks to get it off the job site. Cut it into sections and those sections traditionally get transported someplace and then shred or a firm brings in a mobile shredder and does field shredding.
So what we’re really dealing with is the chunks we’ve ran things through our pilot facility. Some of the pieces were, three inches wide and two foot long down to fibers. And somewhere in between is really our sweet spot, but we can introduce those to what we’re building here in Cedar Rapids of Fairfax, Iowa, actually, our main line operation, which will be our biggest production facility.
We can feed that feedstock into the front end of the system and a few minutes later on the back end of the processing line outcomes, we have the ability to actually make different sized products. So if you think about what’s going into it, it’s the composites and the fibers. It’s the balsa wood.
It’s the foam, there’s some residual metals in there from lightning wire and other things. We have magnets that are in the system, right? And as we do our slough, it’s, we have the ability to separate out certain sizes at certain parts in the line. And then do some finishing, if you will, of the product at the end that gets it into different states.
We have the ability to turn it into certain sizes of fibers. We’ve tested with various people fibers that are what I’m going to call pencil like, that almost compete as a mini rebar, if you will and could actually be used in those types of applications. If you think about…
Road construction, highway construction some of it might be that type of product all the way down to the powders and any process that like ours where you do, you’ve naturally got what we refer to as fines, right? A percentage of material that is down, or if it gets a little off spec, it makes sense just to grind it into a powder.
And that has applications flowable fill sub bases for roads, things of that nature. We’re very pleased with all, any scale of the process that we’ve done so far we’ve gotten very similar results. And the testing on those various results has all been the same to meet, certain accreditations by labs that have to say, your product meets and performs at these certain industry accepted specifications for the ends used that we’re targeting.
But it’s pretty, it’s it’s a long process. We do a lot of different things to it in the middle of it. But so far, knock on wood without the use of heat and chemicals We’re able to get the end products from the blade into products that are desired by certain markets.
Joel Saxum: A couple of questions, and basically boiling back. One thing was, I like the idea of, it’s almost, your processes are almost agricultural so I like the concept of Occam’s razor, if you’ve ever heard of that, being basically like, a lot of times, the simplest solution is the answer. So instead of involving pyrolysis and heat and all the energy that takes or some complicated chemical formulas and then, all of the struggles that those can come with as far as, pollution or anything like that or, getting rid of them in certain ways.
You’ve boiled it down to something I like. I like the term very Iowa like. It’s very mechanical. We have some processes here. One of the, one of the questions then would be. The first one, and this is just one for my own interest. How many different products have you guys produced to date?
Different solutions, different kind of, like you said, roadbed, I’m sticking to that one because that’s what I said the other day, I said roadbed materials is great but yeah, so how many different solutions are
you guys putting out?
Jeff Woods: Yeah, maybe not five different solutions, but five different products that have applications in different things, if that makes sense.
So products that can be used as flowable fill. Perhaps with some additives, something of a fly ash replacement, it has certain pozzolanic capabilities and then we’ve had interest from both molding compound companies, and I think if you talk, frankly, if you talk to other people in the space that are in the business of recycling wind turbine blades, you’re going to hear some, but it’s not like we’re doing anything revolutionary in terms of end markets because other people are going after bolt molding and sheet molding compound companies.
And then just a lot of people that just want to know, can we put that in, can we use that and make it an additive and siding for houses, trims for houses, could it be used in other types of applications? I think the thing with us, you talked about some of the folks that have tried this early on and, maybe struggled is.
I think we’re a little less obsessed with trying to come up with an actual end product, as opposed to a product that people can use in their applications. Part of what we’re trying to do is stay in our lane and be a recycler that makes a reliable product with a good life cycle assessment score that can displace carbon in certain applications, like the concrete industry.
That’s a big differentiator between us is I’m not trying to turn it, return it to virgin fiber, if that makes sense.
Joel Saxum: And so that’s the question that we came up with, right? Was when we talked on the podcast the other day about this, the issues that are going on in the market right now, that if you’re reading the news about wind industry, you know what we’re talking about.
But it was Rosemary brought this up and it was very smart. Concept is. Okay, say we’re talking structural concrete. Now, structural concrete has to be pressure tested, mag tested, all these different tests to make sure that it gets to a certain strength. Now, and we all, we can all understand that as engineers and armchair engineers, wherever you are, you want to make sure that your product that you’re putting out is good.
Now, if it’s structural concrete, say in the base of wind, Wind Tower Foundations, it has to have certain PSI, certain strengths, certain flexibilities even. How do we make sure that the products that you guys are producing, because as we know, inside the blade, like you said earlier, foam, balsa wood, resins mats, all these different components, how do we make sure that when that gets ground up or gets put into certain things, that when if it was the product was to go to concrete, you don’t end up with Foam in the concrete or, how does the end product users know that the product that they’re getting from you is of high enough quality?
Will pass those standards where labs are testing it to make sure. How do you guys do
that?
Jeff Woods: So I’d say that really two answers to that. One is through our material separation capabilities where the foams and the balsas really get pulverized down into the soil stabilization type materials. And then through our process, we have a good means of getting what I’m going to just broadly refer to as good, clean fiber.
That I think you probably saw examples of it in New Orleans, Allen where we had bowls of the various hydroponics that we were there. And when people run their hands through the, we’ll soon have a video on our website where people can go in and see. And I’ve, I’m actually distributing some powders that are going into a cement truck in my hands.
And it’s amazing how clean it is. To that point, we have then tested those clean fibers and mixes thereof in accredited labs to meet certain ASTM standards and passed with really outstanding performance. Some of the quirks of our product are that it actually helps the absorption of other materials.
It’s good stuff. And then ultimately what what an end user, wants to know on the end use application at the wind industry. Is what are your processes around that? Are you going to be ISO certified? Are you going to have all, and ISO certification comes with, you have to be in production for a little while and have certain plans and all that, but certainly in our purview and our pre work is all about being ISO certified from a quality perspective and using good consistent feedstocks.
Which, this material is generally as we move forward, some of this stuff has sat around Iowa for a long period of time, but it stays, it’s shelf life is really good, albeit there’s a few trees growing out of some of it in certain locations that gotta be cleaned up at some point.
Joel Saxum: Some rattlesnake eggs, and maybe a rabbit or two.
Jeff Woods: They’ve made a Jeff Woods mascot, it’s a critter running around a blade pile in a place I won’t mention, but it’s a little furrier than I am, I know that. But yeah, it’s just… Doing things right and being open and transparent with your customers about what they want, our solutions are, and working with them together.
Joel Saxum: The commercial question I want to ask is, as this problem of recycling wind turbine blades has become more mainstream, more and more mainstream, you’re starting to see, because I’m always active on LinkedIn people pop up, company pop, company X, company Y, company Z, hey, we recycle blades, hey, we recycle blades, will you guys take Recycled blades from these others, say, we would almost call them subcontractors, right?
Because there’s people that’ll go out, someone will contract them to, to remove their blades and recycle them. They may not have their own recycling process, but they’re really good at getting the blades down, getting them cut up, figure out the logistics, and maybe getting them to you guys. Do you
guys do that?
Jeff Woods: Yeah, so we’re agnostic as to where the blade comes from. We’ve, I think to date, we’ve received blades from probably, and keep in mind, we’re not up and running yet we’re gonna have one facility operational around the end of the year, the main facility in Cedar Rapids here second quarter ish next year but in terms of where the blades are, we’ve got people calling us from coast to coast, quite literally It’s amazing to me, particularly since the Inflation Reduction Act came out, how many people are suddenly in the space of I grind blades.
I process blades. Sometimes it feels like anybody that’s ever ran a wood chipper thinks they’re in the blade recycling business. But you know what, that’s their space for them to figure out and their headaches. Whether it’s some of the major blade manufacturers, or some of the big engineering firms, or contractors that have been engaged to take down the blades, to mom and pops, if you will, that call us saying, I’ve got three blades coming from here.
Is this something that you would be interested in taking? We talk to everybody, we just to know what type of blade we’re dealing with for planning purposes more than anything.
Allen Hall: I want to ask a question that actually Rosemary asked during our podcast, which was, there’s a variety of different kinds of resin materials that are being used on blades and different manufacturers have different kind of approaches to things, so obviously the blades are slightly different.
Does that affect your end product at all of if they’re using a specific epoxy or polyurethane or whatever else is being used today, does that really matter in your process?
Jeff Woods: It has not. We have tested a RAM material from every blade manufacturer that I can think of all of whom have their own, McDonald’s secret sauce, so to speak, and how they do things.
And it just hasn’t mattered in terms of how it works and are running it through the actual operation. And nor has it mattered in terms of the testing results for the end product.
Allen Hall: That’s amazing. So your end customers then are they local to you for the product? There’s got to be a line of people at your doorstep ready to take the material because it does improve their existing products.
Especially for road bases and things like that, even concrete, right? It makes it stronger. Provides a lot of benefits. What is your in customer who are, who generally are they? Are they local? Are they national? Where are they coming from?
Jeff Woods: They’re all of the above. Keep in mind that a lot of the national firms that are in a concrete or asphalt industries, they might own 50 plants around the United States or 50 different companies around the United States or operations all over the United States of North America.
They are, I would say, literally could be anywhere. That said we do have a strong regional emphasis. I’m not going to exclude anybody and if they’re a thousand miles from here, they want all the material and the commercial terms are agreeable to all parties. That’s fine by Jeff. But certainly we want to A.
We’re an Iowa company trying to solve a problem that’s big in Iowa. So we do talk to a lot of Iowa companies about our solutions. And isn’t it a great message if, we could, we’re all doing this for each other and helping out ourselves. But there are certainly, if you look at the and I’m going to broadly label it as the concrete industry sometimes, and to an extent the aggregates industry and what they’re Scrutiny has been, as a contributor to global warming, they’re very interested in knowing that this solution is out there where, and these folks use massive amounts of reinforcing fibers in, whether it’s roadways, whether it’s, whether concrete or asphalt, whether it’s precast concrete, there’s just, to the pavers in your yard, right?
These folks use lots and lots of fiber and we’re just a fraction of it, right? We’re never going to displace virgin fiber under any scale, but I think that for a portion of their usage, we offer them a very compelling ESG message and carbon reduction footprint score. And most of those firms have significant goals to be reduced carbon or be carbon neutral by 2030.
So our timing is right by that. So strong interest from the industry. But consistent messaging also that it’s great you’ve got to meet performance scores to Joel’s points that are parallel with existing products cause they, they can’t be responsible for putting our material and I’m just going to a warehouse floor.
And then the owner calls up two years later, and guess what? I got cracks in the warehouse floor, right? The products got to perform and they compete every day against firms of all different types, shapes, and sizes. And some of them have more interest in compelling ESG messages than others.
We can’t be What I’m going to say we have to be cost neutral. The other third thing that, and this is going to sound a little bit funny but many of these companies are companies that have heard similar pitches before whether it’s from wind turbine blades, maybe at different levels. In other words, I want to give you chunks of this stuff, just throw it in a roadway, right?
Or I want to, I’ve given you fiber sources from other materials. That didn’t pan out. So there is a sense of, and there have been other people in the market that have tried it with other products. So we talked to people about putting our materials in fiber boards and things like that. There is a sense of this is all great.
We need to know you’re real, right? Because some of the things we talked about early on, Allen people are, that is very fresh and raw in certain people’s. Brains that sales pitches can be sales pitches. We need to know that you’re real, right? And legit.
Allen Hall: Does the state of Iowa play into this at all in terms of the state government, even local governments?
And are you seeing similar, anybody from a government standpoint say, Hey, REGEN this is really cool. What you’re doing in Iowa. Why don’t you come over to Wisconsin or where Joel is or come Oklahoma, Texas, obviously it seems like there’s a market for you and it would benefit the state that maybe the state regulators or even the legislature would be interested in bringing you down.
Jeff Woods: Yeah, the state of Iowa, certainly the agencies that we’ve talked to about it, and it’s really known that all of them are excited about our solution. Our outreach to other states, we’re really kicking in an earnest, through associations, so we’ll… We’ll start to get awareness out there, particularly as we look to take this to other locations.
So we’re not transporting those blades all over North America. I would say as much as the States, the wind industry is driving where they would like to see facilities, right? And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to pull up any heat map on where our wind turbines in North America and say, where would these facilities make sense?
So I’m not disclosing any trade secrets there. And I would say that some of the potential end users that we’ve talked to that have become familiar with us through events like a world of concrete, or we’re going to the concrete expo next week, a huge event asphalt events that they say, man, we’d like to have that close to us because a lot of these firms went to sourcing fibers from overseas and felt some of the disruption in the supply chain that came right after COVID and the volatility and a supply of material.
And cost associated with it. So it’s, there’s a little bit of that reshoring aspect in there. So yeah, a lot of positive momentum for it. We just need to finish the job.
Allen Hall: And I know our listeners are going to be interested in picking this up, especially a lot of operators, right? So the operators in the United States are all looking for, like you’ve mentioned, they’re looking for recycling solutions, because if they’re not
already in the middle of a repower. They are planning repowers for the next five to 10 years, right? That takes, things take time and they need to be putting people like you in place as part of their repowering solution, right there to get the blades recycled and to use it for something beneficial to society and not just necessarily burn them like is currently happening.
So this is a really interesting approach. And I, as soon as your patent gets issued, I want to read it. I want to understand what goes on. And maybe if I’m on Iowa, maybe you can give me a little sneak peek through the factory.
Jeff Woods: We’ll walk you through the factory tomorrow. You’ll just be blindfolded.
Allen Hall: It’d make it a little difficult.
We really appreciate having you on the podcast.
How do people reach out to you and connect with you at REGEN?
Jeff Woods: So they can they can call me (319) 786-3698. Old guys like me still answer the phone once in a while. Or they can email at jwoods @regenfiber.com.
Allen Hall: And the website is regenfiber. com.
Thanks for being on the podcast and we love to have you back. So I’m serious, when you guys open the doors to outside eyes, we’ll be interested in taking a tour.
Jeff Woods: You’re more than welcome.
Electric vehicles are undeniably becoming more affordable as technology advances. With many types of electric cars now within reach of the average Australian, the future of sustainable transportation is looking brighter than ever.
Today, we will look into Australia’s Electric Vehicle Future: A 2025 Outlook. So, what is the ultimate future of electric vehicles in Australia? And what does the future of electric vehicles in Australia look like?
As more Australians recognise the benefits of driving an electric vehicle, we anticipate a robust growth in this market.
This increasing demand will not only lead to more electric vehicles on the roads but also a visible expansion of charging stations nationwide, further solidifying the future of electric vehicles in Australia.
Electric vehicles are taking off in Australia, with a diverse range of models and styles on the market. These cars have a bright future, and new technology and innovation are making them more accessible and affordable.
With emissions targets looming and widespread concern about climate change, the popularity of electric vehicles is on the rise.
These vehicles offer a compelling solution to our environmental challenges. They are a more environmentally friendly and fuel-efficient alternative to gasoline or diesel vehicles.
It is time for electric vehicles to overtake traditional petrol and diesel engines as the preferred choice for Australian motorists.
What are Electric Vehicles? Battery And Charger Functionality
Electric vehicles (EVs) are vehicles that are powered by electricity rather than traditional fossil fuels like petrol or diesel. Instead of an internal combustion engine, EVs use an electric motor and a battery pack to store and use electricity for propulsion.
Electric vehicles (EVs) are the new future. They are sustainable and offer many benefits. But what are EVs? Electric Vehicles (EVs) are either partially or entirely run by electrical power.
Currently, most electric vehicles are electric cars. Four main types of electric vehicles are available in the market, each with unique features and benefits.
These include Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV), Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEV), Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV), and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (FCEV).
Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV)- BEVs are known as All-Electric Vehicles. A battery-powered electric drivetrain runs it entirely.
Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEV)— HEVs are also called series hybrids or parallel hybrids. These cars get their engine’s energy from fuel and their motor’s energy from batteries.
Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV)—PHEVs are also known as series hybrids. But these cars are more complicated than other EVs. You can choose between petrol and biodiesel for the vehicle to run on. It is also capable of powering itself with rechargeable battery packs.
Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (FCEV)- FCEVs are zero-emission vehicles that require “fuel cell technology” to run.
Apart from these cars, some companies are trying to use solar energy in their vehicles. These cars have built-in solar panels that run and charge the car with sunlight. These cars are very futuristic and considered supercars.
Most electric vehicles and their accessories work like any other electronic device. A standard charger and a battery are included in the car. You plug the charger into your car’s charging port and charge the battery.
You can charge your car at home. You can set up your vehicle at your workplace. Many employers in Australia are taking the initiative to install chargers for electric cars. And if you have solar power, you can charge your vehicle at a very low cost.
The National Electric Vehicle Strategy
The National Electric Vehicle Strategy is a comprehensive plan to increase the uptake of electric vehicles (EVs) in Australia. Promoting the use of EVS aims to reduce emissions and improve the well-being of Australians.
The Strategy sets out 3 key objectives:
- Increase the supply of affordable and accessible EVs
- Establish the resources, systems and infrastructure to enable rapid EV uptake
- Encourage increased EV demand.
Implementing initiatives under the objectives will help us deliver the following outcomes:
- Expand EV availability and choice
- Reduce road transport emissions
- Make it easy to charge EVs across Australia
- Increase local manufacturing and recycling
- Make EVs more affordable
- reduce the cost to Australians of running their vehicles.
We’re accelerating our nation’s transition to a future where Australians have greater choice and can buy from a wider range of cleaner and cheaper-to-run vehicles.
Australia’s Electric Vehicle Future: A 2025 Outlook
Electric vehicles (EVs) are becoming more popular in Australia as the country moves towards a cleaner and greener future.
We anticipate more Australians choosing EVs over petrol or diesel cars in 2025. The numerous benefits of EVs drive this shift.
They are better for the environment, as they don’t produce harmful exhaust fumes, and they help reduce air pollution and carbon emissions. Additionally, they are cost-effective in the long run, with lower fuel and maintenance costs.
Many car companies are now offering a wider range of electric models at more affordable prices, making it easier for people to make the switch.
The Australian government and state authorities are also supporting this change. They are building more charging stations across cities, highways, and even in remote areas.
Some states are offering financial incentives, such as rebates and lower registration fees, to encourage people to buy electric vehicles.
More commercial spaces are installing chargers, and public transport systems are slowly introducing electric buses and service vehicles.
As of 2025, Australia is taking stronger steps towards an electric vehicle future. While there are still challenges, like long charging times and high upfront costs, the growing number of EVs on the roads shows real progress.
With better technology, government support, and public awareness, EVs are set to become a regular part of everyday life in Australia.
Electric Vehicles at a Glance in Australia
Market Overview
In 2024, EVs accounted for 9.5% of new car sales in Australia, with approximately 110,000 units sold, reflecting a 150% increase from 2022.
Tesla led the market with 38,347 units sold, followed by BYD with 14,260 units and MG with 8,239 units. Notably, Tesla’s market share declined from over 50% in early 2023 to just 8.32% by April 2025.
Regional Disparities
Government Policies and Incentives
The Australian government has implemented several incentives to promote EV adoption, including fringe benefits tax (FBT) exemptions for EVs under the luxury car tax threshold of $91,387.
However, the removal of FBT concessions for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) in April 2025 has impacted their sales. Additionally, discussions around introducing a road usage charge for EVs are ongoing, with potential implementation in the next federal budget.
Looking ahead, federal efficiency standards set to take effect in 2025 are expected to boost EV sales further. Projections indicate that EVs could constitute 15%–19% of new car sales by 2026.
How Is Australia Assisting With Electric Vehicle Projects in 2025?
Driving the Nation Program
ARENA’s “Driving the Nation” program, launched in 2022 with a $500 million investment, aims to promote zero-emission vehicle technologies.
In November 2024, $100 million was allocated to focus areas, including the demonstration and deployment of heavy battery electric vehicles (BEVs), the development of charging solutions to support heavy BEV adoption, and innovations to accelerate BEV uptake.
Enhancing Charging Infrastructure
To address the need for accessible charging options, ARENA has committed $2.4 million to installing 250 public kerbside EV chargers across over 60 local government areas in Victoria, New South Wales, and South Australia.
These chargers are designed to be mounted on existing infrastructure like power poles, facilitating convenient urban charging solutions.
Advancing Bidirectional Charging
ARENA is also exploring bidirectional charging technologies, which allow EVs to supply power back to the grid.
The National Roadmap for Bidirectional EV Charging outlines strategies for implementing this technology, which aims to enhance grid stability and provide additional value to EV owners.
Electrifying Commercial Fleets
Several projects are underway to electrify commercial and municipal fleets. For instance, ARENA is providing up to $9 million for deploying 28 battery electric trucks and the necessary infrastructure across Australia.
Additionally, $12.8 million is allocated to support the electrification of 112 zero-emission delivery trucks.
Supporting Local Government Initiatives
ARENA is funding the Local Council BEV Integration Project, which aims to deploy 65 light and 7 heavy battery electric vehicles and charging infrastructure across three local councils in Victoria.
This initiative demonstrates how local governments can collaborate to reduce transport emissions and benefit their communities.
Through these comprehensive efforts, ARENA is playing a pivotal role in shaping Australia’s electric vehicle future by supporting infrastructure development, technological innovation, and fleet electrification.
Contact Cyanergy for more information like this. Talk to an expert for any assistance.
Your Solution Is Just a Click Away
The post Australia’s Electric Vehicle Future: A 2025 Outlook appeared first on Cyanergy.
https://cyanergy.com.au/blog/ultimate-future-of-electric-vehicles-in-australia/
US Offshore Wind Struggles, Lawsuit on Osage Land Continues
Legal battles in Oklahoma continue between the Osage Nation and Enel. Equinor faces offshore wind project hurdles amidst U.S. offshore wind regulatory issues. Plus a rebranding announcement from Deutsche Windtechnik to DWT and a new study painting wind blades red to prevent bird strikes.
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!
You are listening to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast, brought to you by build turbines.com. Learn, train, and be a part of the Clean Energy Revolution. Visit build turbines.com today. Now here’s your hosts, Allen Hall, Joel Saxum, Phil Totaro, and Rosemary Barnes.
Allen Hall: There’s more news out of Oklahoma. The state of Oklahoma has.
Entered the legal ballot between the wind developer in EL and the Osage nation. It, we all recall on the podcast probably a year ago where the Osage Nation had won a lawsuit with the help of the federal government to take down a big wind farm in north central Oklahoma. The state of Oklahoma has filed an amicus brief opposing the immediate removal of the 84 turbines in Osage County.
Now, this is a big deal [00:01:00] because pretty much the last I saw, which is a while ago, the order was that they needed to take down all the turbines and reclaim the land, basically put it back to where it was before the turbines were placed in it. Now the state of Oklahoma is stepping into the mix and they’re citing a couple of things.
They’re saying that the state of Oklahoma has an interest in property laws and protecting tax revenue. However, Osage doesn’t fit into Oklahoma laws. It’s not their territory. And meanwhile, the Osage tribe is saying, Hey, this is over and we have mineral rights, and these turbines need to come down.
So this is a kind of a weird spot because Anelle’s in the middle of this, now that the state’s gotten involved against the federal government, is there a missing link here? Is, this is certain more to this story because it does seem like some wheels are turning at the moment. I think,
Joel Saxum: Phil Allen.[00:02:00]
You guys are very smart, right? But I think we need someone smarter than us to decode this whole thing as far as like maybe a lawyer that can get in there, because Alan, you hit it on the head, Osage tribe and Osage tribe lands do not actually fall under Oklahoma law. They have their own sets of laws, so you have a federal ruling saying that something must happen within, of course, the outlines of the state of Oklahoma, but within the greater outlines of the United States.
But now the state wants to be able to go against the federal ruling to have their own rights recounted for while this, the Oage tribe is saying no, like we’ve already passed and I think the total bill that NL is gonna was supposed to get stamped, it was like $300 million, which is crazy ’cause it doesn’t cost $300 million to remediate 84 turbines.
However. This isn’t necessarily a wind turbine take down exercise. This is a mining reclamation exercise after you take the wind turbines down. That’s why it costs so much. [00:03:00] So there’s a lot of money on the table for nl and now you have the Oklahoma Solicitor General Jerry Gary Gaskins stepping in and saying Hey, we’re also getting some kind of tax revenues to the state and things like that from the wind farm.
But I wouldn’t think that would go to the state in this case. I would think it would go to the Osage tribe. So I don’t understand the state’s. The state’s position in this.
Phil Totaro: But Phil, do you have any insights on that? Unfortunately, I do not. But what’s interesting about it is that you had, the federal government stepped into this whole thing because they.
Felt like the tribe wasn’t being adequately represented basically, or if they were representing themselves or they had, attorneys representing them. The federal government stepped in because of the nature of the case and how the high profile would’ve been to, to say that yes, the tribe actually has these these mineral rights on what is effectively there.
They’re a chunk [00:04:00] of the United States as you’re saying, it’s, they’re physically located within the confines of Oklahoma, but they are their own little thing, so I. Yeah I, unfortunately I don’t, and you’re right, we probably need somebody smarter than any of us to figure out what is really going on with this other than obviously the state.
Whatever money the state gets from any kind of tax revenue, they don’t want to ever see it go away. So it can be a nickel and they’ll still chase after you for it.
Joel Saxum: But here’s the other thing and Alan, I wanna get your 2 cents on what my thought is here. This is my theory, my working theory. NL has a removal order on hold pending their appeals to the federal court.
I think that as soon as 10 years and one day from commissioning date comes up, this whole thing’s gonna get dropped. And they’re gonna, they’re gonna take this wind farm down.
Allen Hall: That’s what I was wondering. Is it a repowering play that once they get to the end of the PPA life or the PTC life. Does this thing not matter [00:05:00] anymore and they’re just trying to delay it and maybe the state of Oklahoma is helping anelle with that.
It is odd. When did this farm go in, Joel? It went in 20 16,
Joel Saxum: 17. It started in 2013, but it wasn’t. Commissioning until 2015. But that was the initial, that was the initial thing. So PTC does a start until commission day. So that’s, it’s it’s this year, like it’s 10 years is up this year sometime.
So what is the play here? It’s push off until PTC revenues are pulled. And then once PTC revenues are pulled, dcom, you know what I, Joel, I like that theory. I’m gonna
Phil Totaro: go with that.
Joel Saxum: I think that’s what it is. Because they’re not gonna let ’em repower it. I can guarantee you that’s not gonna happen.
Phil Totaro: I think it’s, it makes sense to me that they would just be trying to stretch it out because what else is the play here?
Because if, ’cause again, if the state’s taking some kind of tax revenue, it’s probably tax off the sale of the power, which probably goes to the utility, which has nothing to do with the Osage nation, which make would make even more sense. And then. Because of the production tax credit, [00:06:00] they get to take extra tax revenue off the power sales.
So that’s probably a reason why the state would wanna step in and try to, stretch this thing out until the end of that PTC period. I gotta tell you, this is the, this is armchair
Joel Saxum: math and I’m saying PTC credits are like 26 bucks. A megawatt hour, 26 bucks, a megawatt hour, 84 turbines at 1.79 megawatts, which is what these are.
Is 150.4 megawatts, I’m gonna give them a 40% capacity factor, which is being a little bit generous. That equates to $1.126 million per month in PTC credits. So you extend this thing for six months, that’s 7 million, seven and a half million dollars in L’S pocket. If they can stretch this thing for seven months just of PTC credits, it’ll help pay for the decommissioning.
Allen Hall: Because that’s where it’s headed. Yeah. And the federal court system is not [00:07:00] something to play around with, so you gotta tread lightly here because if the federal court feels like this is just being a delay tactic to increase revenue, that will come with penalties, typically, that $7 million will go right back.
You go right into the Osage nations. Yeah. Yeah. It’s interesting developing. Gotta keep track of it now because it’s moved into a really unique phase beyond what I thought was possible. I didn’t think the state of Oklahoma’s gonna wade into this, but here we are Deutsche Wind Technique, which if you don’t know Deutche wind technique, where have you been?
They have announced a strategic rebranding. To DWT, which is what everybody calls Deutsche Wind Technique in the states. It’s DWT. We never used Deutsche Wind Technique and it’s going to take effect in what, five different places? United States, Poland, which is odd, but, okay. France, I get United Kingdom obvious in Taiwan.[00:08:00]
And the company employs about 2,400 people at the minute, and they service about 8,000 wind turbines across 10 countries. So this is trying to address the whole pronunciation, spelling of Deutsche Wind. And, but at least in this states, because our spelling’s atrocious, let’s just admit it. But they’re gonna keep the dornell wind technique the same and not changing it in Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Belgium.
Which again makes sense. That’s why Poland is in that weird offset one. Yeah.
Joel Saxum: But why just do it, just change it to DWT across the board? Maybe. Yeah. You can leave Deutsche Wind Technique in their summer, but Brandon has DWT across the board. It’ll be
Allen Hall: easier. Oh, you think so? The swag is gonna be great.
The DWT swag is perfect, right? The three letter acronym that fits right on a hat. Come on,
Joel Saxum: by the way. DWT if you guys are looking to send swag anywhere, we can give you all of our addresses. We will take it and wear it on the shelf. I got no problem with that, right? I think this is [00:09:00] great, right? Deutsche Wind Technique, technique.
Technique, doche, like wherever you go, right? You hear someone say it differently. Yeah, I think it’s gonna be it’s good for the brand. Even the, I hope they change their emails. Please, if someone’s listening, change your email aliases to just DDWT instead of having to type that off. But yeah, good move.
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Visit og ping.com and take control of your turbine’s health today. Sted today as we record announced the discontinuation of its 2,400 megawatt horn C four offshore wind farm in the uk. And despite securing the CFD last September, the [00:10:00] project has fallen victim to escalating prices and financial pressure.
It raises some interesting and important questions about the future of offshore wind in the UK because there’s just a lot of CFDs that are happening there, and they’re, the UK is really dependent upon the projects going to completion. Let’s talk about from the OR standpoint for a minute. So this is gonna be a financial impact.
It’s gonna hit them for about $500 million in Q2 of this year because of write downs and. All the equipment that was being built for this project, and there was another, about a hundred million US dollars on capitalized construction. That’s gonna be in an impairment. Now I think stead is totally fine with that because at the same time they announced the horn C four discontinuation and the company released its Q1 financial results.
So it’s the good with the not so good. But, stead is doing pretty well, right? So the EBITDA went up about 18% versus [00:11:00] Q1 in 2024. Now, there’s a lot of companies that would dream to have those kind of numbers, and obviously, last year was not a great year because of some of the right downs that they had to go take.
But there’s, they’re going to, it’s what they’re at 10 gigawatts of installed offshore wind capacity at the moment. That’s crazy. That’s an amazing amount. And the total installed capacity for renewables is at 18 and a half gigawatts. That’s amazing. So although some of these projects don’t have the financial numbers that Osted would wish to continue with them, it does seem like Ted itself is doing fairly well.
If you look at some of the details on the CFDs in the uk. And Phil, correct me if I’m wrong here, it does look like the price is going to jump quite substantially. It was in the 65 pounds per megawatt hour that’s gonna be heading [00:12:00] up to north of 90 pounds per megawatt hour and some of the CFDs. So it makes sense if Ted can just hold and they still have rights to the plot.
Maybe they can restructure the CFD to get into the 95, maybe a hundred. Maybe even more because it’s based on like 2015 numbers, right? The, all these are based on a years ago now you’re really talking about maybe 120 pounds per megawatt hour, which is an incredible. Number to get as a producer of power offshore?
Phil Totaro: Yes. At the moment, those are, that’s how the CFD system is structured. They’re looking at making some changes. We’re probably not gonna have time to go into what all the details of ’em are, but effectively they’re going into a scenario where they’re gonna have sealed bids but. The, which they already do today.
But the Energy Secretary in the UK is actually gonna be able to look at sealed bids anonymously. So what the [00:13:00] independent power producers in the uk of which ORs, Ted’s one of ’em, what they all want is to be able to have. A hundred percent of their power generation guaranteed and basically underwritten by this CFD structure.
All of these little things that at a government will try to put in place to protect consumers are things that can also create a significant amount of risk and uncertainty for businesses and the independent power producers in particular. So it’s just a balancing act that, that everybody has to go through.
And for a company like Sted to pull the. Plug on active development for the ho C phase four at this point. It would seem to make a lot of sense that they think they can get a better deal later. All of these factors are gonna come together to suggest a positive outcome for a company like Sted with with this kind of a decision.
Joel Saxum: Yeah, that’s what I’m saying is 2.4 gigawatts is a lot. What does that do to, and I would guess I was assuming that was, they were Siemens turbines, but [00:14:00] what does that do to the, that’s a hateful bottom line hit for any OEM Duple four gigawatts, even at your big turbines.
That’s 175 turbines ish, something like that.
Phil Totaro: Yes. 2.4 gigawatts is a significant chunk bigger, so if it is actually vestus but it’s a big chunk for either Siemens or Vestus to have to put on hold. Because keep in mind, again, when. Somebody signs a turbine supply contract, they’ll give an OE emm a deposit of maybe five to 10% of the total contract value.
You don’t get paid if you’re the OE em, you don’t get paid until commissioning. The fact that commissioning can be delayed is obviously quite problematic to anybody’s bottom line. Absolutely. Joel you’re spot on.
Allen Hall: My understanding was for horn C four, there are termination fees involved.
And that my read on it was that, that there were going to be payments made to close out the projects for now, which I [00:15:00] as immediately assume was Siemens. Mea could be wrong, but it’ll show up in the quarterly reports here in the next couple of months. Phil? You’ll see it.
Phil Totaro: Yeah.
Allen Hall: Okay. So we’ll know who the turbine provider was and 2.4 gigawatts worth of turbines.
You’ll, that’s a bump in somebody’s pocketbook.
Joel Saxum: What do we always say? 10 million. A megawatt. We know that it’s a little bit higher for offshore 1.1. So you’re talking two and a half billion to 3 billion. $3 billion.
Phil Totaro: Oh, that’s, yeah, it’s two. 2 million a megawatt for offshore, Joel.
Joel Saxum: Okay, so fi 5 billion.
Yeah, so $5 billion, 10% is 500 million, which it says here, the decision will impact Q2 2025 earnings by up to 506 million, including write downs of offshore transmission assets and contract cancellation fees. So it’s in
Allen Hall: there somewhere. Hard to hide that in the quarterly report.
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Allen Hall: EOR has announced it may pursue legal actions against the Trump administration over the order to halt work at its empire win one project off the coast of New York. The company described the directive as quote unquote unlawful and quote unquote.
Unprecedented as developers across the us continue to raise to get their projects done. Now this is a unique situation, of course, just because it has focused attention on one WIN site while others are quickly trying to get to completion. Vineyard Wind one, coastal Virginia offshore wind, or continuing on and.
Ecuador. It just isn’t a weird spot and a lawsuit doesn’t really make sense [00:17:00] here. Everybody. I say don’t think that’s the right approach. There is existing regulatory ways to appeal this. They’re gonna have to go through that process first and can’t necessarily bypass it. You could do things in parallel in terms of a lawsuit, but you’re gonna have to play by the federal rules at the moment, and that’ll be an appeals process through multiple.
Governmental agencies, I think, but nothing’s gonna happen, Phil, this summer, right? I think Ecuador’s in trouble in terms of deployment. They will not be able to do any work when the weather is good, which is right now. Try to get the production tax credits and all that up and running, it’s just gonna delay it no
Phil Totaro: matter what.
Yeah. And this is what kind of confounds me about this is the, look at the end of the day, this is ultimately a power play kind of a thing. And it comes down to, alright, if you’re gonna still respect the US Federal government and comply with orders that they give you, [00:18:00] then.
They took the right decision to stop construction. However, it seems like they took that decision a little too hastily without talking to their lawyers first, because why would you stop construction and then talk to your lawyers and then go with the lawsuit saying, we don’t think this was a fair and lawful decision to, to order us to stop.
You what they should have done if you ask me. Is just keep building because as you both just said, you’ve got a scenario where you’ve got. Climatic conditions in the summer that are gonna allow for construction to continue and flourish. And, why not just take advantage of this and then if there’s a fine to be paid for defying government order, just pay it later.
And because you’re gonna be. Screwed if you do, or it’s screwed if you don’t. So if it’s me, I’m just gonna keep building and like Charlton Heston used to say they can [00:19:00] come take my wind farm outta my cold dead hand. I’m paraphrasing him, so it’s like, what? Like what?
What’s the alternative now? ’cause now like Alan, you’re saying they’re stuck in court. Like how does that do anything good for anybody? It’s wasting time in resources of eor. It’s wasting time in resources of the government when there’s gonna be, whether it’s a legal appeal or a regulatory appeal, there’s gonna be an appeal anyway and.
I it just seems like EOR just absolutely did not respond the right way to this at all. If you ask me,
Joel Saxum: Einor is a global company, of course, but they’re a Norwegian company and they’re playing in an American realm where the culture change. If you ask Norwegians, they listen to no matter what the authorities say.
They don’t fight back. You don’t see a whole lot of protests going on in Stockholm, or, sorry, not Stockholm. That’s Sweden, my bad. Oslo. Yeah. Greta Gre. Greta Thunberg. Sorry. Yeah. So nor the Norwegians, it’s a cultural thing. They [00:20:00] get an order. They just they’re gonna, they’re usually gonna.
Comply with it. Also congratulations and I think the first Charlton Heston reference on the podcast over five years. Maybe the last hopefully.
Phil Totaro: But here’s the here’s the thing though, that, that may be the case, Joel, but what I actually think it was about is I. Obviously Ecuador also does a lot of oil and gas business, globally and in the US that’s their bread and butter.
That’s what they don’t really wanna jeopardize. This whole foray into offshore wind is all very well and good and it might give them some revenue, but it’s you know what, like 3% of their total revenue for the entire, EOR Corporation is like wind or renewables related in general versus.
The 97 or whatever percent it is. I’m just making those numbers up. But it’s probably in that kind of a ballpark. It, it might also be because it’s like, it’s a project in New York, near where, obviously Trump’s got some interest vested interests. It’s a foreign company.
As opposed to, a US based entity. There’s [00:21:00] probably, any number of reasons that are behind why this is really happening. But, again, at the end of the day, how a company chooses to respond to it is going to have a massive financial impact on them one, one way or another.
Joel Saxum: Here’s your last reason. EOR is the top five producer in the Gulf of Mexico. 120,000 barrels a day. They’re putting out, they don’t wanna jeopardize that, so they’re not gonna piss anybody off at the federal level to jeopardize 120,000 barrels a day and a hundred leases in the Gulf.
Allen Hall: The part that’s confusing is to me, is that there’s a long track record of questions about the environmental impact studies that were done, and that’s all public record.
You, you can see that on the bone site. You can walk through the. Transactions that happened and the reports that were issued between Noah and Boem. And I think this comes down to six turbines. I really do, and maybe I’m wrong, but I did a little bit of research into it and it looks like that’s the holdup is there’s six [00:22:00] turbines on the western edge of empire in one that are in a sensitive area on the seabed and.
If those six turbines had been moved or could be readjusted somewhere else, this may go away. However, the really no place to put those six turbines and nyserda needs all the power and they’re gonna need those six turbines to meet the offtake. So Ecuador’s kind of stuck on that level, but you would think that the attorneys and the people reviewing that paperwork over the last three fourish years would’ve flagged it.
Hey, we’re gonna be at risk here. We need to be prepared for it. Something bad to happen.
Joel Saxum: Alan, are those, is that the kind of situation though, where it’s it’s not just a change order to change it, like you have to resubmit everything once you change the plan?
Allen Hall: Obviously they would, right?
But there’s no place to put those six turbines. If you look at where they are at right now and where the prevail league winds are the farm is set up to pick up as much wind as they can, and moving those six turbines in the front of the farm in the clean air [00:23:00] are a problem.
Joel Saxum: So they need a couple, couple more megawatts across the whole wind farm.
On each turbine.
Phil Totaro: It’s basically there’s, if you moved the turbines, there’s shipping lanes that you’re running into and fishing that would be more impacted versus where the turbines were eventually, as they are right now they’ve been cited, anytime you do a project development, whether it’s offshore, onshore, solar, wind, batteries, I don’t care.
You’re always on the lookout for some little, a critter running around that, that you don’t want to step on their environment and or, you’re looking at the fishermen offshore. You don’t want to impede their ability to be able to go and fish and at the end of the day, everything, what I’m getting at is everything’s compromises.
You can’t violate, you can’t violate the law. They knew all this and there were compromises made. But the issue, the permit was issued,
Allen Hall: right? But the federal law requires Noah and to do certain things, and it requires BM to do other things. But the B, [00:24:00] if you look at the list of things that BM was responsible for is the environment.
Phil Totaro: But nobody’s other than Trump’s administration, nobody’s saying that they didn’t do their job. That’s the whole point. They’re using that as a nitpicky little excuse to go back and open up a can of worms that was already decided upon.
Allen Hall: That’s not what the federal record shows, Phil.
The federal record is very clear about Noah being super concerned about and providing a list of 37 items that needed to be addressed before Boeing should be afforded, and Bowen addressed. Almost
Phil Totaro: none of them. Everybody’s else is being reviewed. Nobody’s gotten a letter saying Stop construction, but everybody else is having their permits re-reviewed.
And my point is, there’s probably legitimate, according to what you’re suggesting, there’s legitimate reasons to go stop every single one of these projects. That’s exactly what the government’s trying to do.
Allen Hall: I’ve looked at other ones. They see. If you look at vineyard wind, you could look at the time that they went back and did the environmental review.
It took ’em a long time to do that. Now, from what I can tell mean vineyard’s an easy one, right? Vineyard’s an easy target [00:25:00] today because of all the problems they had with the turbines themselves. However, looking on the environmental side that they went through a lot of effort to clear the deck of all the questions and did all the work.
Empire did also. But Noah had concerns about a particular part of that plot. In fact they, the b reduced the size of the area by 1700 acres to remove some of the environmentally sensitive area, which they thought was going to be enough. It isn’t like Boem sat there and said, oh, Noah, we don’t care.
That’s not what happened. Bowen made an adjustment, but Noah persisted as they are obligated to do. By federal law.
Phil Totaro: So they wrote the letter. But the point is that you could do that with every pro. You can do that with any project. It might not be to the same degree. I get that. But you could nitpick any single project at every single project.
Allen Hall: When they write down the code of federal regulations that are potentially in [00:26:00] violation of that is not just willy-nilly that is. You
Phil Totaro: pointing out where there may be deficiencies and maybe every other project doesn’t have 37 things, they’ve only got 15. But again, a decision was taken to say that we understand that those 37 things or those 15 things, or those three things are that one thing is important, but we’re going to say, you know what?
We’re making an exception and we’re issuing the permit regardless of what those concerns are. A decision was taken and it was, when you issue a permit, there’s certainty, and when you take that certainty away, it drives away money, it drives away investment
Allen Hall: as wind energy professionals Staying informed is crucial, and let’s face it difficult.
That’s why the Uptime podcast recommends PES Wind Magazine. PES Wind offers a diverse range of in-depth articles and expert insights that dive into the most pressing issues facing our energy future. Whether you’re an industry veteran or new to [00:27:00] wind, PES Wind has the high quality content you need. Don’t miss out.
Visit PES wind.com today. Finally, somebody at Vestus is taking the lead about painting these turban blades a different color. As much as we’ve seen about painting a turban blade black. Meyer always says, did anybody talk to a structural person? Because painting a blade black is not good for the structure ’cause it makes it hot, which is the right approach.
But Vestus is partnering with ACO vent to test blades that are painted red, which I evidently Vestus looked at this and said, okay, we can live with red in terms of the temperature rise and the effects on the blade performance. This makes a lot of sense. Now. They are gonna be putting it on just a couple of blades at the Hollands Coast West Project and just to test it out to see if it actually works, because Rosemary birds can see color.
[00:28:00] So black and white may make sense, but painting it a less intensive color. It could have the same effect, right?
Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. It could. And it is a little bit less dark than black, so probably will heat up less. Yeah. ’cause that’s the issue is that if you have one blade, a different color, that it’s, the blades will heat up differently and the stiffness of the blade is related to the temperature.
So if they’re all different temperatures, then they’re gonna be different stiffnesses, and then you’re gonna get. Wobbling happening in your rotor as the the different blades pass yeah. Makes sense. I’m not sure how they arrived at this particular configuration. And have you seen, is it just, is it still one hole blade red or is it every tip red?
Joel Saxum: I think it’s one whole blade, one blade red, the rest of ’em, the other two, white or gray, whatever you call it.
Rosemary Barnes: I don’t even know if anybody’s even tested. All three blades the same color.
Joel Saxum: I’ve seen ’em all red
Rosemary Barnes: for birding purposes.
Joel Saxum: Yeah. I wanna dispel a rumor or [00:29:00] confirm, or not a rumor, sorry, a dispel a wives tale or confirm a wives tale.
This is a question for you, Alan Red, and I’m talking about red and black. So black of course gonna get hot change, temperature, whatever. But when I talk to blade technicians and you’re talking about marking things out on a blade, and if you ever looked at a blade, you see everything in red and blue pen.
They don’t use black pens because the thought process is black pens contain carbon and that’s attractive to lightning. Is that true?
Allen Hall: Pencils? Yes. Ink, pens, no. Like sharpies. Yeah.
Rosemary Barnes: But if we wanna relate this back to the bird thing yeah. And I don’t know if we gave any background, but it’s because there was some trials done in, it was Norway, I think recently.
Not recently. Years ago. I think the initial study was done by a. A bird scientist or some kind of ecologist about whether if you paint one blade on each road of black, then that trial found that in that area that the number of bird collisions was reduced. It was a small trial. It was in only one area.
I [00:30:00] talked to the researcher who did that project, and he was really careful to say that. This is not something that you can just roll out everywhere and assume it will work everywhere. And in fact, there’s a high chance that in some locations it would actually cause harm to the bird population in question.
He did say it’s not it’s not a silver bullet kind of thing. And that’s what, like with the reporting of it, similar to the issue with black markers and lightning, it’s just not that hard. It’s, it, or the general vibe of the reporting was, it’s not so hard, let’s just do it. Like what’s the problem?
And then, what I said when we talked about that story before was, actually there are some issues for why you wouldn’t do that. In terms of, some of the like, logistics of matching sets of blades coming outta the factory. So you’d have to paint them later. And then black gets hot and the stiffness changes.
So now we’ve arrived at a trial of, I think it’s seven turbines vests. Turbines are gonna have one red blade each. And I believe that color was chosen because they didn’t think that the [00:31:00] temperature difference would be so bad between the. Between the blades that you would see a structural different leading to instabilities.
So we’ll see how it goes.
Joel Saxum: What if we painted one like a, like the Twilight Zone thing?
That’s gonna do it for this week’s Uptime Wind Energy podcast. And thanks for listening. Please give us a five star rating on your podcast platform and subscribe in the show notes below to Uptime Tech News, or our weekly newsletter, which is on Substack.
And I just published an article about Empire Wind One, so you gotta go there and check it out, and we’ll see you here next week on the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.
https://weatherguardwind.com/offshore-wind-lawsuit-osage-land/
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Press Releases
ACORE Statement on House Ways and Means’ Proposed Reconciliation Bill
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The below is a statement from Ray Long, President and CEO of the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) on the reconciliation bill text released by the House Ways and Means Committee:
“Energy dominance means a secure, affordable, reliable energy supply that serves as the basis for our national security, technological leadership, and economic prosperity. Achieving this is a bipartisan goal. The House Ways and Means Committee bill, if passed, would hamper these goals. The U.S. needs to build the equivalent of adding 12 New York Cities of new power by 2030 to remain competitive with China in the global AI race. Thanks to American innovation and a diverse mix of energy technologies, we’re on track to meet the coming demand.”
“ACORE’s latest report, “Tax Stability for Energy Dominance,” shows that current tax policies have created a stable market environment that unleashed $115 billion in new clean energy generation, supported over 3.5 million jobs, and powered a record 170 million homes in 2024. Maintaining certainty around the existing tax policies will lower energy costs, quickly scale the build out of reliable electricity, and enable of the use of all technologies so we aren’t vulnerable to relying on any one form of generation or its underlying fuel source.”
“Maintaining the policy structure that has enabled this growth in investment, manufacturing, jobs, and consumer savings will ensure U.S. dominance over our competitors. We are committed to working with Congress and the Trump administration to deliver affordable, reliable, and abundant power to American households and businesses. Only by partnering with the entire energy industry will policymakers drive economic growth, create jobs, and secure our nation’s energy future.”
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ABOUT ACORE
For over 20 years, the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) has been the nation’s leading voice on the issues most essential to clean energy expansion. ACORE unites finance, policy, and technology to accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy. For more information, please visit http://www.acore.org.
The post ACORE Statement on House Ways and Means’ Proposed Reconciliation Bill appeared first on ACORE.
https://acore.org/news/acore-statement-on-house-ways-and-means-proposed-reconciliation-bill/
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