Trump Halts Offshore Wind Projects, DJI Drone Ban Hits Industry
Allen, Joel, and Rosemary break down the Trump administration’s sudden halt of five major offshore wind projects, including Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind and parts of Vineyard Wind, over national security claims the hosts find questionable. They also cover the FCC’s ban on new DJI drone imports and what operators should do now, plus Fraunhofer’s latest wind research featured in PES Wind Magazine.
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The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast brought to you by Strike Tape, protecting thousands of wind turbines from lightning damage worldwide. Visit strike tape.com. And now your hosts, Alan Hall, Rosemary Barnes, Joel Saxon, and Yolanda Padron. Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy
Allen Hall: Podcast. I’m your host, Alan Hall, and I’m here with.
Rosemary Barnes in Australia and Joel Saxon is down in Austin, Texas. Yolanda Padron is on holiday, and well, there’s been a lot happening in the past 24 hours as we’re recording this today. If you thought the battle over offshore wind was over based on some recent court cases, well think again. The Trump administration just dropped the hammer on five major offshore wind projects.
Exciting. National security concerns. The Secretary of the Interior, Doug Bergham announced. The immediate pause affecting projects from Ted Eor, CIP and Dominion Energy. So Coastal [00:01:00] Virginia, offshore wind down in Virginia, right? Which is the one we thought was never gonna be touched. Uh, the Department of War claims classified reports show these giant turbines create radar interference that could blind America’s defenses.
Half of vineyard winds, turbines are already up and running, producing power, by the way. Uh, and. I guess they, it sounds like from what I can see in more recent news articles that they turn the power off. They just shut the turbines off even though those turbines are fully functioning and delivering power to shore.
Uh, so now the question is what happens? Where does this go? And I know Osted is royally upset about it, and Eor obviously along with them, why not? But the whole Denmark us, uh, relationship is going nuclear right now.
Joel Saxum: I think here’s a, here’s a technical thing that a lot of people might not know. If you’re in the wind industry in the United States, you may know this.
There’s a a few sites in the northern corner of Colorado that are right next to Nebraska, [00:02:00] and that is where there is a strategic military installations of subsurface, basically rocket launches and. And in that entire area, there is heavy radar presence to be able to make sure that we’re watching over these things and there are turbines hundreds of meters away from these launch sites at like, I’ve driven past them.
Right? So that is a te to me, the, the radar argument is a technical mute point. Um, Alan, you and I have been kind of back and forth in Slack. Uh, you and I and the team here, Rosemary’s been in it too, like just kind of talking through. Of course none of us were happy. Right. But talking through some of the points of, of some of these things and it’s just like basically you can debunk almost every one of them and you get down to the level where it is a, what is the real reasoning here?
It’s a tit for tat. Like someone doesn’t like offshore wind turbines. Is it a political, uh, move towards being able to strengthen other interests and energy or what? I don’t know. ’cause I can’t, I’m not sitting in the Oval Office, but. [00:03:00] At the end of the day, we need these electrons. And what you’re doing is, is, is you’re hindering national security or because national security is energy security is national security, my opinion, and a lot of people’s opinions, you’re hindering that going forward.
Allen Hall: Well, let’s look at the defense argument at the minute, which is it’s, it’s somehow deterring, reducing the effectiveness of ground radars, protecting the shoreline. That is a bogus argument. There’s all kinds of objects out on the water right now. There’s a ton of ships out there. They’re constantly moving around.
To know where a fixed object is out in the water is easy, easy, and it has been talked about for more than 15 years. If you go back and pull the information that exists on the internet today from the Department of Defense at the time, plus Department of Interior and everybody else, they’ve been looking at this forever.
The only way these turbines get placed where they are is with approval from the Department of Defense. So it isn’t like it didn’t go through a review. It totally did. They’ve known about this for a long, long time. So now to bring up this [00:04:00] specious argument, like, well, all of a sudden the radar is a problem.
No, no. It’s not anybody’s telling you it’s a classified. Piece of information that is also gonna be a bogus argument because what is going along with that are these arguments as well, the Defense Department or Department of War says it’s gonna cause interference or, or some degradation of some sort of national defense.
Then the words used after it have nothing to do with that. It is, the turbines are ugly, the turbines are too tall. It may interfere, interfere with the whales, it may interfere with fishing, and I don’t like it. Or a, a gas pipeline could produce more power than the turbines can. That that has nothing to do with the core argument.
If the core argument is, is some sort of defense related. Security issue, then say it because it, it can’t be that complicated. Now, if you, if you knew anything about the defense department and how it operates, and also the defenses around the United States, of which I know a little bit about, [00:05:00] having been in aerospace for 30 freaking years, I can tell you that there are all kinds of ways to detect all kinds of threats that are approaching our shoreline.
Putting a wind turbine out there is not
Joel Saxum: gonna stop it. So the, at the end of the day, there is a bunch, there’s like, there’s single, I call them metric and intrinsic, right? Metric being like, I can put data to this. There’s a point here, there’s numbers, whatever it may be. And intrinsic being, I don’t like them, they don’t look that good.
A pipeline can supply more energy. Those things are not necessarily set in stone. They’re not black and white. They’re, they’re getting this gray emotional area instead of practical. Right. So, okay. What, what’s the outcome here? You do this, you say that we have radar issues. Do we do, does, does the offshore substation have a radar station on it for the military or, or what does that, what does that look like?
Allen Hall: Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t, but if the threat is what I think it is, none of this matters. None of this matters. It’s already been discussed a hundred times with the defense [00:06:00] department and everybody else is knowledgeable in this, in this space. There is no way that they started planted turbines and approve them two, three years ago.
If it was a national security risk, there is no chance that that happened. So it really is frustrating when you, when you know some of the things that go on behind the scenes and you know what, the technical rationales could be about a problem. And that’s not what’s being talked about right now that I don’t like being lied to.
Like, if you want to have a, a political argument, have a political argument, and the, if the political argument is America wants Greenland from Denmark, then just freaking say it. Just say it. Don’t tie Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, new J, all, all these states up until this nonsense, Virginia, what are we doing?
What are we doing? Because all those states approved all those projects knowing full well what the costs were, knowing how tall the turbines were, knowing how long it was gonna take to get it done, and they all approved them. This [00:07:00] is not done in a vacuum. These states approve these projects and these states are going to buy that power.
Let them, you wanna put in a a, a big gas pipeline. Great. How many years is that gonna take, Doug? How many years is that gonna take? Doug Bergham? Does anybody know? He, he doesn’t know anything about that.
Joel Saxum: You’re not getting a gas pipeline into the east coast anytime soon whatsoever. Because the, the east, the east coast is a home of Nimbyism.
Allen Hall: Sure, sir. Like Massachusetts. It’s pretty much prohibited new gas pipelines for a long time. Okay. That’s their choice. That is their choice. They made that choice. Let them live with it. Why are you then trying to, to double dip? I don’t get it. I don’t get it. And, but I do think, Joel, I think the reason. This is getting to the level it is.
It has to do something to do with Greenland. It has something to do with the Danish, um, uh, ambassador or whoever it was running to talk to, to California and Newsom about offshore tournaments. Like that was not a smart move, my opinion, but [00:08:00] I don’t run international relations with for Denmark. But stop poking one another and somebody’s gotta cut this off.
The, the thing I think that the Trump administration is at risk at is that. Or instead, Ecuador has plenty of cash. They’re gonna go to court, and they are most likely going to win, and they’re going to really handcuff the Trump administration to do anything because when you throw bull crap in front of a judge and they smell it, the the pushback gets really strong.
Well, they’re gonna force all the discussion about anything to do with offshore to go through a judge, and they’re gonna decide, and I don’t think that’s what the Trump administration wants, but that’s where they’re headed. I’m not sure why
Joel Saxum: you’d wanna do that. Like at the end of the day, that may be the solution that has to come, but I don’t think that that’s not the right path either.
Right? Because a judge is not an SME. A judge doesn’t know all of the, does the, you know, like a, a judge is a judge based on laws. They don’t, they’re, they’re not an offshore wind energy expert, so they sh that’s hard for them to [00:09:00] decide on. However, that’s where it will go. But I think you’re correct. Like this, this is more, this is a larger play and, and this mor so this morning when this rolled out, my WhatsApp, uh, and text messages just blew up from all of my.
Danish friends, what is going on over there? I’m like, I don’t know what you want me to say. I’m not in the hopeful office. I can’t tell you what’s going on. I’m not having coffee in DC right now. I said, you know, but going back to it, like you can see the frustration, like, what, why, why is this the thing? And I think you’re right though, Alan, it is a large, there’s a larger political play in, in movement here of this Greenland, Denmark, these kind of things.
And it’s a, it’s. It’s sad to see it ’cause it just gets caught. We’re getting caught in the crossfire as a wind industry. Yeah. It’s
Allen Hall: not helping anybody. And when you set precedents like this, the other side takes note, right? So Democrats, when they eventually get back into the White House again, which will happen at some point, are gonna swing the pendulum just as hard and harder.
So what are you [00:10:00] doing? None of, none of this matters in, in my opinion, especially if you, if you read Twitter today, you’re like, what the hell? All the things that are happening right now. RFK Jr had a post a few hours ago talking about, oh, this is great. We’re gonna shut off this off shore wind thing because it kills the whales.
Sorry, it doesn’t. Sorry. It doesn’t, if you want, if you wanna make an argument about it, you have to do better than that. A Twitter post doesn’t make it fact, and everybody who’s listened to this and paying attention, I don’t want you to do your own research, but just know that you got a couple of engineers here, that that’s what we do for a living.
We source through information, making sure that it makes sense. Does it align? Is it right? Is it wrong? Is, is there something to back it up with? And the information that we have here says. It is. It’s not hurting anything out there. You may not like them, but you know what? You don’t want a coal factor in your backyard either.
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Joel Saxum: When it comes down to sorting through data, I think that’s a big problem. Right? And that’s what’s happening with a lot of the, I mean, generalizing, a lot of the things that are happening in the United States in the last 10 years give it. Um, but people just go, oh, this person said this. They must be an authority.
Like, no, it’s not true. We’ve been following [00:12:00] a lot of these things with offshore wind. I mean, probably closer than most. Uh, besides the companies that are developing those wind farms, simply because it’s a part of our day job, it’s what we do. We’re, we’re, we’re looking at these things, right? So.
Understanding the risks, uh, rewards, the political side of things. The commercial side. The technical side. That’s what we’re here to kind of feed, feed the information back to the masses. And a lot of this, or the majority of all of this is bs. It doesn’t really, it doesn’t, it doesn’t play. Um, and then you go a little bit deeper into things and.
Like the, was it the new Bedford Light, Alan, that said like, now they’re seeing that the turbines have actually been turned off, not just to stop work for construction. They’ve turned the turbines off up in Massachusetts or up off of in the northeast area? No, that they have.
Allen Hall: And why? I mean, the error on the side of caution, I think if you’re an attorney for any of the wind operations, they’re gonna tell you to shut it off for a couple of days and see what we can figure out.
But the, the timing of the [00:13:00] shutdown I think is a little unique in that the US is pretty much closed at this point. You’re not gonna see anything start back up for another couple of weeks, although they were doing work on the water. So you can impose a couple hundred million. Do, well, not a hundred million dollars, but maybe a couple million dollars of, of overhead costs in some of these projects because you can’t respond quick enough.
You gotta find a judge willing to put a stay in to hold things the same and, and hold off this, uh, this, uh, b order, but. To me, you know, it’s one of those things when you deal with the federal government, you think the federal government is erratic in just this one area? No, it’s erratic in a lot of areas.
And the frustration comes with do you want America to be stronger or do you want nonsense to go on? You know? And if I thought, if that thought wind turbines were killing whales, I’d be the first one up to screaming. If I thought offshore wind was not gonna work out in term, in some long-term model, I would be the first one screaming about it.
That’s not
Joel Saxum: reality. [00:14:00] Caveat that though you said, you’re saying if I thought, I think the, the real word should be if I did the research, the math and understood that this is the way it was gonna be. Right? Because that’s, that’s what you need to do. And that’s what we’ve been doing, is looking at it and the, the, all the data points to we’re good here.
If someone wanted to do harm
Allen Hall: to the United States, and God forbid if that was ever the case. That wouldn’t be the way to do it. Okay. And we, and we’ve seen that through history, right. So it, it’s, it doesn’t even make any sense. The problem is, is that they can shield a judge from looking at it somewhat. If they classify well, the judge isn’t able to see what this classified information is.
In today’s world, AI and everything on the internet, you don’t think somebody knows something about this? I do. And to think that you couldn’t make any sort of software patch to. Fix whatever 1965 radar system they have sitting on the shorelines of Massachusetts. They could, in today’s world, you can do that.
So this whole thing, it [00:15:00] just sounds like a smoke screen and when you start poking around it, no one has an answer. That is the frustrating bit. If you’re gonna be seeing stuff, you better have backup data. But the
Joel Saxum: crazy thing here, like look at the, the, the non wind side of this argument, like you’re hurting job growth.
Everybody that goes into a, uh. Into office. One of the biggest things they run on all the time, it doesn’t matter, matter where you are in the world, is I’m gonna bring jobs and prosperity to the people. Okay. How many jobs have just been stopped? How many people have just been sent home? How much money’s being lost here?
And who’s one of the biggest companies installing these turbines in the states? Fricking ge like so. You’re, you’re hurting your own local people. And not only is this, you stand there and say, we’re doing all this stuff. We’re getting all this wind energy. We’re gonna do all these things and we’re gonna win the AI race.
To the point where you’ve passed legislation or you’ve written, uh, uh, executive order that says, Hey, individual states, if you pass legislation [00:16:00] that slows or halts AI development in your state, the federal government can sue you. But you’re doing the same thing. You’re halting and slowing down the ability for AI and data centers to power themselves at unprecedented growth.
We’re at here, 2, 3, 4, 5% depending on what, what iso you ask of, of electron need, and we’re the fastest way you could put electrons to the grid. Right now in the United States, it’s. Either one of those offshore wind farms is being built today, or one of the other offs, onshore wind farms or onshore solar facilities that are being built right now today.
Those are the fastest ways to help the United States win the AI race, which is something that Trump has loud, left and right and center, but you’re actively like just hitting people in the shins with a baseball bat to to slow down. Energy growth. I, I just, it, it doesn’t make any logical sense.
Allen Hall: And Rosemary just chime in here.
We’ve had enough from the Americans complaining about it.
Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. I mean, it’s hard for me to comment in too much detail about all of the [00:17:00] American security stuff. I mean, defense isn’t, isn’t one of my special interests and especially not American defense, but. When I talk about this issue with other Australians, it’s just sovereign risk is the, the issue.
I mean, it was, it’s similar with the tariffs. It’s just like how, and it’s not just for like foreign companies that might want to invest in America. American companies are affected just, uh, as equally, but like you might be anti wind and fine. Um, but I don’t know how any. Company of any technology can have confidence to embark on a multi-year, um, project.
Now, because you don’t know, like this government hates wind energy, but the next one could hate ai or the next one could hate solar panels, electric cars, or you know, just, just anything. And so like you just can’t. You just can’t trust, um, that your plans are gonna be able to be fulfilled even if you’ve got contracts, even if you’ve got [00:18:00] approvals, even if you are most of the way through building something, it’s not enough to feel safe anymore.
And it’s just absolutely wild. That’s, and yeah, I was actually discussing with someone yesterday. How, and bearing in mind I don’t really understand American politics that deeply, but I’m gonna assume that Republicans are generally associated with being business friendly. So there must be so many long-term Republican donors who have businesses that have been harmed by all of these kinds of changes.
And I just don’t understand how everyone is still behind this type of behavior. That’s what, that’s what I struggle to understand.
Joel Saxum: This is the problem at the higher levels in. In DC their businesses are, are oil and gas based though. That’s the thing, the high, the high power conservative party side of things in the United States politics.
The, the lobby money and the real money and the like, like think like the Dick Cheney era. Right. That was all Weatherford, right? It’s all oil and gas.
Rosemary Barnes: So it’s not like anybody [00:19:00] cares about the, you know, I don’t know, like there’d be steel fabricators who have been massively affected by this. Right? Like that’s a good, a good traditional American business.
Right. But are you saying it’s not big enough business that anyone would care that, that they’ve been screwed over?
Joel Saxum: Not anymore
Allen Hall: because all that’s being outsourced. The, the other argument, which Rosemary you touched upon is, is the one I’m seeing more recently on all kinds of social medias. It’s a bunch of foreign companies putting in these wind turbines.
Well, who the hell
Joel Saxum: is drilling your oil baby? This is something that I’ve always said. When you go go to Houston, Texas, the energy capital of the world, every one of those big companies, none of ’em are run by a Texan. They are all run by someone from overseas. Every one of ’em.
Allen Hall: You, you think that, uh, you know, the Saudis are all, you know, great moral people.
What the hell are you talking about? Are you starting to compare countries now? Because you really don’t wanna do that. If you wanna do that into the traditional energy marketplace, you’re, you’re gonna have [00:20:00] a lot of problems sleeping at night. You will, I would much rather trust a dane to put in a wind turbine or a German to put in a wind turbine than some of the people that are in, involved in oil and gas.
Straight up. Straight up. Right. And we’ve known that for years. And we, we, we just play along, look. The fact of the matter is if you want to have electrons delivered quickly to the United States, you’re gonna have to do something, and that will be wind and solar because it is the fastest, cheapest way to get this stuff done.
If you wanna try to plant some sort of gas pipeline from Louisiana up to Massachusetts or whatever the hell you wanna do, good luck. You know how many years you’re talking about here. In the meantime, all those people you, you think you care about are gonna be sitting there. With really high electricity rates and gas, gas, uh, rates, it’s just not gonna end well.
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Allen Hall: you don’t have enough on your plate already. Uh, the FCC has panned the import and sale of all new drone models from Chinese manufacturers, including the most popular of all in America, DJI, uh, and they clo.
They currently hold about 70% of the global marketplace, the ban as DGI and Autel Robotics to the quote unquote covered list of entities deemed [00:22:00] a national security risk. Now here’s the catch. Existing models that are already approved for sale can still be purchased. So you can walk down to your local, uh, drone store and buy A DJI drone.
And the ones you already own are totally fine, but the next generation. Not happening. They’re not gonna let ’em into the United States. So the wind industry heavily relies on drones. And, and Joel, you and I have seen a number of DJI, sort of handheld drones that are used on sites as sort of a quick check of the health of a, or status of a blade.
Uh, you, you, I guess you will still be able to do that if you have an older dj. I. But if you try to buy a new one, good luck. Not gonna happen.
Joel Saxum: Yeah. I think the most popular drone right now in the field, of course two of ’em, I would, I would say this, it’s like the Mavic type, you know, the little tiny one that like a site supervisor or a technician may have, they have their part 1 0 7 license.
They can fly up and look at stuff. Uh, and then the [00:23:00] other one is gonna be the more industrial side. That’s gonna be the DJ IM 300. And that’s the one where a lot of these platforms, the perceptual robotics and some of the others have. That’s their base because the M 300 has, if you’re not in the, the development world, it has what’s called a pretty accessible SDK, which software development kit.
So they’re designed to be able to add your sensors, put your software, and they’re fly ’em the way you want to. So they’re kind of like purpose built to be industrial drones. So if you have an M 300 or you’re using them now, what this I understand is you’re gonna still be able to do that, but when it comes time for next gen stuff, you’re not gonna be able to go buy the M 400.
And import that. Like once it’s you’re here, you’re done. So I guess the way I would look at it is if I was an operator and that was part of our mo, or I was using a drone inspection provider, that that’s what comes on site. I would give people a plan. I would say basic to hedge your risk. I would say [00:24:00]basically like, Hey, if you’re my drone operator and I’m giving you a year to find a new solution.
Um, that integrates into your workflows to get this thing outta here simply because I can’t be at risk that one day you show up, this thing crashes and I can’t get another one. A lot of companies are already like, they’re set and ready to go. Like all the new Skys specs, the Skys specs, foresight, drone, it’s all compliant, right?
It’s USA made USA approved. Good to go. I think the new Arons drone is USA compliant. Good to go. Like, no, no issues there. So. Um, I think that some of the major players in the inspection world have already made their moves, um, to be able to be good USA compliant. Um, so just make sure you ask. I guess that’s, that.
Our advice to operators here. Make sure you ask, make sure you’re on top of this one so you just don’t get caught with your pants down.
Allen Hall: Yeah, I know there’s a lot of little drones in the back of pickup trucks around wind farms and you probably ought to check, talk to the guys about what’s going on to make sure that they’re all compliant.
[00:25:00] In this quarter’s, PES Win magazine, which you can download for free@pswin.com. There is an article by Fran Hoffer, and they’re in Germany. If you don’t know who Fran Hoffer is, they’re sort of a research institution that is heavily involved in wind and fixing some of the problems, tackling some of the more complex, uh, issues that exist in blade repair.
Turbine Repair Turbine Lifetime. And the article has a number of the highlights that they’ve been working on for the last several years, and you should really check this out, but looking at the accomplishments, Joel, it’s like, wow, fraud offer has been doing a lot behind the scenes and some of these technologies are, are really gonna be helpful in the near future.
Joel Saxum: Yeah. Think of Frown Hoffer of your our US com compadres listening. Think of frown Hoffer as and NRE L, but. Not as connected to the federal government. Right. So, but, but more connected to [00:26:00] industry, I would say. So they’re solving industry problems directly. Right. Some of the people that they get funding research from is the OEMs, it’s other trade organizations within the group.
They’re also going, they’re getting some support from the German federal government and the state governments. But also competitive research grants, so some EU DPR type stuff, um, and then some funding from private foundations and donors. But when you look at Frow, offerer, it’s a different project every time you talk to ’em.
But, and what I like to see is the fact that these projects that they’re doing. Are actually solving real world problems. I, I, I, Alan and I talk about this regularly on the podcast is we have an issue with government funding or supportive funding or even grant funding or competitive funding going to in universities, institutions, well, whoever it may be, to develop stuff that’s either like already developed, doesn’t really have a commercial use, like, doesn’t forward the industry.
But Frow Hoffer’s projects are right. So like one of the, they, they have [00:27:00] like the large bearing laboratory, so they’re test, they’ve tested over 500 pitch bearings over in Hamburg. They’re developing a handheld cure monitoring device that can basically tell you when resin has cured it, send you an email like you said, Alan, in case you’re like taking a nap on the ropes or something.
Um, but you know, and they’re working on problems that are plaguing the industry, like, uh, up working on up towel repairs for carbon fiber, spar caps. Huge issue in the industry. Wildly expensive issue. Normally RA blade’s being taken down to the ground to fix these now. So they’re working on some UPT tile repairs for that.
So they’re doing stuff that really is forwarding the industry and I love to see that.
Allen Hall: Yeah. It’s one of the resources that. We in the United States don’t really take advantage of all the time. And yeah, and there’s a lot of the issues that we see around the world that if you were able to call f Hoffer, you should think about calling them, uh, and get their opinion on it.
They probably have a solution or have heard of the problem before and can direct you to, uh, uh, a reasonable outcome. [00:28:00] That’s what these organizations are for. There’s a couple of ’em around the world. DTU being another one, frow Hoffer, obviously, uh, being another powerhouse there. That’s how the industry moves forward.
It, it doesn’t move forward when all of us are struggling to get through these things. We need to have a couple of focal points in the industry that can spend some research time on problems that matter. And, and Joel, I, I think that’s really the key here. Like you mentioned it, just focusing on problems that we are having today and get through them so we can make the industry.
Just a little bit better. So you should check out PES WIN Magazine. You can read this article and a number of other great articles. Go to ps win.com and download your articles today. That wraps up another episode of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. Thanks for joining us and we appreciate all the feedback and support we receive from the wind industry.
If today’s discussion sparked any question or ideas, we’d love to hear from you. Just reach out to us on LinkedIn and please don’t forget to subscribe so you [00:29:00] never miss an episode For Joel, Rosemary and Yolanda, I’m a hall. We’ll catch you next week on the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.
Trump Halts Offshore Wind Projects, DJI Drone Ban Hits Industry
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MotorDoc Finds Bearing and Gearbox Faults in Minutes
Weather Guard Lightning Tech

MotorDoc Finds Bearing and Gearbox Faults in Minutes
Howard Penrose of MotorDoc joins to discuss current signature analysis, uptower circulating currents wrecking main bearings, and full drivetrain scans in minutes. Reach out at info@motordoc.com or on LinkedIn.
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Howard Penrose: [00:00:00] Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining light on wind energy’s brightest innovators. This is the progress powering tomorrow.
Allen Hall: Howard, welcome back to the program.
Howard Penrose: Hey, thanks for having me.
Allen Hall: It’s about time everybody realizes what motorDoc can do. There’s so much technology, and I’ve been watching- Yeah … your Chaos and Caffeine podcast on Saturday morning, which are full of really, really good information about the motorDoc as a company, all the things you’re doing out in the field, and how you’re solving real-world problems, not imaginary ones- Yeah
real-world problems. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and
Howard Penrose: whatever annoys me that week. Exactly. And, and whatever great coffee I’m trying out. Yes. Except for a few. We’ve had the ReliaSquatch down our- Yes … um, a couple of times. Uh, yeah, no, I, I enjoy it, and we gotta get you on there sometime. I don’t do- I, it- … a lot of interviews other than an AI character we put in.
Allen Hall: It’s a very interesting show because you’re [00:01:00] getting a little bit of comedy and humor and s- Yeah … and a, and a coffee review, which is very helpful because I’ve tried some of the coffees that you have reviewed, that you’ve given the thumbs up to. But if you’re operating wind turbines and you’re trying to understand what’s happening on the drivetrain side, on the generator, everything out to the blades even, main bearings, gearboxes- Yeah
all those rotating heavy, expensive parts, there’s a lot of ways to diagnose them-
Howard Penrose: Yes …
Allen Hall: that are sort of like we can look at a gear, we can look at a joint, we can look at roller bearings, whatever, but motorDoc has a way to quickly diagnose all of that chain in about- Yeah … 15 seconds.
Howard Penrose: Well, a little longer than 15 sec- more like a minute.
A minute, okay. It feels like paint drying. But- Uh, in any case, yeah. Uh, uh, and, and what’s kind of funny is, um, back in the ’90s, uh, EPRI actually accidentally steered the technology away from its [00:02:00] core purpose, which was in 1985, um, NAVSEA, the US Navy, had done research on using current signature analysis for looking at pumps, fans, and compressors, the bearings, the belts, the components, all the rotating components using the motor as the sensor.
Not too much different than we are now. I mean, mind you, we got better resolution now, we’ve got, uh, more powerful– I mean, I look at my data from the ’90s, and now it’s completely different. Um, and then Oak Ridge National Lab, same thing, bearings and gears in motor-operated valves. So in 2003, we were the first ones to apply electrical and current signature analysis to some wind turbines in the Mojave Desert.
Wow. Yeah. So, um, nobody had tried it before. Everybody said it couldn’t be done. And, uh, that was a bad thing to say to me because- … it meant I was gonna get it [00:03:00] done. Right. At that time, um, we were looking at bearing issues and some blatant conditions with the, um, with the, uh, generator using a technology called Altest, ’cause I was with Altest at the time.
And, uh, I had taken an EMPath software and blended it with a, a power analyzer, and they still have that tool to this day. I was using that technology all the way through 2015. 2016, I should say. And then- And then switched over to the pure EMPath, which was more of an engineering tool. And then more recently, in 2022, uh, made the decision to ha- to take all the work we’d done on over 6,000 turbines, uh, looking at how we were looking at the data and what we were doing on the industrial side, and took a, uh, created a current signature analyzer that would do one phase of current to analyze the entire powertrain.
Allen Hall: So when you tell [00:04:00] operators you can do this magic, I think a lotta times they gotta go, “
Howard Penrose: What?” Oh, yeah, yeah. They don’t understand it because they’re used to vibration- Right … which is a point analysis system. Right.
Allen Hall: Vibration at this- Yeah … particular location. Yeah. One spot- Even if it’s- … or a couple
Howard Penrose: spots
triax, they’re reading through material, up through a transducer. Hopefully, they put it above the bearing and not in the middle of the machine like everybody is now, because everybody’s trying to sell a sensor. Right. True. They’re not selling a- they’re not selling accuracy. They’re just selling sensors.
Right. So, um- Yeah … you know, uh, I, I’ll, I’ll even talk about one of the companies here. We’ve got Onyx here, and they do it right. I mean, they’ve been doing it right pretty well because we’ve been doing some of the same towers they’re on, and we can match the data they’re getting. Oh, good. Right? Yeah. Uh, so but they get it in multiple spots, and there’s areas they can’t quite reach, so we’ll detect those areas as well.
So it’s a good melding of two technologies.
Allen Hall: Oh, sure. Sure,
Howard Penrose: sure. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when you have electrical signature and you have vibration, but in [00:05:00] cases if you don’t have vibration, we’re a direct replacement.
Allen Hall: Because the generator- I
Howard Penrose: dare say that.
Allen Hall: Yeah. Whichever–
Howard Penrose: I dare say that, um, with- Well, the
Allen Hall: generator is acting as the sensor.
Howard Penrose: The air gap. The air gap in the generator s- specifically, yes. Yeah. Generator, motor, transformer. Right.
Allen Hall: Yeah. So any of those- Mm-hmm … you can clamp onto, look at the current that’s on there. Everything that’s happening on the drivetrain, in the gearbox, out on the rotor- Yep … main bearings, all of that creates vibration.
Creates a torque. T- a, a torque. Yeah. Yes, more exactly a torque. Yeah. And that’s seen in the generator, in the current coming out of the generator. Yes. So those signals, although minute, are still there. Yes. So if you clamp onto that current coming out of the generator, you’ll see the typical AC sine wave sitting there.
But on top of that- Is all the information about how that drivetrain is doing
Howard Penrose: Absolutely, and everything else. Anything electrical comes through [00:06:00] that. So what you do is just like vibration, you do a spectral analysis. So every component has a frequency associated with it, just like vibration. It’s, as a matter of fact, I, I keep having to try to explain to people electrical and current signature analysis is no different than vibration analysis.
It’s the same concept. We use the same tools. The signature looks just a little different. It’s a little noisier, um, but you need that noise in order to see everything. But we have a time waveform, and instead of, um, inches per second or millimeters per second, whatever, you know, uh, velocity, acceleration, and displacement, uh, what we end up with is decibels is the optimal method.
You can look at straight voltage signatures at those points or, or current signatures, but the values are so small that you have to look at it from a logarithmic standpoint. Right. There are some benefits to it versus vibration, and there’s some things that aren’t as good as vibration. [00:07:00] So, you know, we, we do…
You have to… Any technology is gonna have their strengths and weaknesses. Sure. So we will see everything all at once. Load doesn’t matter. Right. Speed doesn’t matter. It’s… Only reason speed matters is the location of the frequencies. Uh, so the higher the resolution, meaning the longer you take data, the less chance you have on a lightly lo- loaded machine of blending the peaks together.
Right. Um, on the flip side, if I have two bearings turning at the exact same speed, I couldn’t tell you which one it is. Because they’re the same. Right.
Allen Hall: And the mechanical features of that bearing is w- what creates the signal that you’re measuring. Exactly. So if a bearing has five rollers versus 10, just imaginary thing.
Yeah, yeah. Five rollers versus 10 has a different electrical signature, so you can determine, like, that bearing, that 10 roller bearing- Yes … has the problem, the five is fine. Yes. Yeah. That’s the magic, and I think people don’t translate the mechanical world into the electrical world. That that’s what’s [00:08:00]happening.
They,
Howard Penrose: they don’t because, because what’s happening is they named it wrong.
Allen Hall: Yes.
Howard Penrose: A majority of our users are mechanical folks. Sure. Our vibration analysts and stuff like, ’cause they know how to look at the signatures. Right. Everybody tries to force it on their electrical people, and electrical people go, “We don’t know what this is.”
Yeah. And it’s, it’s, it’s a matter of that training and, and, you know, in the electrical world, you’re not taught to look at that. Right. Yeah. It doesn’t matter. Mechanical world, you’re taught to look at that. So our intern, we were trying to bring in electrical engineering interns and found out that just wasn’t working.
So last year, I brought in my first, uh, intern that’s, you know, he’s been with us now since I brought him in. Okay. Uh, and, uh, Amar, and, uh, you know, he’s helped us develop our vi- uh, vibration software to go along with it. Guess what? It’s the same thing. It’s the exact same sy- system Um, but we just take in a vibration signal instead.
But he picked up on it immediately as a [00:09:00] third-year college student. I can take somebody with a decade as an electrical engineer with a PhD and they can’t figure it out.
Allen Hall: Well, because you’re, you’re taking real- Because it’s different. Yeah. It’s r- well, it’s real-world components-
Howard Penrose: Yeah …
Allen Hall: creating electrical signals.
That’s hard- Well, you have- … to process for a lot of people. Yeah,
Howard Penrose: yeah. It’s
Allen Hall: just not
Howard Penrose: something that we do every day. But that’s… If they, i- if we sa- i- i- if you’re looking at vibration and you start looking at the sensor, it gets complicated too, ’cause guess what? It’s an electrical signal. Right. It’s, it is technically electrical signature now.
It’s converting a
Allen Hall: mechanical signal- Right … into an electrical signal, which is what’s happening in the generator anyway. Yeah.
Howard Penrose: Whether it’s a piezoelectric cell that’s generating a small signal- Yeah … on top of a small waveform that you then take out, you demodulate, uh, or it’s, uh… So you take that carrier frequency out, or it’s a MEMS sensor, which is the same thing.
You know, the, it just sees some slower s- It, it does more of a digital output. So you, you, you know, you have those, or you [00:10:00] have this, which just basically uses a component of the machine to, to, as its own sensor. There is one other difference between them, too, and, uh, I find this very useful when I’m going out troubleshooting something that other people can’t figure out, uh, ’cause we use all the technologies.
So in this case, it would be, uh, the structural movement. Okay? So, so say I have a generator and there’s something wrong with the structure, and the whole machine is vibrating. So y- well, if I put a transducer on it, they might think that’s vibration or something else. We don’t see it. Right. We only see directly exactly what’s happening with the machine.
Sure. So a lot of times when we go in to troubleshoot something that people have done vibration on and everything else, it’s been pro- a, a problem for them for years. We walk in, and all of a sudden we’re identifying whether it’s the machine or it’s something else right off the bat. Then we can take a look at the vibration data and [00:11:00] say, “Okay, it wasn’t the bearing or the bearing, um, structure.
It was, you know, the mounting.” Right. It wasn’t
Allen Hall: fastened
Howard Penrose: down properly. Yeah,
Allen Hall: yeah. Right.
Howard Penrose: Go tighten that bolt. Right, exactly.
Allen Hall: Well, I mean, that’s the cheap answer. Yeah. I’d rather tighten a bolt than rip apart a motor or a generator- And, and- … every day …
Howard Penrose: and that’s the whole point. Now, there are other strengths that go with it.
So for instance, on the powertrain of a wind turbine, I can tell you if you’ve lubricated the bearings correctly. Wow. Because part of what we do is we do take those electrical signatures, and we convert those over to watts. Watts is an energy conversion. Sure. So you see that as heat or some type of loss.
So whatever, whatever’s being lost there is not being sent to the customer. To the outside. Right. Making money. So, um, if I’m taking a look at, say, a main bearing, I might see watts or kilowatts of losses. So you’re gonna have some ’cause you have friction, right? But when we see it increase on, say, a roller, [00:12:00] or the rollers, or, or the cage, that’s usually an indicator that I have a lubrication issue.
Or if we only see it on the outer race, that means that they didn’t clear out all the old grease when they were lubricating it, ’cause the rollers then have to ride across it- Right … ’cause it dries up.
Allen Hall: Sure.
Howard Penrose: Uh, and will carry contaminants. So if you see that, you go up, clean it up, you’ll extend the life of the bearing.
Absolutely you will. Without having to do a lot of work. So, uh, we, we look at our technology as more so early in the, in the stage of a condition. I don’t wanna call it failure, ’cause it’s not a failure. It’s something that’s mitigable. And I made that word up. You can mitigate it. Meaning you can go up and correct it and extend the life of that component.
Sure. Uh, in gearboxes we’ll see problems with, um… Well, the, the one we’re talking about here a fair amount is all the circulating currents going on uptower. We did that research. The current signature analyzer we have is a direct result of doing wind turbine [00:13:00] research just on circulating currents uptower, ’cause we conferred everything over to, to sound at 48 kilohertz.
And so that gives me a 24-kilohertz signal. That high-frequency stuff, which we’re researching in CGRE, and IEEE, and IEC, is called supra harmonics, which I– we talked about that before. Yes, we have. Yeah. And, uh, so when you start seeing that in the, in, in the current that’s circulating uptower because the ground that goes from the top of the tower down is for- DC
lightning protection. And lightning protection, yeah. It’s not meant for, um- Not for
Allen Hall: high frequency- Yeah …
Howard Penrose: currents. Yeah. Uh, we, when we measured it, when we mapped out dozens of towers of all different manufacturers, we found that the impedance about halfway down the tower is where it ends. Sure. The, the resistance.
And then the increased, uh, the high-frequency noise turns any of your shaft brushes into resistors. And at about 15 kilohertz, no current is [00:14:00]passing through them. It’s all passing the bearing, which becomes more conductive the higher the frequency. So with 60% of main bearings failing due to electrical currents, it’s actually currents that are circulating uptower.
It’s not static. There is some static up there, but it’s not static. It’s coming from the controls, the, the generator, and everything else. Inverters,
Allen Hall: converters.
Howard Penrose: And we’ve seen up to 150 amps passing through a, through a bearing.
Allen Hall: So I– We run across a lot of operators who have been replacing main bearings, and they don’t know the reason why.
Yeah. And I always say, “Well, call Howard at MotorDoc because I would almost bet you you have the f- high frequency running around uptower in the nacelle- And the next main bearing you put in there is gonna go the same way as the- Yeah … first one you put in there. Until you cut off that circulating current and then the cell, you’re just gonna continue with the problem.
Then you haven’t eliminated the problem, you’re just fixing the result of that problem. Yes. But it takes- Yeah, you’re, you’re- How, [00:15:00] how, well, how long- You’re replacing
Howard Penrose: a fuse.
Allen Hall: Right, you’re replacing a fuse. Yeah. How long does it take you to s- to determine- An expensive fuse. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah, ’cause you’re taking the rotor down.
Yeah. Well, how, how fast can you determine if you have harmonics uptower that are gonna be causing you problems? 120 seconds.
Howard Penrose: Okay.
Allen Hall: So that’s the thing. I think a lot of- I mean,
Howard Penrose: that’s of the actual data collection time. So you clamp on uptower, uh, and then you can… Well, the way we have it set up now, you just tell it you wanna collect data every five s- uh, five minutes, and then you go downtower, let it collect its data, go back up, grab it.
Um, it’s like…
It’s huge. It’s this size. So, um, and then you connect- It plugs into a laptop. Yeah. Plug it into a laptop or any type of tablet. Um, it, it’s Windows now. I’m trying to get away from Windows. We’re gonna have Linux systems, uh, as well. Uh, and then you use that to, um, just collect that data, and then you press another button.
Now it pops up, and it tells you if you’re in danger or not, [00:16:00] the amount of current passing through the bearing, and the frequencies all the way out.
Allen Hall: So the ideal is you’re gonna have this kit with you in the truck. Yeah. And as you see these problems pop up, you’re gonna clamp on uptower. Yep. You’re gonna measure these circulating currents, and you’re gonna know immediately if you have another mechanical issue, a, a lubrication issue- Oh, yeah.
It’ll look at- … some kind of alignment issue, or- You’ll get all
Howard Penrose: of this information at once. So you- Right … if you go on the power side. So certain turbines, like anything that has the transformer downtower, you don’t have to climb. Right. GE. I mean, I don’t climb. So, uh, uh, you know, th- and that was part of the, the concept behind when we started down this path because I’ve been in the wind industry since 1997.
So one of the things I always saw was, and, and we talked about even, you know, here when it was called AWEA, and we were talking always on the health and safety side about wearing out the technicians. Um, so we discovered that, you know, what was it? Almost 60% of the [00:17:00] turbines you didn’t have to climb. Right.
Oh, yeah. And even the ones you do, you go up, you set it up, and it’ll tell you where you need to focus. The other thing in the powertrain, let alone the generator, when we do a sweep of a site– Now, if we do a straight electrical signature analysis, I’d term that one as a technician’s tool. Sure. That’s more of an engineer’s tool.
Uh, a lot more data, a lot harder to set up. But even though I’m saying harder to set up, it’s still pretty easy. It’s still minutes. Right. Yeah. Most technicians will collect data with, like, a couple hours worth of training. Yeah. You g- You basically gather that data, and if you’re getting a site, so we’ll go out– I love going out in the field.
So we’ll go out in the field, especially if it’s a tower we don’t have to climb I’ll knock out, uh, well, let’s just say I’ll, I’ll, I’ll name one. Say a GE 1.6. I’ll knock out one of those every eight to 11 minutes, depending on how you get to the tower.
Allen Hall: So that’s a full diagnosis of drivetrain- Yeah … plus anything odd happening- Yep
with circulating currents and all that [00:18:00] can- Oh, no, no. Circulating- Or just- … current, that’s a- That’s a separate thing at tower … separate study that- Okay … you have to do that uptower. But anything, anything drivetrain-wise, you can be in and out- Yeah … in a couple of minutes. Yep. Okay. So there’s a lot of operators that have end-of-warranties coming up, right?
Yes. There’s been a lot of developments, so they’re kind of running into the end-of-warranty, and they don’t know the health status of their drivetrain. Same thing for a lot of operators that are in- Yep … full service agreements, and they’re questioning whether they’re getting their money’s worth or not.
Yes. I always say, “Call Howard at Motordoc. You guys can have a whole site survey done maybe in a couple of days, and you will know all the problems that are on site for the lowest price ever”. Yeah. It’s crazy how fast you can do it and how accurate it is. I talk to operators that use your system, so I hear you.
Yeah. Your podcast, listen to your podcast, I’m calling your customers to find out what they say, and they love it. Oh, yeah. They can’t believe how accurate it is. Yeah. Well, the thing about that is we as an industry need to make sure that our turbines are operating at [00:19:00] maximum efficiency. Yep. And if a simple tool like the Motordoc EMPath system exists, we need to get customers, operators in line to start doing it worldwide.
Australia- Oh … Europe-
Howard Penrose: Yeah. We- … Canada. Australia, we’re trying to get into, but right now we even have OEMs using it through North- That’s good … and South America, Asia. Good. Uh, Middle East, um, and, uh, and some of Europe. Good. So it’s, it’s, it’s really taking off. Uh, I’d say probably our biggest market right now is Brazil.
Sure. They’re going crazy. Well, the, the turbines are- They’re having a lot of problems. Yeah.
Allen Hall: Right. And the, well, those turbines have a h- high usage, right? So because- Oh, yeah … the winds are so good, they’re operating at, like, capacity factor is above 50%. Yes. It’s insane. Yeah. So there’s a lot of wear and tear.
There’s no downtime for those turbines.
Howard Penrose: Yeah. Well, and, and people think it’s all the starting and stopping. It’s not. No. It’s a grid-related issue. So we have- Sure … we have a low frequency. And you know some of the stuff I volun- I, I’m, I’ve been volunteered for- [00:20:00] Yeah … uh, including the CIGRE thing. Um, so I get to sit in the grid code committees for IEEE and put my, and our input into that, uh, and kind of watch the back of the IBR industry, right?
Mm-hmm. ‘Cause there’s a definitely bias against our industry. Um, and I also, uh, get to hear what’s going on in the grid side of things from CIGRE worldwide, and it’s all very similar, and it has to do with low-frequency oscillating currents- Yes … called subsynchronous currents- Yes … which are low enough not to damage large synchronous machines.
And they thought, and there’s books written on this, by the way, multiple books written on wind turbine impact- Uh, and they’re seeing now, um… Well, we detected it first, along with Timken. Hank, uh, and, and I went out to a site, and we detected for the first time, because of how they wanna do the testing and where the site was located, we saw the oscillating torque [00:21:00] in the air gap, ’cause that’s one of the things the technology does.
It actually measures the torque, air gap torque. Sure. So we were watching the oscillating torque as a tower started up. And so we did, we went through the rest of that site looking at the same stuff in the same way. It increased our time and data collection, and time on site. But then we started looking for it at other sites, and going to pass data because I don’t have to go back and retake data.
Right. And we’re like, “Oh my God. It’s everywhere.” 16 hertz, 21 hertz, and 50 hertz. And we found a paper that specifically identified that as the sub synchronous frequencies for 60 hertz. So we know what they are also for 50 hertz. Once we identified that and we saw how much the torsi- torque was oscillating, we worked with Shermco, who got us some information on Y-rings that were failing.
Yeah. And they were all failing… When the metallurgy was done, they were all failing from fatigue. And you’re like, fatigue how? What’s fatiguing these connections? [00:22:00] Well, the fatigue is that air gap torque- Exactly … because you’re basically causing the, the, everything to oscillate a little bit, and that causes the windings to move slightly.
It’s a living,
Allen Hall: breathing machine-
Howard Penrose: Exactly … this generator
Allen Hall: is.
Howard Penrose: Yeah.
Allen Hall: It’s not
Howard Penrose: static. It’s definitely not sta- no electric machine is static. No. Even a transformer’s not static. Right.
Allen Hall: So- There’s a little
Howard Penrose: bit of wiggle going on there all the time All the time. And it’s minute, so it takes a long time. Right. And what, uh, uh, everybody…
Well, first people thought it was a particular manufacturer, which it wasn’t. Turned out every defig’s failing the same way. Sure. You’re fatiguing it. Yeah. Every bearing is failing the same way, even in the gearbox, main bearings, and everything else. Right. All of these conditions are happening across all the OEMs, but they’re not allowed to talk.
Well, this is, this is the thing that
Allen Hall: I like watching your podcast.
Howard Penrose: Yeah.
Allen Hall: The Chaos and Caffeine. It comes out Saturday mornings. It’s on YouTube. If you haven’t- Yeah … clicked into it, you should click into it
Howard Penrose: because a lot of these issues are discussed there. It’s definitely, um… [00:23:00] Let’s just say I’ll speak Navy quite a bit.
Allen Hall: It’s a great podcast, and I think what you’re doing with the EMPath system- Yes … at motor dock is really a game changer. Yeah. I’m talking to everybody, all the operators I know. I keep telling them to call you and to try the system out because it’s so inexpensive and it does the work quickly and efficiently, and it’s been proven.
There’s no messing- Oh, yeah … around when you’re talking to MotorDoc. I…
Howard Penrose: Somebody dared tell me that there’s no standard for it. There’s ISO standards for it. Yes. There’s IEEE 1415- Yes … which I chair. Uh, and there’s other standards coming out- This is- … associated with it. And there’s a document that I also chair for Sea Gray- Called A178, which is the practical application of the technology.
So it’s well-documented. There are traceable standards for it. I need more
Allen Hall: operators to call you- Yeah … and to talk to you and get systems in the back of the trucks that they can use to check out the health of their gear boxes and their drive trains and their generators. How [00:24:00] do they do that? Where do they go?
Where, where’s, what’s- Well- … the first place they should look for?
Howard Penrose: Uh, info@motordoc.com. Okay. I get all, I get all of those as well, so do my people. Um, or, uh, LinkedIn. LinkedIn’s really good.
Allen Hall: Look up anything. Yeah.
Howard Penrose: Yeah, yeah. So, so either the company at Motordoc, or, uh, I’m, I sh- I’ll show up either searching for my name or, uh, linkedin.com/in/motordoc.
Come straight to me ’cause I’ve been in, on LinkedIn forever, so- Right, just- … I got to do that … look up
Allen Hall: Howard Penrose, P-E-N-R-O-S-E. Yep. Or go to motordoc.com is- Yep, motordoc.com … the website address.
Howard Penrose: Yep. There’s a lot of great information there. And we have partners, and we have people. We’re growing the company.
You know, talk to me. I, I’ll- Yes … I like answering the phone and talking. It’s, it’s a thing. My people go, “Can we answer the phone one?” No. Um, but, but yeah, we, we, y- when you call us, you’re not just dealing with a single person. Right. The Motordoc is far more expansive. Right now, we [00:25:00] just got our partnership with, uh, Hitachi and, and Juliet- Yeah, that’s great
and stuff like that. Uh, we’re helping them with certain things. Uh, we’re partnered with some of the big OEMs, almost all of them, um, you know, helping identify the issues, you know. And, and when users contact us, often they’ll tell us what’s going on, and we’ll, we can, uh, sometimes say, “Yeah, it’s this, and here’s how we prove it.”
Allen Hall: Yeah. That’s the, that’s the beauty- Yeah … of calling Motordoc. So I need my operators that, that watch the show- Yeah … worldwide, go online, go on LinkedIn, get ahold of Howard, get ahold of Motordoc, and get started. Yep. Howard, thank you- And- … so much for being on the podcast. Yeah. This is fantastic. I love talking to you because-
it’s, it’s like talking to, you know… Uh, no, really, it’s talking like someone who’s a real good industry expert, who’s been there a long time, and understands- Yeah … how this
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