Show notes
Rosemary discusses emerging technologies from companies like Calix and CarbonCure to reduce emissions from cement production. Phil and Joel analyze how the European Parliament election results could impact renewable policies and the growing trend of co-locating wind, solar and battery storage projects. Plus Invenergy's Purple Skies project is the Wind Farm of the Week!
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!
Pardalote Consulting - https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com
Allen Hall: YouTube star Alex Choi, known for his car stunt videos, has been charged with, by federal authorities, for orchestrating a dangerous video involving a helicopter and a Lamborghini. The 24 year old content creator allegedly directed a video called Destroying a Lamborghini with Fireworks, in which two individuals in a helicopter shot fireworks at a speeding Lamborghini in the El Mirage.
Dry Lake Bed in San Bernardino County, of course, California. Troy faces a maximum of 10 years in federal prison if convicted of causing the displacement of an explosive or incendiary device on an aircraft. Now, Rosemary, I assume you have seen this, being the YouTube star that you are. You have seen this video of them shooting off Roman candles from this helicopter?
Rosemary Barnes: It hasn't come up in my suggested videos, no.
Allen Hall: I've seen it like 12 times.
Joel Saxum: Yeah, I've seen it and it's awesome. I feel bad for these guys. They created a cool video. But if you go by the letter of the law, there's a lot of things illegal about this. It's like the same concept of if you shoot a drone down with a firearm, you can get the same exact penalty as if you shot down a plane with people in it.
Because they're both aircraft that are covered under law by the FAA. So the FAA has got some pretty stinch stringent laws, and if you don't tow the line, you can get in a lot of trouble, as evidenced by This awesome video of shooting fireworks from a fire, from a helicopter at a Lamborghini in the desert.
Philip Totaro: If precedent is anything, we had a guy in Santa Barbara County who, during COVID, took up his little, tiger cub plane or whatever single engine prop, and did a YouTube video of him crashing his plane. He got six years. These guys can probably expect a little more than six.
Allen Hall: Wow.
Don't mess around with airplanes. I think that's the whole point of this is don't do stupid stuff around airplanes. They're not toys, boys and girls. They are definitely not toys. And the Wild West is over. Maybe you can do that in Australia, but you sure can't do that in the United States anymore.
Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm Allen Hall, and here's this week's headlines. The International Energy Agency's latest report reveals the clean energy investment landscape across top countries and regions. The United States invested 280 billion in clean energy in 2023, up from 200 billion in 2020.
Europe leads with the highest clean energy to fossil fuels investment ratio, spending more than 10 euros on clean energy for every euro invested. And fossil fuels. China saw the most robust growth in solar, wind and nuclear power, while India's clean energy investments reached 68 billion in 2023, a 40 percent increase from the 2016 to 2020 average.
In related news, the increasing occurrence of negative electricity prices in Europe is raising concerns among investors about the profitability. Renewable energy projects. Negative pricing has become more frequent as solar and wind production ramp up. While consumers benefit from the free electricity during these periods, investors worry about the impacts on returns.
Germany, Europe's biggest power market, had about 300 hours of prices below zero last year, and that may double in 2024. The solution lies in building more energy storage systems, such as batteries, to absorb excess electricity and stabilize prices. However, the current scale of energy storage deployment is.
Insufficient to mitigate the impact of negative pricing fully. Experts estimate that Europe's energy storage capacity needs to increase sevenfold. By 2030 to effectively address the issue. And in Iowa region fiber, a subsidiary of Alliant Energy has opened a wind turbine blade recycling facility. The facility aims to divert 30, 000 tons of scrap wind turbine materials annually by shredding the blades and transforming the extracted components into premium products for use in construction materials such as concrete and asphalt.
The eco friendly process provides a sustainable alternative to burning or land filling the blades. Reduces the carbon footprint of construction projects and enhances the durability and environmental resistance of materials. Region 5 has also established strategic partnerships nationwide to expand its recycling efforts.
That's this week's top news stories. Now, here's our panel. Renewable energy expert and founder of Pardalote Consulting, Rosemary Barnes. CEO and founder of IntelStor Phil Totaro. And the chief commercial officer of Weather Guard, Joel Saxum. Phil, over in Europe, the European Parliament elections are in, and this has caused a lot of consternation in the renewable energy markets.
As is being described in the United States, the European Parliament is shifting right. And the word I hear a lot on the U. S. news is far right. Now, I've done some research into that, and I don't Far right in the United States and far right in Europe are not really the same thing. So it's moved a little bit to the right and it seems like a little more off center may be the best way to approach it because I think some of the left and the right have picked up some some votes or some elections.
Here's the rub, and Rosemary, I could use your input on this too. It does seem like the, there is a push within Europe from some portion of the citizenry to slow down renewables and to go a little bit slower than what the current pace is. Now, is that The European Parliament doesn't have that much oversight, the European Commission seems to have the most oversight over what actually happens in Europe at the moment.
Do these Parliament results really change the landscape for renewable projects in Europe, or is it just a little bump in the road?
Philip Totaro: It changes them from the perspective of Influencing national elections as a result of these parliamentary elections, France already has announced a snap elections, Belgium Belgium's prime minister announced that he's going to step down and there's going to be a reelection for the PM there.
So the real influence of this is in pushing some of the member states in the EU. A little bit further to the right, which could have the consequence of having objection to or non adoption of some of the policies that have been proposed, like around this Green New Deal that they want to and that, frankly, Wind Europe got behind and has also been trying to champion.
The reality of it is it can eventually have an impact. Anything that's in the pipeline right now, probably unlikely to get affected by it, as long as, they're far enough along the permitting process. But anything that's earlier stage, That was hoping to get sped up as a result of permitting reforms in, in, France, Germany, Italy, Spain some of these things are looking a little more tenuous at this point.
And as we know, the markets never particularly capital markets, never like uncertainty. They don't want to put foreign direct investment into Countries where there's uncertainty about what the policy regime is going to be because they want to be able to provide certainty to the returns.
Joel Saxum: Phil, let me ask you a question here.
And this is pardon my ignorance on the European Parliament. But do they, they don't have direct influence over the country? So if I was a German developer and I was selling power within Germany and it's not crossing my borders, the European Parliament can't do anything for me or against me. It would only be if I'm going across borders or what is their actual influence?
Philip Totaro: No, it's a, that's a great, it's a great question. So yes, that you're correct in that the European Parliament only does things at the EU level where it crosses country borders. However Since a lot of the there's two, two things at play here. One is the shift to towards a little more center, right? In Europe is again, influencing what's going on in the individual countries.
So as I just mentioned with France, Belgium, you're even seeing some things in Spain, you're likely to see things in the Netherlands and a few other countries as well. Where this shift to the, the center right is gonna, play out in the individual countries and their country level parliament elections or, president or PM elections could could end up being influenced by this outcome.
Generally what happens when. Things start becoming more protectionist and more kind of conservative is it slows down free trade, which is bad for the renewable sector, and it slows down foreign direct investment, which is bad for the renewable sector. So as you mentioned, while you're right, they don't have a regulatory influence on what happens in any one specific country.
Other than how that is harmonized throughout the entire EU, so that when they want to enact policies across the entire EU, Parliament, can vote to adopt recommendations from the European Commission and Parliament. If they do that, there's,