Published

8 hours ago

September 17, 2025

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Wind Impacts Railroad Safety? And Other False Flags

The crew discusses the Federal Department of Transportation’s concerns over wind turbines interfering with railroads, the USDA’s stance on renewable energy projects on farmland, new treasury rules for wind and solar projects, and highlight the Sunflower Wind Farm in Kansas for its community impact and operational success.

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 Saxon, Phil Totaro, and Rosemary Barnes.

Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.

Hold on tight. I told my producer before we started, this is gonna be a. Bumpy rise. So for all our listeners, hold on. Uh, it’s a lot of news in the wind and solar world at the minute. Phil Tarro is in California. Joel Saxon is back from Australia in Austin, Texas, and first up is the Federal Department of Transportation.

Complaining about how close wind turbines could be to railroads and create an interference, and it’d be a safety crisis. Uh, federal transportation officials and a new scientific research report, [00:01:00] Joel, are sounding an urgent alarm about wind turbines being. Too close to railroad tracks and a comprehensive study from California’s Tehachapi Pass Wind Farm confirms, quote unquote confirms that wind farms can severely interfere with critical radio communications used by trains.

Now, uh, what they don’t want you to do is to read the report. That’s what they don’t want you to do. And, uh, as a group of engineers, we’re going to read the report and see what it says. And what it says is that they have a safety system on trains because they used to run into each other quite often. And what they’ve done is they have a overriding system that’s run by radio communication that if a train goes too fast and some of these more frequented train tracks or in.

High density population bases like Chicago or Baltimore, one of these places that they can actually slow the train down or stop the train in some cases, what it sounds like if they’re [00:02:00] on a collision course, and that becomes important on commuter rails. And, um, if they have toxic chemicals on trains, that they don’t want them to have accidents.

So they put the system in. And the system is based on Joel. The world’s oldest communication form.

Joel Saxum: It’s VHF radio, right? So to those of you that don’t know what VHF radio is, it’s basically like, uh, close to the frequencies you’d use as a walkie-talkie as a kid. Um hmm. Right. Uh, or a CB radio. Right. We’re, we’re quite a ways past that now.

Uh, so wifi, cell modems, satellite communications are all regular things within basically any other industry. Uh, of course, but this one, yeah, we’re still using VHF technology that we used. I, that’s been around for a long time for radio communication back from World War ii. Or before that? Oh yeah.

Allen Hall: Right around World War ii.

How far do those, uh, walkie-talkie radios typically

Joel Saxum: work? Well, it depends if you, I guess if it depends if you buy ’em from Walmart or if you buy ’em a, [00:03:00] a, a professional one. But, uh, depending on what watt radio is in ’em, I mean mile two miles maybe.

Allen Hall: Exactly. And that’s how this train system works. So every.

Couple of miles, they have a repeater to transmit the signal up and down the train tracks. Well, it became really important because, you know, these wind turbines are interfering with this train signal and may have a collision. So what they did is they commenced the study to go look at if there’s interference, uh, bouncing off the wind turbines, and if you read the report, they talk about wind turbine blades, possibly spinning and creating this interference pattern.

And particularly if the wind turbine blades are made outta metal, it could be this big problem. Well. No wind turbine blade is made outta metal today. And you know, the chances that the wind turbine blades line up in a particular orientation to cross interference is practically

Joel Saxum: dang near zero. You know, there’s something else we didn’t think about here.

We were kind of talking about this before we talking about metal blades and turbines. Of course, that’s not a thing. Uh, but they did this study in Tehachapi. If you’ve, of course a ton of our listeners have been to Tehachapi. It’s [00:04:00]like the wind mecca in the United States, right? Those are all lattice towers.

Lattice towers have. A different effect on radio signals than the Monopile towers that we’re used to that are most everywhere else in the, in the wind industry. But La Latt, lattice Towers can definitely do, do something to radio signal.

Allen Hall: So my first thought was to reach out to Joel when I read the report and say, Joel, there must be railroad tracks near wind turbines existing already.

Joel Saxum: How many Joel? Yeah. So we, we went and found some data online of uh, basically we know where the turbines are. We, US wind turbine database. Um, and then found the some shape files of where the railroad tracks are in the United States and duplicated their study to put like a buffer on the tracks that one, 1.2 miles took a look at it.

And there is about 6,500 turbines in the United States that are within a mile or 1.2 miles of a railroad track. That makes sense, right? These wind farms are, you know, along highways, [00:05:00] uh, a lot of ’em. Um. And railroad tracks follow highways. They’re kind of co-located, right? So of the 75,000 and change there’s about 6,500.

So eight and a half, 9% of turbines in the United States are within a mile or two or a mile, 1.1 or 1.2 miles of, of a railroad track.

Allen Hall: Well, evidently it’s a concern now, so we have to do something about it now. My first question was, well, this system must work in cities. That’s what it’s there for. There must be buildings and roads and bridges and draw bridges and other things in the way of this signal.

And sure enough, I was right. They, they do have buildings in the way, and you know what they do? They put a repeater in. You put a repeater in, just like a cell phone repeater to make the signal, uh, strength much higher to avoid the interference problem. And it works. So the DOT’s running around right now, and the head of the DOT Sean Duffy is, is exclaiming that, uh, wind turbines are the downfall of the [00:06:00] railroad community and they’re gonna push back wind turbines, uh, from railroad tracks.

So Joel, you better prepare for how many turbines to be moved back. 6,000 6,500. Yeah.

Phil Totaro: So have we gone into crazy land? A couple of things. First of all, Tehachapi never had metal blades. The, even the oldest turbines there, if they had, uh, any kind of blades other than fiberglass, they were wood. Um, and I don’t think Tehachapi had wooden blades, uh, out there for like 40 years.

The funny thing about all this is that it’s, uh, you know, stuff like this, it’s probably not gonna be that much of an issue because, as Joel just mentioned, if you’re only talking about 8% of the, you know, installed base in the United States, well guess what? There’s 92% of the installed base that doesn’t have this problem to deal with.

So that’s, you know. I’d take 92% over 8% any day. And, and, and look, the, the government actually, even though they [00:07:00] may kind of sound stupid at, at times or even try to deliberately portray themselves as stupid at times, um, they, they actually do get it. Uh, I know a lot of people are going to, you know, find it funny that I would say something like that.

But if you look, and, and the reason I can say this is if you actually look at what they did with like these IRS tax rules, um, you know. What they’re actually doing is facilitating manufacturing in the United States. So my point of all this is while they’re out there saying, you know, wind turbines are evil, in reality, the industry is actually going to thrive for the next, you know, 18 months or so, we’re, we’re still gonna have problems.

And, and they’re absolutely pouring gas on a fire. Needs to actually be put out rather than have gas poured on it. But the, you know, their rhetoric is one thing and their actual actions are another.

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Choose Pitch for peace of mind. Contact Onyx Insight today. To schedule your demo of Eco Pitch and experience the future of blade monitoring. Well, along Phil’s line of thought, the agriculture department will no longer support solar and wind projects on productive farmland. According to the agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, the move targets what officials call the destruction of prime agricultural soil.

For green new deals, subsidized solar panels. Now the emphasis here at first is on solar panels. But wait, there’s more. [00:09:00] USDA previously provided over $2 billion for renewable projects through its Rural Energy for America program. Now a 2024 study found that wind and solar projects affected. Only 424,000 acres, which is less than 0.05% of the total farmland in America.

And Joel, you’ve been driving through Iowa more recently. There’s a lot of agricultural land there and a lot of corn fields. Well, there’s wind turbines taking up, up a lot of space in

Joel Saxum: those farms. No, uh uh the, the first thing I think that we need to touch here though is like this green New Deal thing.

That was never passed. That’s not real. The green New Deal never happened. So there’s your first misnomer. Second one, eh? Yeah. Well you, I mean, you’ve seen anybody that’s seen a wind farm. It’s the, you have a road that’s, uh, 16 feet wide or so for a good road base and a 25 foot wide pad, [00:10:00] maybe 40, 50 foot wide pad, depending on the base of the turbine.

You know, it just doesn’t take up that much space. But I think that, uh, for me. In this, the capital markets will prevail. If the federal program doesn’t wanna support people, uh, you know, by giving, like, by subsidizing them to build solar panels on their land, fine. If it makes more sense for that landowner to grow, to grow corn or to harvest electrons, they’re gonna do what’s best for them to make money.

So that’s, and you’re gonna continue to see it. Um, so sorry, but that’s going to happen. Um, I mean, we’re fans of Wind, right? The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast, but it is a perfect dual use, uh, process, right? You’re, you’re, how many farmers are benefiting from this is amazing, the stories that they have. You can talk to any of these guys and gals that own these farms and hear how much this is like creating revenue and creating, uh, money and uh, changing their whole family.

Right? But the same thing now you’re starting to [00:11:00] see more and more agri Voltaics, if you haven’t looked into that, where it’s a dual use, uh, uh, utility scale, uh, solar, and that’s freaking awesome. I’ve seen a couple of these farms where they’re planting soybeans or like sod farming and stuff underneath the solar panels.

Uh, so that’s gonna become, uh, use as well. So, I mean, I understand the attack. We know what’s going on. Again, like Phil said, at the federal level, this, this administration, kind of from all angles, it’s filtering down, trying to attack, uh, renewable energy in general. I think that the capital markets will prevail.

Allen Hall: Don’t you wonder how much agricultural land has been taken over by super Walmarts over the years, or Yeah. Or

Joel Saxum: subdivisions. Uh, yeah. Like, so if you, if you’re, if you’re. I, I don’t wanna say this wrong. If you’re an octogenarian, if you’re an, if you’re a little bit of a, an older listener of the podcast and maybe you’ve been through Houston in the past, drive through when you drove through Houston, and even in the, in the nineties, the [00:12:00] places now where there’s 10, 15, 20 miles of just homes, those were rice patties.

That was all, that was all agriculture, right? And, and it was productive agriculture, really good agriculture. Um, and now it’s just houses. So you can’t like to pinpoint who’s doing what and all these different things. Like, it’s just kind of ridiculous to me.

Phil Totaro: Here’s the other impact of what they’re doing.

There were about $1.6 billion worth of applications pending for, from farmers that wanted to install wind and solar on their property. And these are typically smaller, you know, turbines. This isn’t necessarily for utility scale ’cause this program is separate from anything that we do. Uh, at the utility scale level, this is basically a farmer wants to, as Joel said, put an Agri Voltaic system in there.

Their farm or have a small wind turbine installed in their farm. That’s like a 30 or 50 kilowatt size [00:13:00] thing. That’s what this program is intended for. Now, there are projects that actually already occurred that the farmers paid for out of pocket that they were hoping to get reimbursed for by the government and with the government cutting off the funding to this program.

These people, farmers, hardworking American farmers, are now out of pocket for these wind and solar systems, uh, where they thought they were gonna have the support of the government to, uh, you know, to come in and, and reimburse them, at least partially for having this system on their farm. So now if we’re talking about subsidies

Joel Saxum: taught in and agriculture for energy production.

There is 89 million acres, give or take of corn planted in the United States. 27, 20 7 million of them, so almost a third were subsidized and used directly for ethanol production.[00:14:00]

So, so, so now you’re, now you have. You’re, you’re playing. So it’s a weird, uh, like dichotomy there, right? Because of course the, the administration here wants to further the hydrocarbon industry, you know, American energy drill, baby drill, all this stuff. So pushback and renewables. Let’s get gas going. How do they handle this one?

How do they handle the, the, the third of the co, the ethanol problem and the fact that it’s junk fuel? Anyways, I won’t even put it in my truck. So the way they handle it is

Allen Hall: Iowa is the first round of caucuses for the presidential election, and they don’t touch it. For years and years and years between elections, they’ll poo poo ethanol and other states.

But as soon as they arrive in Iowa, it’s the greatest thing ever. So they’re not gonna stop it. And, and, but these kind of projects where they’re sticking it to the farmer is just not cool. Come on, what are we doing? And back to Phil’s point, you’re just hurting a little f. Small family [00:15:00] farm or maybe even the large family farm, that’s who you’re hurting.

You’re not hurting the wind and solar industry, but you feel like they have to say something. Each of the departments has to say something to get. Uh, in the good light of the Trump administration, which is just starting to get ridiculous, don’t let blade damage catch you off guard. OGs, ping sensors detect issues before they become expensive, time consuming problems from ice buildup and lightning strikes to pitch misalignment and internal blade cracks.

OGs Ping has you covered The cutting edge sensors are easy to install, giving you the power to stop damage before it’s too late. Visit eLog ping.com and take control of your turbine’s health. Today we’ve been anxiously awaiting the treasury rules regarding the 5% rule for starting of construction for wind and solar projects and what was gonna be modified and.

Phil’s, uh, thought was a couple of weeks ago that they were kind of gonna merge the two concepts [00:16:00] of the 5% rule and beginning construction and kind of merge ’em together. But the, something came out that was completely different, and it basically is that in order to qualify for tax credits under this new piece of legislation, uh, the develops need to show physical work of a significant nature has begun.

So, in a sense. It’s sort of a lower threshold to start. Phil, can you give us some of the details of what’s about to happen with this new treasury requirement?

Phil Totaro: Yes, so the good news for anybody that’s already signed a Safe Harbor deal is that other than this requirement that you have to demonstrate some physical construction and, and I’ll get to exactly what they mean by that, uh, in a minute, but under the existing Safe Harbor rules, you’re still okay.

Um, the only caveat to it is you can’t start construction. Then stop it and then start it up again. [00:17:00] Anybody that hasn’t already signed a deal with Safe Harbor. Do it now. If you can try to at least get it done before the 2nd of September if you can. If you can’t, then you have to be able to start construction by July 4th of next year.

And again, as long as you start construction by July 4th of next year and you continue to construct, you’ll be fine. Uh, as long as you and then commission by the end of 2027. If you can’t, if you can’t have your, your safe harbor in place. Now, what is this start of construction? The physical construction requirement mean?

There’s basically one of two ways you can qualify, and this is where it kind of gets interesting. The work can actually be on site or offsite, but at the end of the day, I mean this actually opens up the door to a lot of a US manufacturing. Which is a good thing, and b, it’s actually a lot more tame than what everybody [00:18:00] feared.

So I, I’m just

Joel Saxum: thinking about this out loud as a strategy thing. So we were just, uh, we, by we, I mean the weather guard team, I wasn’t there, uh, but the weather guard team was just on site on a, on a new construction site where they were like, we’ve got piles of cranes, piles of people we’re gonna build this thing in a couple months.

And it was like. Whoa. Like, I can’t believe you’re gonna build that that fast. That’s crazy. But in my mind, I go to this, as long as you have continuous activity going on, maybe you start to spread those crews a little bit thin and those assets, those construction assets a little bit thin and spread ’em around to different sites.

If of course, all the other things in place, the permits are in place, you’re in the queue, you got the interconnection, all this stuff. But if you’re a large company and you’re trying to develop a lot of sites, but you still wanna qualify right now, you might be like. Put your Gantt charts out to December 30th, 26.

That might be the, the time, or is it end of 27 or

Phil Totaro: end of 26,

Joel Saxum: Phil.

Phil Totaro: So they have to commission, if they [00:19:00] don’t already have safe harbor, then they have to start construction by July 4th next year and finish by December 31st, 2027. For anybody that’s safe harbored already, they can, they still have to start construction, um, within the four year window.

And there’s no, uh, they, they have to finish within that four year window. But once they start construction, they have to continuously construct. As long as you start

Joel Saxum: construction by the fourth of next year, you have 18 months from that date to finish your wind farm. So it doesn’t actually make it smart if you’re not safe Harbor yes.

If you’re not safe harbor. Okay. So if you’re not safe harbor, if you’re getting all new kit now, so then it doesn’t make, it almost would make sense to kind of like. Drag your feet on the project. Yeah, but, but get more, but get multiple ones built.

Allen Hall: Remember that existing build outs are going like crazy because the [00:20:00] demand for electricity is so high.

So wind turbine farms are being put up at tremendous speed. The the little four year window we just created, which I think came from Chuck Grassley from Iowa, Phil, I think there was a lot of pressure put on the treasury by that Senator.

Phil Totaro: Oh yeah, that was, that was in the previous IRS rules. Yeah. Because of him.

Allen Hall: Yeah, absolutely. So there was a lot of negotiation behind the scenes, and he had withdrawn some treasury nominations or held up treasury nominations and told the Trump administration they were not gonna get a hearing until these IR Rs and treasury rules had come out in basically giving more time. And, and, and they did.

They did. They totally did. But Joel, back to your point, I think there’s enough buildout going on existing that this may make it a little less chaotic than it was because everybody is putting in wind, everybody’s putting in solar. All this AI data center drive is driving demand [00:21:00] for wind and solar, and you can only build so fast.

But as I learned from being on site a couple of weeks ago. Boy, the the speed at which these large EPC contractors are out there, putting turbines in the ground is amazing. Amazing. They have such talented crews out there. That’s all they do. Move from place to place to place. Putting turbines in, getting the, all the infrastructure done.

I mean, when we walked up on site, my producer and I walked up on site to this wind farm. They had transformers in the parking lot, right? So they were just getting started. But the a number of people on site to try to get these projects done ’cause they’re gonna move to the next one. This project was gonna end around Thanksgiving, middle of November in the States, and then we’re going to the next project.

That’s amazing. That is really amazing. On the build out. Three months. Yeah, three months. Three months. Boom. And they had just been on a project, which was another huge project they had just come off of massive project. [00:22:00]So now you have, back to sort of Phil’s point, you have these super talented, focused teams that are putting in terms who know what they’re doing.

They can go fast. And,

Phil Totaro: and keep in mind that it, this is kind of the challenge we, we face as an industry in a lot of other countries. We’ve got a lot of talent here that knows how to build fast. The same size project in Australia would take easily a. Three to four times the the time, like it would take nine to 12 months to build, you know, a 400 megawatt project versus how fast we can, we can execute here in the us.

And the funny thing about that is they have such high demand. In a place like Australia for talent, that they’re gonna have to soften up their, their immigration rules to allow people that have requisite experience from the US or Europe to come down there and help them. Joel, that

Allen Hall: one site we went to, uh, where they’re building turbines out, one turbine up and running a day.[00:23:00]

I asked, well, that seems like a pretty good clip. And some of the workers there said, oh no, that’s not as fast as we could do it. I’ve, we’ve done more than that before.

Phil Totaro: That’s actually offshore pace. They can do one offshore turbine a day, and that’s slow.

Joel Saxum: To me, it was like this, this, this farm was like, you know, between 90 and a hundred towers and they’re gonna build it in three months.

And, and, and that’s like, and you and, and in this area, like you can get weather. Like you’re, you’re, they’re going to get snow on this site. Like it’s gonna happen. Um, and it’s possible that it comes and it, and it blows. I mean, we’re wind country, right? So when you get, you have the possibility of a storm coming in and blowing six foot snow drifts across all the roads and stuff, like, and you still think that you’re gonna be able to do that and they’re confident.

That’s, that’s crazy to me. Joel, talk about the pay. That these workers were getting on this win site. Yeah. So this, that’s an interesting, uh, kind of thing that’s hap that’s rolled down from the IRA bill here right now too, because of course Alan and I, Phil Rosemary, [00:24:00] we’re connected all over the industry.

We hear, hear from a lot of different people. But I’ve had this conversation with a couple of, uh, big ISPs. Um. Yeah, some of them being in like the Blade World and the maintenance world and these kind of things, and they’re like, yeah, they’re, well, I got some guys, or TFAs, the technical field advisors, uh, for these construction sites.

Yeah, we’ve got some guys up there, but man, it’s crazy what we have to, like, what we’re billing out. So the ISPs billing the operators or the, the EPC contractors, billing the operators, some of them are billing 180 to $200 an hour for each person on site. Because of these other IRA, the white sheet wages.

And some of those places are like, I, I understand that. Like I, my early, early, my first big boy job was in Chicago and we had to do things with the unions and all this different stuff. And I remember seeing the wage rates for some of these guys that were just standing there leaning on shovels all day.

And it just drove me crazy. Um, so I understand how that works there, but my thought was usually always like when you get out in the middle of nowhere, like that stuff kind of goes away, but not, so it’s [00:25:00] not the case anymore. Some of these guys are making, I mean, out there just like, Hey, I’m a, I’m a laborer.

I’m a technician. I’m just kind of helping out here, and they’re making 60, 70, 80 bucks an hour. I mean, the paychecks that these guys are taking home is

Phil Totaro: nuts. Yeah. The the good news about that is that even though a lot of that rate is actually insurance. They’re, the people are still actually getting paid at a pretty good clip.

’cause in the, in years gone by, you send somebody out into the field, they were getting paid like 30, 35 bucks an hour while they were billing out at 180 bucks an hour. And the overwhelming majority of that was going to, you know, insurance policy and, and underwriting. Now more of that, even though you’re still paying that kind of a rate, more of it’s actually going to the workers.

So it’s gotten a little bit better.

Joel Saxum: Yeah. What I’ve heard from these guys is these, the, uh, the, there’s a fight for who gets to go to the white sheet jobs anymore. Like the, the technicians are like, no, no, no. I’m [00:26:00] staying here. I’m not going on vacation. Like, oh, we gotta cycle you out on the rotation. They’re like, no, no, no, no, no.

I don’t wanna go home. I’m staying here. But it’s a problem. So like the, one of the issues that the oil field has had, and a, and Alan, you and I took a trip out to Abilene, um, last year. Talked to some training facilities and some other people out there and they said, you know, we have an issue here because we can’t recruit very well out in this side of Texas because the oil field grabs all these people.

’cause the oil field is willing to pay them more than the wind world will will. But now you’re starting to see that tide flip a little bit. And Phil, the

Allen Hall: IRA bill, that part of it. Didn’t change. I, at least the reading I had was that payout feature for the workers on site. The prevailing wage feature remained, that didn’t get eliminated recently.

So with all the build out going on and that prevailing wage requirement, technicians could be making some pretty nice money.

Phil Totaro: That’s correct. It will go away though at the end [00:27:00] of 2027 when the PTC is actually phased out. So keep that in mind,

Joel Saxum: right? You, you got some time? No. I wanna flag this though. This is me saying this to all of our technician friends, listening from an ex oil field guy.

Do not go buy in Corvette. Do not go buy a new one ton Denali pickup. Do not do that. Don’t, don’t do that. Take this extra money. Put put your seven, $7,000 in your IRA that you, that you may or may not have. Make sure you do that first. But invest some of this money. Stick it away. Don’t go buy fast cars and big trucks because the oil field guys have done that and gals have done that forever and it doesn’t end well.

You could pitch your kids through college

Allen Hall: with some of the money they’re gonna make and good for them. Do it, do it, do it. Go get that you got, you have a little over a year, year and a half or so to make some money. Go do it.

Phil Totaro: There’s one last word of caution I have about all this. If you’re not safe [00:28:00] harbor.

You better start construction fast because one of the things that’s been happening in the US. Is, we’ve got moratoriums that have been put in place in a lot of different places around the us. There are 44 states that have more than 450 moratoriums now, and if somebody puts a moratorium in place and prevents you from doing.

Your physical construction, it doesn’t matter if you’re doing onsite, offsite, whatever, they can put a moratorium in place that basically prevents you from collecting your tax credits. So start constructing as fast as you can and if you’re an EPC contractor, staff up the Wind

Joel Saxum: Farm of the week This week, uh, comes from one of our friends in the industry.

So, uh, we had, uh, jewel Williams, uh, we recorded with her the other day. She’s a fantastic engineering manager. From Ted onshore us and she said, can, can I, can I do a shout out to some of my team? Uh, of course that’s, that’s what the [00:29:00] Wind Farm of the Week is about. It’s about, uh, shining the spotlight on people in the field.

So the Wind Farm of the week this week is the Sunflower Wind Farm. Uh, that is Ted’s on one of Ted’s onshore, uh, wind farms in Kansas. So it’s in Marion County, Kansas. Uh, it was their first onshore wind project, uh, in the state, of course, onshore Kansas. Yes, it must be. Uh, but it is made of 89 ge 2.8, 1 27 meter rotor turbines.

That’s 200 megawatts for the whole wind farm. It’s commissioned in, it was commissioned in 2023. Uh, produces enough clean energy to power over 96,000 homes annually, and is expected to contribute over 28 million in property, property tax revenue to Marion County over its lifetime. Um, so a lot of lease payments to the locals, uh, supporting community initiatives including education, environmental conservation programs, which is, I mean, that’s a hallmark of, or they do that everywhere they go with their wind farms.

Um, but this week, the, the special recognition and we’re, we’re getting kind of a shout out from Jewel here. Sunflower Winds receiving special [00:30:00]recognition from Sted for its deep community engagement, positive local impact, and the exceptional performance and dedication of the onsite GE team. So Tommy Gage, Jace Sherwood, and the team out there making sure that the turbines are spinning at, uh, sunflower wind in Kansas.

Kudos to you guys. So all of these aspects have contributed to being a operating, a well-oiled machine, achieving high availability and smooth operation. So the Sunflower Wind Farm from Osted, as brought to us by Jewel Williams is the Wind Farm of the week. That wraps

Allen Hall: up another episode of the Uptime Wind Energy podcast.

Thanks for joining us as we explore the latest in wind energy technology and industry insights. If today’s discussion sparked any questions or ideas, we’d love to hear from you. Reach out to us on LinkedIn and don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you found value in today’s conversation.

Please leave us a review. It really helps other wind energy professionals discover the show and we’ll catch you next [00:31:00] time. On the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.

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Renewable Energy

Bonus Content: Renewables Opposition & TPI’s Financial Outlook

Published

5 hours ago

September 17, 2025

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Bonus Content: Renewables Opposition & TPI’s Financial Outlook

Allen, Phil, and Rosemary continue the discussion from Tuesday’s episode, diving into renewables opposition and TPI’s financial situation.

Welcome to Uptime, spotlight, shining light on wind. Energy’s brightest innovators. This is the progress powering tomorrow.

Allen Hall: So what we’re talking to energy, everything is difficult, so we wind and solar can be difficult to make money in. But some of the discussion about moving back to coal or, or moving back to older sources of electricity generation, their money losers too.

Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, probably even more efficient money losers. And on a larger scale, you know, at least wind and solar, you could lose, lose money a little bit at a time and you don’t lose money on the operation.

Um, you know, it’s, it’s all in the, the, the capital cost. Whereas coal can lose money ev every single, every single day that the plane operates. So I [00:01:00]guess that that’s, uh, yeah, that’s true. It’s not as, not as bad as that.

Allen Hall: So is there a industry fix or is there a hope for the future? Right now, I don’t see it.

Rosemary Barnes: I was reading this book for a little while and I stopped reading ’cause I, um, it had some good ideas, but it wasn’t like totally rigorous in its, um, exploration of all the ideas. I think it’s called The Price is Wrong, or something like that. And it’s about how like, it’s not possible to have a renewables industry that isn’t subsidized by the government.

And, um, there’s some, I I, I think that there’s some truth to that, but I would replace. That there’s, it’s impossible to have a renewables industry if that’s not subsidized. Rather say it’s impossible to have an electricity system that’s not subsidized in some way by the government. Um, and yeah, I mean, just rec recognize that and maybe we don’t need to to fight that, but, um, it, it is always turns like so tribal that everyone’s arguing over who’s got the more subsidies or who’s.

More dependent on subsidies. Um, yeah, it’d be easier [00:02:00] if we could all, you know, get on the same page about climate change and just acknowledge what we needed to do. But, you know, if, if wind and solar power never came along and we didn’t care about climate change, then we’d still be subsidizing, uh, yeah, like coal and, and gas and, uh, all the transmission and, uh, I don’t know, infrastructure.

You need to transport those fossil fuels around. Like, you know, we’d, we’d still be subsidizing because people still need electricity and still get upset if it’s, um, you know. So expensive that you are stuck, you know, choosing whether you want to eat this week or heat your home this week. So,

Allen Hall: well, is it because electricity was late to the game?

The railroads sort of blew through the United States and everywhere else in the world because it was easy.

It missed Australia, but yeah, would would’ve been nice.

Allen Hall: But here, here in America, the railroads pretty much owned most of America very quickly. Uh, and got it done before there was any real. Feedback like they would be today, as soon as you wanna put a transmission tower in somebody’s farm field.[00:03:00]

Huge, huge uproar. States are involved, senators are involved. The government’s all over it. There’s committee meetings. Everything gets really slowed down versus 1860s. It just happened.

Rosemary Barnes: But I think the difference as well, like it’s not like transmission didn’t have these obstacles the first time around, right?

When cities or towns were getting electricity for the first time because there were transmission lines going to them, then it was more obvious what the need was. Whereas now people, they’re like, I already have electricity. And um, you know, they don’t, they don’t wanna be disturbed further when the. Yeah, the case isn’t as obvious to them for what the benefit will be to them.

Allen Hall: Is it such that the general public doesn’t realize that their survival depends upon electricity? On some measure, we were just driving and Claire and I, our producer, were just driving through a certain part of the Midwest and we were noticing there were no houses, and then it became obvious, well, there’s [00:04:00] no power.

To this part of the country. There are no transmission lines. There are roads, but there are no transmission lines until you get to a railroad track. And then there are power lines running alongside the railroad tracks, so the railroad and electricity go together. And whenever those two sort of meet, there is a little town, but outside of that zero, that happens on a bigger scale, if you don’t have electricity to power your industry, your cities, your communities.

You’re really in a world of hurt competing against the rest of the world. When do we realize that? Isn’t that why China is going so fast, so hard to electrify? Because it brings civilization, advanced civilization? India’s trying to do the same thing. It seems like in some aspects we just go, well, I don’t need it.

You do need it. Your kids need it, your grandkids need it.

Rosemary Barnes: But there’s a different, um, argument you’re trying to make because, I mean, I [00:05:00] doubt that there’s many towns in the US that aren’t connected to the electricity grid. There’s at least there’s some, there’s, there’s quite a few in Australia, but, um, you know, with microgrids and, and stuff like that.

So maybe that’s a, a bit of a special case. Um, but what you’re talking about in most. Yeah. Places like Australia and the US you’re not talking about getting electricity to places for the first time, which is what they are doing in, um, in China and in India when they’re rolling out, um, new renewables infrastructure, um, you know, like big transmission lines to connect up.

Good. Uh, yeah. Both those countries have, um, high voltage DC. Uh, long, long connections that are, yeah, electrifying parts of the country that haven’t, um, been connected to the grid before. So they’re more, the, the people there are gonna be more like people were a hundred years ago when they were getting connected for the first time in America, or, um, Australia or, or wherever.

Um, their, you know, [00:06:00] the, the benefit to them is obvious. I do think that it’s like with most new technologies where you gotta find the niches where people, like, it’s a, it’s a real solution for them. That’s the first place to roll it out. And people who aren’t really suffering don’t see as much need to change until the technology gets like, so much better.

Allen Hall: Who are the proponents, the loud vocal proponents to bring more electricity to New York City or to Los Angeles or to Houston? I don’t hear them though those voices aren’t nearly as loud as the voices that are saying, we don’t need wind, we don’t need solar. We’re totally fine the way that we are. What am there?

There is a, a very quiet opposition or proponents of electricity, I would say, uh, versus the opposition, which are very vocal about. We don’t need wind and solar. I think they totally do. I don’t understand where they’re even coming from in terms of big picture

Rosemary Barnes: in the big [00:07:00] cities, you kind of maybe hit from two ends because there’s this one kind of, um, one group of people who are climate concerned.

Um, and so they do want renewable energy. However, they think that the solution is that you just need to use less electricity. And so, uh, I think there’s like a really large proportion of city populations of people who. Who are cared about climate change that think that you can solve it by, um, consuming less.

All the things that are left over are, you know, like little incremental things that don’t add up to anything. Like what we’re gonna need to have everyone move to electric vehicles and have everyone move off the gas network and onto heat pumps for heating. Um, you know, there’s so many huge chunks of load that need to be added in order to.

Decarbonize and I don’t think that, I think that, yeah, like the half of the general population, like non-expert population, that should be on the side of the energy transition. I don’t think they realize that. We’ve been really, really conditioned to believe [00:08:00] that if it’s not, you know, if it’s not hurting, it’s not working.

So like it’s like you have to. You have to suffer as a condition for a solution to be plausible. So I think that, yeah, there, um, there’s a lot of, a lot of people that are really obsessed with individual action and how we’ve just gotta convince people that they should, you know, do all those little things.

Um, and I’m not sure they’re aware of just, yeah. Extent of the problem. I

Allen Hall: think you’re right about that. And been listening to a couple of podcasts while working that are still focused on the climate action slant, I’ll call it, to drive, uh, people to do something about their electricity or the coal factory or whatever they got going that.

But that argument is just a losing argument today in the climate we’re in. [00:09:00] You’re not competing against, uh, someone who’s gonna have a discussion with you about climate. You’re competing about someone who is trying to have an economic argument, a strength argument versus a weakness argument. Uh, so the.

You’re talking on the sidelines about climate. When your world economies are colliding, it just seems like the language needs to shift a little bit to focus in on what is gonna move people to some sort of consensus.

Phil Totaro: This, this also goes back to my whole thing with, you know, industry trade associations or lobby groups, because they are very much focused on politics and making everything into a political argument as opposed to leveraging the people that actually have the economic focused argument and data to be able to support [00:10:00] the position.

And it, it’s, we’re just not hearing from the right people. That have the right knowledge and information and, and it’s not just exclusive to the us this, you know, has happened in Europe. Um, I’m sure it, you know, Rosie can speak to how the degree to which this has happened in Australia as well. But the, the reality is you, you, the people with the real.

Knowledge and information that people actually need to be able to meaningfully change their argument and change habits, and change behavior and thought patterns. They get drowned out by the people who shout the loudest or who are politically connected.

Allen Hall: Sure. But that’s been true for time immemorial.

What, what I think is happening at the minute is if everybody wants to talk about power is electricity is power. Basically, it’s what we’re saying. Electricity is economic power. Then you want as much electricity as you could possibly generate. Are you gonna spend [00:11:00] twice as much to do it or are you gonna do it as cost efficiently as you can?

Wind and solar are gonna be those two answers. Plus battery being the third. That’s gonna be the lowest cost way to do it. If you’re trying to grow your economic power relative to all your economic neighbors, that’s the way to do it. So why are we having a discussion about. We’re gonna go back to coal in the United States and we just drove through coal country a couple days ago.

Why are we having a discussion about going back to coal? ’cause it’s so expensive. Why would we do that?

Rosemary Barnes: It’s really weird. ’cause I mean, renewables didn’t kill coal in the US right? It was gas. Gas killed coal.

Allen Hall: Yeah. Oh yeah. Gas killed coal for sure. Well, coal killed coal because you don’t wanna live next to a coal generation plant.

You really don’t. Especially 30, 40 years ago, you totally didn’t before the emission equipment was installed. Not nice. Does that make sense? Like we’re, we’re just not pushing if, if, if the, everybody’s [00:12:00] talking power. Let’s talk power. Let’s talk cheap power. Let’s go,

Rosemary Barnes: let’s buy TPI. Come on Rosemary, let’s go.

I’ve got about $2 50 spare at the moment. So if you think that when it kinda gets to the point where that Yeah, that can give me a, a stake then happy to, to jump in,

Allen Hall: what kind of management, Rosemary, would you put into a TPI? Would you put in a engineering focused management team, or are you putting in a development team?

Are you putting in just a pure, raw, old school manufacturing sort of management and system? What does that type of business require?

Rosemary Barnes: I think that there’s a real tension that makes that like an unanswerable question and why it’s the whole industry is struggling and not just one or two companies based on their decisions because.

You need in the long term, you need a good product. It means you need a good engineering team to design it and, um, you know, maintain a whole lot of, uh, institutional knowledge in, in [00:13:00] house. Um, and to be able to maintain, you know, deal with warranty claims and make sure that you don’t have more in the future.

But that’s super expensive. And the reality of today is that the cost, like the, what you can charge for a wind turbine blade is just, it’s, it’s too low to support that the kind of engineering that it actually needs. And so, um, yeah, that’s why, that’s why no one, no one can make the equation work, you know, to have the product sufficient and to make enough money to stay in business.

I, I don’t know, I kind of, and the way I’ve seen it, probably like the last. Nearly decade that I’ve been saying this is I, I just feel like a bunch of companies are going to go bankrupt, um, over not being able to, you know, whoever has the first, you know, huge warranty claim that they, they just can’t support and they go bankrupt.

Few of them happen and probably people will start, um, you know, some Chinese companies will kind of rush in to fill the void as well, but at the end of the day, you’re still gonna end up, um, you know, like having to move through this [00:14:00] and, and. Pay for the engineering. You, you just like in 20 years time, you can’t be anywhere else.

Um, unless we just didn’t have a whole lot of wind energy growth.

Allen Hall: Let’s talk about wind energy growth for a minute. With the shift, uh, in terms of production tax credits going away in the United States and wind has to stand on its own two feet discussion that’s happening at the moment. When you remove those.

Production tax credits and investment tax credits. Wind is still cheaper. Solar is still cheaper than pretty much any other, well, no, it is cheaper than any other, uh, power Source does that Then when they do that comparison, when you start to say, oh, well I’m gonna put a, a gas fired system in five years from now, I’m gonna pay a fortune for it because everybody wants to do that, versus just buying some wind turbines and solar panels and getting the same result.

Does that allow wind and solar then to raise prices where? They can become more [00:15:00] profitable, more stable over time.

Rosemary Barnes: I, I actually think no, because there’s too, there’s so many companies that are so used to, you know, just slashing costs so much. I just think there’s just too many, there’s too many companies.

Allen Hall: Too many companies in it.

Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. And, um, some. Uh, can go for at least a period of time making a loss on every product they sell. But, you know, there’s so many companies, and especially if you include China in, in that, they’re just, uh, I don’t know. It’s, it’s just not, um, viable to me to see how, like, which company is gonna be the one that starts charging more.

Um,

Allen Hall: are you able to have an independent blade company anymore, or do you need to be attached to an OEM?

Rosemary Barnes: I don’t see why that it, you know, the reason why that there were. Independent blade companies to start with was, was ’cause people wanted to have more, a more secure supply chain so that, you know, if something happened with one of the, the factories and they’ve still got another option to fulfill all the orders that they’ve got for a certain [00:16:00] platform.

And I don’t see that changing, um, you know, the fundamental reason for it. So, um, yeah, I, I, I, I don’t think anything’s changed there.

Phil Totaro: This also goes back to the argument of, does an industry. Flourish when it’s vertically integrated, or does an industry flourish when you’ve got all these separate little companies?

Allen Hall: It’s more distributed.

Phil Totaro: Exactly. Uh, a distributed model for supply chain, and right now we’re in. That phase of an industry growth where if you wanna be profitable, vertical integration’s, pretty much the way to go. Um, it’s also why it’s slightly confounding. Why ge? Bought LM in the first place because they, you know, brought them in because they wanted Yeah.

To vertically integrate it. But then they said, oh, but you’re, you’re gonna keep selling blades to everybody else and [00:17:00] then we’re gonna go use TPI and maybe some other companies to, you know, source blade designs and, and blades for specific. Makes and models of turbines. So why would you, why would you vertically integrate a, a capability like Blade Manufacturing and then not fully leverage it?

Rosemary Barnes: You know what, at the time that they were purchasing LM and I was working there, no one could understand it. And we kind of came to the conclusion, well, we’re engineers, not business people. So, you know, um, presumably. Presumably makes sense to, uh, a team of MBAs from ge. But now I, I kind of think that it, it, it did, it wasn’t that we didn’t understand, it’s that it didn’t really make sense the, the way that they did it, at, at least, um.

Yeah. I, I, I don’t think that they, I think that the team at the time really did intend to keep LM doing basically what it did, and they didn’t quite realize how much OEMs wouldn’t really like it. Um, like they didn’t like the vibe, even though, [00:18:00] like I can tell you, it really, really, things didn’t change so much at LM in the first few years, but, um, to an external OEMs.

Perspective now they’re buying blades from their competitor. So it doesn’t really feel like as much diversification as it feels like giving away all of your trade secrets to a, a competitor. So I think that they underestimated how much that that vibe would, um, would exist.

Allen Hall: What was the GE drive to change management and change culture at lm At other acquisitions that I’ve been around with ge.

Instantaneously. The old company is over, the new company is here, management changes, structure changes. They’re relatively quick at doing it, and then you’re part of the larger GE almost immediately. At lm, it never seemed to kick in that way. Even though they were selling blades to other companies besides obviously ge, but that hadn’t changed GE at other facilities, they would [00:19:00] still just take it over and call it ge, change the name on the building, and boom, it is now a GE facility and run with it.

Why did they not do that at lm? And was it more of a just cultural difference or was it a financially driven. Decision, I would

Phil Totaro: suggest it was cultural. You think it’s cultural? I, I think so, to be honest, because they, they, with the Danish management, I don’t think they wanted to. Uh, you know, immediately make a significant amount of changes because they knew that LM would lose customers if they immediately kind of vertically integrated LM as now a GE company.

I, I think they wanted to maintain that brand identity. And so more than a financial thing, I think it was a cultural thing and a brand thing to start with. But I think that [00:20:00] ultimately ended up being potentially the wrong thing. Either they could have bought and owned it and operated it as a separate, you know, uh, literally separate, you know, just an owned entity of GE Renova.

But it maintained the brand and, and the, you know, operational philosophy forever. But they, they. Owned it, and then it was like, well, we’re gonna integrate it. We’re not gonna integrate it. They started exchanging all this ip, you know, all the GE Renova Blade technology IP got assigned to LM and then got assigned back to GE Renova.

I mean, they, yeah, I, they, so I don’t think they, they really manage that well.

Allen Hall: Yeah. I mean, it’s hard to know, right? It’s, you can’t predict that. But I’m now curious, Rosemary, because I’ve. Listen to you describe LM quite a bit, and now I know a lot more about Danish culture and Danish companies than five years ago.

Clearly, [00:21:00] if GE had come in and had been, we’re clearinghouse, we’re gonna vertically integrate this company into the greater ge. The employees revolted, would they have lost the critical staff that they needed to run the place?

Rosemary Barnes: I don’t think so. Um, where are they? Where are they gonna go?

Allen Hall: No. Well then there’s vest, there’s other, at the time there were a lot of places to go.

Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. And I mean, people were moving, moving around. But you know, it’s, you’re talking about hundreds of engineers all at once in, um, the town Coaling that most of LM engineers work in is, um. 60,000 or something. In that area. In that area. Um, so yeah, uh, it’s not end Danish. People hate to move house,

Allen Hall: but it’s an American company coming into Denmark.

There’s that label that goes along with it. Besides the culture aspects, just having the moniker, the big meatball on the [00:22:00] side of the building would mean something. To Denmark.

Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. Yeah. But I, I don’t think that they would’ve seen, um, a sudden rush. I think that they would’ve seen a little bit higher than normal at attrition.

That’s, that’s my gut feeling. Okay. ’cause I just

Allen Hall: feel like in some aspects, GE did try to. Set things up in certain ways to make it run in a certain fashion. In other ways they didn’t, they just left it alone.

Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, no, I think that they took over with one idea and then their GE management changed and had a different idea because it doesn’t make any sense that they, they came in, um, this huge company of 300,000 plus global employees bought a company of about 10, 15,000 at the time.

Um, and then for all of the stuff where it was duplicated between, I mean, except for some, some corporate stuff, I’m sure that some corporate stuff got, you know, LMS version of it got slashed and, um, GE took [00:23:00] over. But for, for the bulk of the stuff that mattered to the company, um, it was the Tony Company whose.

Team stayed. And the GE one left, like there wasn’t a GE Blade team anymore after they bought lm. That was, they now worked for lm. Um, and, you know, across, across the board for everything. Technical, technical, um, that’s how it was. And then they, five years later, they’re like, actually no. Now we’re gonna get rid of the LM team and have the GE one.

I mean, why would you do that? To get rid of the. Small amount of in-house expertise you had, uh, um, one day and then a few years later just flip and like, no, we’re going back to our, like, they didn’t, didn’t retain you. You can’t just slash uh, get rid of a team and then five years later be like, okay, now the team starts up again.

Like, everyone wasn’t just like there hibernating waiting for, um, g to tell them that they could work for them again. So it obviously you would never go into that without your long being, your long-term plan. So that’s why I’m [00:24:00]pretty sure that they changed their mind.

Allen Hall: You could do that. If TPI exists without TPI, I don’t think they make the moves with LM like they’ve done

Rosemary Barnes: because they’ve got the backup.

Allen Hall: Yes. And now that TPI is on the rocks now I wonder if they’re rethinking the lm.

Rosemary Barnes: I mean, gee, I’ll buy T-P-I-T-P-I and uh, re rinse and repeat.

Allen Hall: Well, I don’t think they’re gonna, I you may, they, they may be forced into doing it just to keep the production line going. That happens quite a bit in business where you’re.

Buy your suppliers to keep the supply chain going. But the lm, it felt like for probably a year now, that GE was going to try to sell LM off in pieces or whatever they were gonna do. Does that stop, does GE think No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don’t wanna do that because I want, I need a factory in North Dakota that makes blades.

I need, I need blade factories. I own blade factories. I don’t wanna lose blade factories, I don’t wanna sell ’em off right now because I’m concerned about my other supplier, [00:25:00] TPI, not being here in a year,

Rosemary Barnes: but it’s too late. They’ve already, LM has like one or two factories left. I mean, some of them are GE factories, but some of them have been just closed or um, sold to competitors.

So. Um, it’s, it’s too, it’s too late for that. That’s why I, I, I, um, yeah. Like I said, you know, when the sale happened, we all assumed that these, you know, you learn something in an MBA and that gives you kind of an insight into how, how to manage these things because like, it obviously is not it, like to the average worker on the floor, it doesn’t make any sense how that you can close something and then realize it was a bad idea and then just open it again.

Like it doesn’t, it’s obvious that it can’t work like that. But that’s just what we see continuing to happen. So I’m questioning if an MBA is even makes you the smartest person in the company.

Phil Totaro: So here’s a message to all of our listeners. By the way, if you’re, particularly if you’re an engineer, if somebody’s making a business move and they can’t explain it to you in a way that you as an [00:26:00] engineer understand it, like Rosie just explained, then they are making a really bad business decision and you need to get.

Outta that ship.

https://weatherguardwind.com/renewables-tpi-finance/

Renewable Energy

Denmark & Germany Share Offshore Wind Power

Published

5 hours ago

September 17, 2025

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Denmark & Germany Share Offshore Wind Power

An offshore wind farm near the island of Bornholm, Denmark shows how international energy sharing creates global energy progress.

There’s a little Danish island in the Baltic Sea that’s about to make history. And it all started with a handshake worth seven billion euros.

Bornholm. Population: forty thousand souls. About the size of Tulsa, Oklahoma. For eight hundred years, this island has watched the tides of war and peace wash over Northern Europe.

But last week, Bornholm became the center of the most ambitious energy project in human history.

Here’s what just happened. The European Commission signed the largest energy grant in EU history. Six hundred forty five million euros. Seven hundred fifty six million dollars. All for one little island.

But that’s just the beginning. Siemens Energy just won the contract to build four massive converter stations. Two on Bornholm. One on Zealand. One in Germany. The job? Converting three gigawatts of offshore wind power into electricity that can flow between countries.

Think about that. Three gigawatts. That’s enough power for four and a half million homes.

And the cables to carry all that electricity? NKT, a Danish company, just signed a six hundred fifty million euro contract. They’ll lay two hundred kilometers of underwater cable. That’s one hundred twenty four miles of electrical cord running beneath the Baltic Sea.

But here’s where this story gets remarkable. The cable won’t be laid by just any ship. It’ll be installed by the NKT Eleonora. A cable laying vessel currently under construction. When it launches in twenty twenty seven, it’ll be one of the most advanced ships in the world. Powered by renewable energy. Built specifically for this project.

They’re not just connecting countries. They’re connecting the future.

Thomas Egebo, the Danish project leader, says this is about more than electricity. Quote: We are taking a big step towards a future where offshore wind from the Baltic Sea will supply electricity to millions of consumers. End quote.

But let me tell you what makes this story truly extraordinary. This isn’t about one country getting richer. This is about sharing power. Literally.

When Denmark has too much wind, Germany gets the surplus. When Germany needs more electricity, Denmark shares theirs. Two gigawatts flow to Germany. One point two gigawatts stay in Denmark.

It’s like having the perfect neighbor. The kind who loans you sugar when you’re out, except the sugar is enough electricity to power Berlin.

The construction timeline reads like something from science fiction. Construction begins in twenty twenty eight. The island goes operational in twenty thirty. By then, Bornholm will be the electrical heart of Northern Europe.

But here’s the part that will give you goosebumps. This project started during the pandemic. June twenty twenty. When the world was falling apart, when nations were closing borders, one hundred seventy one out of one hundred seventy nine Danish parliamentarians voted yes. Democrats and conservatives. Liberals and traditionalists. They all agreed on one thing: the future belongs to cooperation.

Stefan Kapferer, the German project leader, calls this efficient offshore cross linking between all countries bordering the North and Baltic Seas.

Translation: It’s the birth of a European electrical network. One that shares power, shares security, and shares prosperity.

The wind turbines will be built fifteen kilometers offshore. That’s about nine miles from Bornholm’s coast. Far enough to preserve the island’s beauty. Close enough to change everything.

And when it’s all finished, when the last cable is laid and the final turbine spins, Bornholm will have accomplished something that seemed impossible just five years ago.

They’ll have turned wind into bridges. They’ll have transformed former battlefields into power grids. They’ll have proven that cooperation isn’t just possible, it’s profitable.

The total investment? Seven billion euros. Nine billion dollars. The largest construction project in Danish history.

But the real investment isn’t money. It’s trust. It’s the belief that former enemies can become partners. That small islands can have big dreams. That sharing power creates more power for everyone.

So there you have it. A little island called Bornholm. Population forty thousand. About to become the electrical heartbeat of Northern Europe.

Because sometimes, the smallest places teach the biggest lessons about what’s possible when neighbors help neighbors.

https://weatherguardwind.com/denmark-germany-offshore/

Renewable Energy

Trump Helps China Dominate Wind

Published

6 hours ago

September 17, 2025

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Trump Helps China Dominate Wind

The Trump Administration begins a Section 232 investigation to block foreign-owned wind in the US. Meanwhile, China continues to pull ahead.

Welcome to Uptime News. Flash Industry News Lightning fast. Your host, Allen Hall, shares the renewable industry news you may have missed.

Allen Hall 2025: You know what’s happening to offshore wind in America? Ørsted stock down 87%. Revolution wind halted at 80% completion, $679 million in funding canceled across trial projects. But here’s what the industry press isn’t telling you. On August 13th, while everyone was watching Ørsted Stock collapsed, the Commerce Department quietly launched something else.

A Section 2 32, national Security Investigation of Wind Turbine Imports Section 2 32. The same Trade law President Trump used to slap tariffs on steel and aluminum in his first term. The investigation list, 12 criteria for protecting America’s wind turbine supply. [00:01:00] Domestic production capacity in port, concentration risks, foreign government subsidies, supply chain security, reading those criteria.

You think Washington finally gets it? You think they’re building a fortress around American wind manufacturing. But the opposite is true. Chinese wind turbine manufacturers now hold the top four global spots. Goldwind Envision Min Yang Windy, they control 60% of the global market prices 20% lower than Western competitors.

Yet in America, these Chinese turbines have virtually zero market share zero. The Section 2 32 investigation isn’t aimed. At China, it’s aimed at Europe. Siemens ESA dominates US offshore wind Vestas leads onshore in the quote unquote foreign threat. The Commerce Department is investigating it’s Danish and German companies building American wind farms.

Meanwhile, 7,000 miles away. China [00:02:00] installed 86 gigawatts of wind in 2024 more than the entire US has built in the last decade combined. Germany just canceled their Skara project’s. Chinese turbine order after national security warnings. But those same ING Yang turbines, they’re spinning right now off the coast of Italy, the only Chinese offshore wind farm in all of Europe.

Irony runs deeper while Trump halts European built wind farms citing national security China. Races they had with their everything everywhere, all at once. Energy strategy, building new before discarding the old, as president Xi puts it, China’s new energy law prioritizes renewable development while keeping coal as a backup.

America’s new policy, discard the new, go back to the old. European manufacturers are hemorrhaging money. Siemens GAA posted massive losses. Investors practicing quote unquote commercial [00:03:00] discipline. Industry. Speak for, we can’t compete with Chinese prices Today.

Orid faces a $9.4 billion rights issue, half funded by Danish taxpayers . But here’s what makes this story remarkable. The section 2 32 investigation could actually help Chinese manufacturers. If tariffs hit European turbines, Chinese companies already 20% cheaper, become the only viable alternative, except Trump won’t let them in the United States either.

So what’s the real strategy? Simple. It’s kill offshore wind entirely. Make it so expensive, so uncertain that investors flee. The national Security investigation isn’t about protecting American wind manufacturing. It’s about protecting American fossil fuels. Transportation, secretary Duffy called Wind Projects Fantasy while redirecting funds to real infrastructure translation ports for oil and gas, not [00:04:00] wind turbines.

The Commerce Department’s 12 criteria reads like a textbook on supply chain security, but they’re being weaponized to eliminate supply chains entirely, and China understands this. While America argues about wind power, China builds it 75% of global offshore wind installations this year. The section 2 32 investigation will conclude sometime next year.

It will recommend tariffs on European wind equipment to protect American manufacturing, but there is no offshore wind manufacturing to protect. That’s not an oversight. That’s the point.

https://weatherguardwind.com/trump-china-wind/