EP97 – Dr. Hui Hu, Expert on Wind Turbine Icing Physics

Dr. Hui Hu, a leading researcher on aerospace and wind turbine icing physics and aerodynamics, joined us to talk about the research his lab is churning out, and the implications it may have for the wind industry. Plus, we discuss the latest TransAlta foundation news – all 50 turbine foundations will need to be replaced in Kent Hills, spelling a huge financial disaster for that project. We also get into a debate on ExxonMobil’s net-zero emissions goals and whether offshore turbine foundations should be left underwater…forever.

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Show Transcript – with Dr. Hui Hu on Wind Turbine Icing

00:00:00:02 – 00:00:03:02
Scientist is not just, you know,

00:00:03:15 – 00:00:06:00
after that dinner, just nothing to do.

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We are looking into something else now.

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And not only the banana.

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Also look at the other creatures
that live in

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and try to get inspiration for all this

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interesting observations.

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Welcome back.

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I’m Dan Blewett.

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

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bringing you the latest in wind energy,
tech news

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and policy.

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Welcome back to the Uptime
Wind Energy podcast.

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On today’s show,
we’ve got a great friend of up time.

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Our guest

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today is Dr Hui Hu and he is an aerospace
and mechanical engineer by trade,

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and he’s the director of the Advanced Flow
Diagnostics and Experimental

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Aerodynamics Laboratory and Aircraft
Icing Physics and A.I.

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Deicing Technology
Lab at Iowa State University.

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So he’s going to join us today
to talk about his extensive research

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and icing
and deicing different types of ice,

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some of the inspiration from nature
they’ve gotten

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in some of these new coatings
that are being developed.

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And it’s a really fascinating
conversation.

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Dr Hu who is going to be with us
in just a few moments.

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And before that,
we’ll talk about ExxonMobil.

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They’ve announced net zero emissions plans
by 2050.

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We’ll talk about
if that’s really a relevant goal.

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They’ve taken a lot of flak for that.

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We’ll talk about 3D printed magnets
and some of the implications therein.

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We’ll talk about cracks
in a wind turbine foundation

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that they found in a recent forum.

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We discussed this on a previous episode,

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but it looks like now

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they’re going to replace
all 50 foundations from that wind farm.

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And after the interview,
we’ll talk about Japan’s spending $43

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million on studies
regarding undersea cables, some new uses

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from Britain on undersea cables
and whether turbine reefs

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might be a really huge, beneficial effect.

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Really, the likes of which we haven’t seen
before as far as underwater

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habitat growth off offshore.

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So before we get going,
I want to remind you

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you can subscribe to Uptime Tech News,
our weekly podcast, update and newsletter

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in the show notes below,
as well as Rosemary’s excellent YouTube

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channel where she talks about everything
renewable energy.

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All right,
well, let’s start with translator’s woes,

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so they own the two sites in

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Kent Hills, up in New Brunswick, Canada,
and it’s we’ve talked about this before,

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but the 50 wind turbines on the two sites
in Kent Hills,

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it’s confirmed now that they’re going
to replace all of the foundations,

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which is going to cost the company
between 75 and $100 million,

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in addition to the 3.4 million

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per month in revenue they expect to lose
while the turbines are offline.

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Rosemary this seems like a nightmare.

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My question, I guess to you is
what are they going

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to do with the turbine?

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Why they’re replacing his foundation?

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Is it

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they’re getting completely deconstructed,
they’re going to lay it down somewhere?

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Or what might they do here?

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Well, I think that they have to
take the Blades off first

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and then I don’t know if they have
to fully fully disassemble it.

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But to be honest,
I would assume that they do have to.

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I mean, and to and isn’t designed to
just kind of like, lie on its back,

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even if it looks like that,
that might work.

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So I’m going to guess it’s
going to be kind of like a deconstruction

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reconstruction type of activity.

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Unfortunately, no sleep mode.

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You can’t like

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put those blinders next to it
and just like gently nods off for a while.

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Alan, this is obviously a huge problem.

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I mean, you’d think I mean, Trends
also has 20

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looks like 20 different sites
between the U.S.

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and Canada.

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But I mean, you imagine
some like this could have the potential

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to bankrupt a company.

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Oh, that’s why they’re insured, right?

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I think there’s a lot of insurance
companies that are going to

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bridge the gap here
because they can’t make money.

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But at some point

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the insurance companies are going to go
after either the engineers or the

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construction company for the installation
of something errors off.

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And weirdly enough,
it sounds like they’re just large crowd,

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large cracks in the foundations
that propagated.

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And to me, that always says reinforcement
bar a rebar.

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Something in the rebar wasn’t quite right,

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and it only takes, you know, one minor

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variable to be thrown off

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here because the loads are so high,
you got this massive wind turbines.

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And there’s really windy conditions
and it’s hot and it’s cold.

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Concrete doesn’t necessarily
like all those variables unless it’s

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really overdesigned, you could develop
cracks and and breakage over time.

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And at this point, I think

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I’ve seen this in other countries
where they’ve shown cracked foundations.

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I think it needs to go around,

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check the foundations right now
to make sure everything’s

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working like we think that it should.

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Well, do they, though,
because if you find one of these issues,

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then you have to fix it?

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I mean, I mean, a lot of times

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people don’t go to the doctor
because they don’t want to know what could

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be wrong with them.

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It might be a little spooky to go check

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all your foundations
with this news with trans.

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Also, I think in this case,
it was a design problem, right?

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It wasn’t that they made it incorrectly.

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Although I was surprised
by the weather conditions, I believe that

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that was actually a design fault,
and that’s why that’s why they don’t.

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They know

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they have to change all of the foundations
in this windfarm and you can do it.

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It’s like a paper, a paper exercise
to to check other turbines in the

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province or in the country.

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You don’t need to to go out and physically
look for cracks because you’ll be able

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to check from the drawings, whether
whether it was designed correctly or not.

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That makes sense.

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So you’re saying it probably wasn’t

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like an issue, like the way it was poured
or something like that, like

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they can just go to schematics and yeah,
yeah, it doesn’t sound like that.

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That was the problem.

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So big, big problem for them,
and it will definitely affect

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whose insurance is paying for it
because, you know, if it’s a

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if it’s a design problem,

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I guess it’s possible that it could be
a problem with the standards or something.

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But then it would be like a really,
really widespread problem.

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So it sounds like someone just
just incorrectly designed it.

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And I would assume
that professional indemnity

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insurance would be would be covering it
and that premiums will be going up.

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Yeah.

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Well, and it sounds like bondholders, it
so says here bondholders of more than 50%

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of the outstanding principal have their
right to immediately collect what’s owed.

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And it sounds like that’s
a scary proposition for trans alta.

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And what does that mean?

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That’s interesting.

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Usually, bondholders
don’t have that right.

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That’s at least
and these kind of projects, which is odd.

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So does that mean that they can get
their money back out of the project?

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Sounds, but there’s a default. Maybe?
I don’t know, right?

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I guess it’d be a default, right?

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Yeah, that would be bad
if that’s the case.

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one of the reasons you use bonds
is because they’re like a stable platform

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and as an investment,
it makes a lower percentage.

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It’s not as if doesn’t fluctuate
as much as stocks do,

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and they tend to be more around.

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Industrial projects like these are power
projects building projects.

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Bridge projects tend to be bonds

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because they just pay a steady rate.

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And if the bondholders can back out
and say

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there was something really off

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in this bridge wind turbine building

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and I want my money back, ouch.

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That can really squash a project quickly

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and that you don’t want that
to start right

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and don’t want to get put in anybody’s

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heads like, yeah,
I can back out of a project

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if things are not going
the way that I want to.

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It’s not good.

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Yes, we’ll see what happens,
I’m sure this saga will continue on.

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Obviously, we’re talking about it
a couple of months ago

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and now here’s
the next sort of evolution of it,

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and we’ll see how this continues
to evolve over time.

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So moving on, teams from the John L’Amour
Institute in France

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have developed the technology,
or at least are perfecting

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some current technology
to 3D print magnets.

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Alan, this seems like mind blowing,
obviously.

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I mean, typically magnets
are just what taken from the Earth.

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But here we’re now getting
I mean, we’ve talked about so much

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about 3-D printing,
be it concrete or thermoplastic or metals.

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Now we’re able to 3D print magnets.

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Yeah, it’s it’s crazy, right?

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We’ve all played around with magnets
as kids, and that can be these

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very hard, brittle things
that if you drop of the crack in the end.

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And so

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to 3D print, something like that
seems almost impossible

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because there’s still magic and magnetism.

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I think it’s one of those things

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we don’t really understand all that
well at times and in the United States.

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And I think across the world,
everybody’s getting concerned that

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the rare earth minerals
that make up some of these really strong

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man magnets are located mainly in China.

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And in order to find alternatives
for Chinese mined magnets,

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they’re looking to these 3-D
printed pieces

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where they can basically form a magnet in
any shape using either recycled material

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or new types of magnetic materials
to be more efficient.

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So you don’t have to machine them
or form them like you would,

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you would just put them
like you’re going to build a concrete

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house would be a very similar thing,
right?

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You’re just going to start
printing these magnets that

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the exact shape and size, which is things
we really haven’t done much of.

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And then the motor world generator world,
we just use,

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you know, we make them in the
in the sheet that we want to,

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but we haven’t really super controlled it
because you can’t do a lot

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with those magnet materials.

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But 3D printing them is.

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Astounding.

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I think I think it’s a really
an interesting change and Rosemary.

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Can you see where this is going?
Yeah, I love this one.

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This is I mean,
I love additive manufacturing.

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It is like magic and the air
and then the magnets.

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I mean, in a lot of magic tricks,
the you know, the secret is magnets.

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They are basically magic.

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But what I really love about it
is that if you don’t need the same

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magnetic field strength everywhere,

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you can put the magnet where you need it
and not where you don’t.

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So you can really

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start to start to make the

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the component that you need, rather
than the one that you could manufacture.

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And in that way, it really reminds me of
when I first got interested

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in composite materials,

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it was kind of for the same like,
Oh, well, this changes everything now.

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We don’t need to, you know, just machine
something out of a block of of steel.

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We can say we need strength

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in this direction, in this location,
and then we can we can make it.

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And so, yeah,
I think additive and now, you know, like

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additive
has done that to all sorts of components.

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And now to add magnets to it,
it really seems like it’s going to

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help solve some of the problems
that we have with the rare earth

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supply chain
and any any kinds of expensive components

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or expensive materials
can be used in a more targeted way.

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So I think
I think that’s going to really help

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help solve some of the problems
that we’re anticipating in supply chains

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coming up in the next decade or two.

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And so last year on the docket before
we get to our interview is ExxonMobil.

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So they’ve set a public,
you know, net zero ambition by 2050,

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which has been met
with a lot of sharp criticism

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that it’s not very ambitious at all,
I suppose.

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Rosemary, what’s the deal with ExxonMobil?

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Was this just sort of a PR
play and not really, really

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moving the

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chains
or what’s what’s going on with Exxon?

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I do think it’s a weird PR play
because now

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they’ve got this huge
philosophical inconsistency.

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If they are recognizing on the one hand,
you know, this announcement well,

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I’ve seen a lot of people say,
Oh, you know, like actually,

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there’s some glimmer of hope

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in this terrible announcement
because now they’re finally accepting

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that climate change is real
and something needs to be done about it.

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But if that’s true, then why have they got
plans to just expand and expand

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fossil fuels, which is incompatible
with doing something about climate change?

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So I don’t know if it was.

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I think that they had the
the better position,

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more logically defensible
when they just said

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climate change isn’t real
and we won’t do anything about it.

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At least it was consistent.

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Now it’s like,

00:12:22:15 – 00:12:25:23
yeah, climate change is important and
what’s not going to do anything about it?

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It’s really weird to me.

00:12:28:20 – 00:12:30:00
Well, and I want to pick your

00:12:30:00 – 00:12:33:03
brain about these different scopes
of greenhouse gas emissions.

00:12:33:03 – 00:12:35:22
So there’s Scope one and two and three.

00:12:35:22 – 00:12:38:23
And so from this article from ABC News,
they are saying Scope one

00:12:39:01 – 00:12:44:12
refers to direct emissions
coming from the company scope to emissions

00:12:44:12 – 00:12:45:11
associated with the energy

00:12:45:11 – 00:12:48:21
that they produce , or I’m sorry,
they purchase or used to run operations.

00:12:49:07 – 00:12:52:06
And then scope three
is sort of like end consumer.

00:12:52:06 – 00:12:57:00
So maybe, you know, were consumers
using their pumped gas in their car?

00:12:57:20 – 00:12:58:21
Can you explain a little deeper?

00:12:58:21 – 00:13:01:17
Well, what the difference in scope
one and scope to us? Yeah.

00:13:01:17 – 00:13:02:22
So this

00:13:02:22 – 00:13:04:15
this isn’t something
that I’ve actually spent

00:13:04:15 – 00:13:08:00
a lot of time digging into,
because it’s kind of it’s very

00:13:09:14 – 00:13:11:05
it’s kind of complicated and

00:13:11:05 – 00:13:15:04
it’s more like of an accounting thing
than an engineering thing because I mean,

00:13:15:04 – 00:13:19:15
you just define the emissions pretty well,
the different types of them.

00:13:19:15 – 00:13:23:12
But obviously, what is scope
one emissions for one company?

00:13:23:12 – 00:13:25:03
Those same emissions are going to be,
you know,

00:13:25:03 – 00:13:26:18
scope two emissions for someone else.

00:13:26:18 – 00:13:30:21
And so the big criticism with Exxon
Mobil is they’re not close to the Scope

00:13:30:21 – 00:13:36:06
three emissions, which is emissions that
occur when their product is is burned.

00:13:36:06 – 00:13:39:05
So we’re using their product
creates emissions.

00:13:39:14 – 00:13:43:12
So that’s going to be
so they’re selling a lot of a lot of fuel

00:13:43:12 – 00:13:44:20
with a lot of fossil fuel

00:13:44:20 – 00:13:48:13
and somewhere down the line say a power
station is going to burn that,

00:13:48:13 – 00:13:53:08
then that is going to be scope
one emissions for the the power plant

00:13:53:17 – 00:13:56:09
and then anyone who buys electricity
from that power plant,

00:13:56:09 – 00:13:58:09
that’s going to be their Scope
two emissions.

00:13:58:09 – 00:14:02:01
So you can say that if everybody accounted
for all of their scope

00:14:02:01 – 00:14:05:04
one, two and three, you’d end up triple
counting everything.

00:14:05:04 – 00:14:09:03
Once the whole world is committed to net
zero and is accounting for these three,

00:14:09:10 – 00:14:10:16
then you triple count.

00:14:10:16 – 00:14:14:11
So I guess on that technicality,
what Exxon is saying

00:14:14:11 – 00:14:17:19
is is true that, you know,
it doesn’t make any sense for everyone

00:14:17:19 – 00:14:18:21
to be looking at all of them.

00:14:18:21 – 00:14:21:09
But I think the reason why people
are rolling their eyes

00:14:21:09 – 00:14:23:16
at this announcement
is because you’re like,

00:14:23:17 – 00:14:26:14
you’re a fossil fuel company
and you’re planning to sell more and more.

00:14:26:14 – 00:14:30:02
So you’re not just in charge
of your own scope one and two emissions,

00:14:30:02 – 00:14:34:10
you’re actively pushing
those emissions onto your customers.

00:14:35:09 – 00:14:39:08
So it it’s pretty cynical to say Scope
three emissions

00:14:39:08 – 00:14:43:16
don’t matter for fossil fuel manufacturer
that it might be OK for something.

00:14:43:16 – 00:14:45:13
If you’re selling cakes or something,

00:14:45:13 – 00:14:48:21
then maybe you’ve got a more
defensible position that your scope.

00:14:49:01 – 00:14:51:09
Emissions aren’t that relevant.

00:14:51:09 – 00:14:53:15
You know, you don’t know
if someone puts it in, puts it

00:14:53:15 – 00:14:56:17
in a fire or something and generates
electricity from your cake or whatever.

00:14:56:17 – 00:14:57:22
But ExxonMobile know

00:14:57:22 – 00:15:01:14
what’s happening to that,
to their product, to people selling cakes.

00:15:01:21 – 00:15:03:14
This sounds terrible.

00:15:03:14 – 00:15:04:09
You could.

00:15:04:09 – 00:15:07:00
And how is that my responsibility
as a baker?

00:15:07:05 – 00:15:11:12
I mean, yeah, that’s it’s one thing
when it’s a bakery and another another

00:15:11:12 – 00:15:16:21
thing when it’s a fossil fuel company
that has 11 use in mind for that product.

00:15:17:07 – 00:15:21:22
Of all the post-apocalyptic movies
I’ve watched or read, and my most recent

00:15:21:22 – 00:15:25:16
was The Road by Cormac McCarthy,
no one has burned any excess food.

00:15:25:16 – 00:15:27:18
They’re eating there.
They’re eating their excess food.

00:15:28:18 – 00:15:30:19
Anyway, Alan is the bleakest movie

00:15:32:15 – 00:15:33:04
they made.

00:15:33:04 – 00:15:35:04
Oh, they made that into a movie,
didn’t they?

00:15:35:04 – 00:15:37:11
It was a bleak, as bleak as the book.

00:15:38:02 – 00:15:41:07
It’s my boyfriend’s favorite book.

00:15:41:07 – 00:15:42:00
I wasn’t.

00:15:42:00 – 00:15:44:20
I wasn’t enthralled
by the book personally, but we’ll go there

00:15:45:00 – 00:15:45:13
another time.

00:15:45:13 – 00:15:49:15
Alan, how this math this math scope
one scope to scope three.

00:15:49:15 – 00:15:51:06
You’re shaking your head a little bit.

00:15:51:06 – 00:15:53:12
I mean, what does this mean to you?

00:15:53:12 – 00:15:57:12
It’s it’s it’s just in a different
accounting system to me.

00:15:57:12 – 00:16:02:04
And do we really have to worry
what Exxon does?

00:16:03:00 – 00:16:06:06
I think as an engineer,
what the answer is on our side

00:16:06:06 – 00:16:10:21
as we make the cost of energy cheaper
than what Exxon can produce it for.

00:16:10:21 – 00:16:13:20
And it doesn’t matter anymore,
and that’s where we’re headed.

00:16:13:21 – 00:16:14:23
So everybody’s worried

00:16:14:23 – 00:16:19:01
about Exxon all the time
and the United States, because it’s a U.S.

00:16:19:01 – 00:16:21:09
based company,
there’s a lot of fervor about it.

00:16:22:01 – 00:16:26:06
But the answer is on the other side
is the stuff that Rosemary is doing

00:16:26:06 – 00:16:27:14
with all these wind turbine people,

00:16:27:14 – 00:16:30:22
all the solar people are doing,
they’re making the impact Exxon’s

00:16:31:13 – 00:16:34:11
most likely going to be
on the wrong side of the equation.

00:16:34:19 – 00:16:36:05
It’s just a matter of time.

00:16:36:05 – 00:16:39:11
All right, we’re going to jump
to our conversation with Dr.

00:16:39:11 – 00:16:43:05
Hui Hu on wind turbine blade icing.

00:16:50:23 – 00:16:52:04
All right, well, Doctor Who,

00:16:52:04 – 00:16:55:03
thank you so much for coming on the show,
we’re excited to chat with you today.

00:16:55:03 – 00:16:56:19
Yeah, no problem.

00:16:56:19 – 00:16:57:15
You’re welcome.

00:16:57:15 – 00:17:00:04
Obviously, we want to talk
about your research at Iowa State,

00:17:00:12 – 00:17:03:22
and we know since the Texas incident
last year with the winter

00:17:03:22 – 00:17:06:01
have been easing.
You know, you’ve got a lot of calls,

00:17:06:01 – 00:17:08:10
you’ve been really, really busy
since then.

00:17:08:10 – 00:17:10:17
So we want to talk, obviously
about some of the stuff

00:17:10:17 – 00:17:13:07
you’ve learned over the years
in your Iowa lab.

00:17:13:07 – 00:17:13:18
But first,

00:17:13:18 – 00:17:16:09
I think some clarification on climate
will be important

00:17:16:09 – 00:17:18:11
because obviously Texas
is here in the U.S.

00:17:18:11 – 00:17:19:08
and there’s wind turbines

00:17:19:08 – 00:17:22:11
all over the U.S., including tons of them
in the Midwest where you are.

00:17:23:02 – 00:17:27:10
So you can can you kind of take us through
why was it such a crisis in Texas?

00:17:27:22 – 00:17:30:12
And yet, why do the Dakotas and you know,

00:17:30:12 – 00:17:34:06
the Minnesota’s
and the huge cold belt in the Midwest?

00:17:34:16 – 00:17:38:04
Why don’t they have
the same issues that Texas had?

00:17:38:05 – 00:17:40:16
I mean, what’s
what’s the situation with climate?

00:17:40:22 – 00:17:44:20
The second question
you mentioned that why the Texas,

00:17:44:20 – 00:17:49:01
particularly in last year,
was hit by the storm and have a problem.

00:17:49:08 – 00:17:55:15
And the Midwest, like Iowa, we have cold
winter every year, but we don’t see that

00:17:55:21 – 00:18:00:22
actually does, because for the ice bed up,
there are different kind of ice.

00:18:01:05 – 00:18:02:13
We all know that ice

00:18:03:12 – 00:18:06:10
build up have two key factors.

00:18:06:10 – 00:18:08:18
one is cold temperature.

00:18:09:02 – 00:18:11:14
Another is moisture.

00:18:11:14 – 00:18:13:06
A water, OK?

00:18:13:06 – 00:18:15:10
We usually is scientifically

00:18:16:13 – 00:18:20:13
words, so we call the liquid water content
within the airflow unity.

00:18:21:07 – 00:18:23:21
In Iowa, we are cold, but we are dry.

00:18:24:13 – 00:18:26:23
But in the East Coast,

00:18:27:10 – 00:18:32:08
they’re usually not that cold, but
lots of moisture propagate in this time.

00:18:32:20 – 00:18:36:04
In Texas, they’re usually not a cold.

00:18:36:15 – 00:18:39:22
But last year it was hit by the cold snow.

00:18:39:22 – 00:18:43:18
And also you have Gulf of Mexico nearby.

00:18:43:18 – 00:18:45:21
There’s lots of moisture came from there.

00:18:45:21 – 00:18:51:21
As a result, you have temperature
not as cold as Midwest, but

00:18:51:21 – 00:18:57:05
lots of moisture that’s caused up probably
yearly for ice and for cold and dry.

00:18:57:09 – 00:18:59:06
We get the remise.

00:18:59:06 – 00:19:02:20
And for that, not that cold,
not a moisture.

00:19:02:20 – 00:19:04:09
You get a glass ice.

00:19:04:09 – 00:19:08:15
And we all know that glass ice
is much more trouble than can cause

00:19:08:15 – 00:19:13:09
much more damage
to the aerodynamic performance of the air

00:19:13:09 – 00:19:16:21
falls, for example
cross-section of the wind turbine.

00:19:16:23 – 00:19:21:04
Therefore, you will lose all the lift out.

00:19:21:11 – 00:19:25:04
Generate that course are much less torque

00:19:25:04 – 00:19:28:08
to drive the turbine to rotate.

00:19:28:14 – 00:19:30:14
If turbine cannot rotate, of course,
there’s is.

00:19:30:19 – 00:19:32:22
Electricity was generated.

00:19:33:05 – 00:19:35:22
So the big issue is the humidity in Texas.

00:19:35:23 – 00:19:39:12
Obviously, that makes that better climate
for ice formation.

00:19:39:19 – 00:19:41:06
Yeah, that’s as I mentioned.

00:19:41:06 – 00:19:43:04
You have to factor this to.

00:19:43:04 – 00:19:44:22
There’s balance together.

00:19:44:22 – 00:19:48:09
Make some very non-linear we have.

00:19:48:09 – 00:19:49:08
I will say that

00:19:50:09 – 00:19:51:19
not only cold,

00:19:51:19 – 00:19:56:03
not only moisture,
you really have this to work together

00:19:56:10 – 00:19:59:07
and to ease some conditions
that can be quite bad.

00:20:00:07 – 00:20:04:04
So you said non-linear, you mean like
just even small changes in humidity,

00:20:04:04 – 00:20:07:18
you could have just really gigantic
effects on how much ice builds up.

00:20:08:00 – 00:20:11:22
That’s true
because we all know that for the Air

00:20:12:02 – 00:20:14:19
France has a scientific point of view.

00:20:14:23 – 00:20:20:20
What are turned to the ice is for a high
energy level to the low energy level.

00:20:21:01 – 00:20:24:05
So as a result, you need to get that.

00:20:24:07 – 00:20:28:19
We call the lighter heat fusion release
how fast that

00:20:29:22 – 00:20:31:05
heat was released.

00:20:31:05 – 00:20:34:15
What determines
what kind of ice you’re going to build up?

00:20:34:23 – 00:20:37:22
So that’s really not near term mean.

00:20:38:04 – 00:20:43:04
So some of the conditions
that can go very bad, for example,

00:20:43:04 – 00:20:48:09
glass ice that we use to say,
and there you not only have

00:20:48:20 – 00:20:54:01
that heat unit is tremendous
because of the high moisture in the air.

00:20:54:17 – 00:20:57:15
However, temperature is not low enough.

00:20:57:16 – 00:21:02:03
Therefore, that heat
release cannot disparage fast.

00:21:02:08 – 00:21:07:21
We will accumulate locally,
make the water do now turning into the ice

00:21:07:21 – 00:21:12:12
right away, then air blow
the mixture of the water and the ice

00:21:13:05 – 00:21:16:19
go too crazy into the region that is water
not near.

00:21:17:03 – 00:21:19:18
We have what we call the water.

00:21:19:18 – 00:21:25:22
Rumbek process cause the geometry
of the complicated ice buildup doctor who.

00:21:25:22 – 00:21:26:11
There’s there’s.

00:21:27:11 – 00:21:29:06
two main

00:21:29:06 – 00:21:32:22
kinds of ice here, and I just want to get
a little more description about them.

00:21:33:04 – 00:21:36:16
So ryme ice is something
that we typically see on airplanes,

00:21:36:19 – 00:21:41:22
which is looks like smaller ice crystals
that seem to accumulate

00:21:42:07 – 00:21:45:04
on the leading edge of a wing
or on the front of the airplane.

00:21:45:11 – 00:21:47:07
Pretty normal things.

00:21:47:07 – 00:21:51:00
If you’ve flown a long time in cold
climates, you see rim ice a good bit.

00:21:51:07 – 00:21:53:22
The glaze ice is the one
which is a little bit different

00:21:54:01 – 00:21:57:21
because you don’t see
as much in aerospace, but it seems like

00:21:57:21 – 00:22:03:04
the glaze ice was really important
in Texas, and it’s sort of a much thicker

00:22:03:13 – 00:22:06:07
layer of ice like something
you may get on your automobile.

00:22:06:16 – 00:22:10:00
one, like in Massachusetts, when it’s
really cold that you get these sort of

00:22:11:05 – 00:22:13:20
the water tends to run back big
and then freeze.

00:22:14:04 – 00:22:18:06
You get globs right as big blocks
that tend to build up on your car.

00:22:18:16 – 00:22:23:12
It sounds like Texas was more
this thicker glaze ice.

00:22:23:18 – 00:22:27:12
And how thick can the glaze ice

00:22:28:05 – 00:22:30:12
be on a winter and how thick can they get?

00:22:30:22 – 00:22:33:16
What kind of ice you get going to get.

00:22:33:16 – 00:22:36:22
It really depend on the temperature
and the humidity, as

00:22:37:12 – 00:22:42:00
you mentioned at the four aircraft,
since they appear to fly very high

00:22:42:00 – 00:22:46:20
in the sky at their temperature, very low,
but usually moisture in the clouds

00:22:47:07 – 00:22:51:18
in that altitude also relatively low
compared on the ground.

00:22:52:00 – 00:22:55:19
Therefore,
when the water that super cold droplets

00:22:55:19 – 00:22:58:22
in the cloud
impinge on the surface that goes into

00:22:59:14 – 00:23:03:03
the total amount is less
when they’re impinging into the leading

00:23:03:03 – 00:23:06:14
edge, that’s most of the location
they’re going to be.

00:23:06:14 – 00:23:11:11
Japan turned to the ice right away
when the lights turned to ice.

00:23:11:18 – 00:23:15:16
You will get very small
graying of that remise.

00:23:16:05 – 00:23:20:17
However, as you mentioned that in Texas,
usually temperature

00:23:20:22 – 00:23:25:12
is not that cold comparably
to worry about high above in the sky

00:23:26:01 – 00:23:30:03
that you have lots of moisture
came from that Gulf of Mexico.

00:23:30:12 – 00:23:34:21
Therefore, there
the total water amount is much sick.

00:23:35:14 – 00:23:38:07
They’ve weakened higher and temperatures
lower.

00:23:38:07 – 00:23:43:14
Therefore, warm water flowing into the ice
for the first punch and the heat

00:23:43:14 – 00:23:47:19
you release cannot be dissipated
because temperature is not that cold.

00:23:48:05 – 00:23:52:23
Therefore, the second bunch up the water
impinges on the air quality.

00:23:53:06 – 00:23:55:17
They don’t froze into the ice right away.

00:23:55:23 – 00:23:58:07
Therefore, air will push them.

00:23:59:08 – 00:24:01:01
Moved to the downstream.

00:24:01:01 – 00:24:02:20
That’s what we call the Rumbek.

00:24:02:20 – 00:24:06:02
As a result, and the water

00:24:06:02 – 00:24:08:23
film, while Kerry the ice water mixture.

00:24:09:04 – 00:24:11:23
Cover no honey at the leading edge,

00:24:12:06 – 00:24:17:05
but also run back to cover
almost all the blade surface.

00:24:17:18 – 00:24:21:01
And second question
you ask How bad did that

00:24:21:07 – 00:24:24:04
glass house can be become?

00:24:24:05 – 00:24:29:15
Actually, we happened to
did field a study of one turbine

00:24:29:22 – 00:24:33:03
which said near the ocean very similar

00:24:33:19 – 00:24:36:20
to what Texas wind turbine location is.

00:24:36:21 – 00:24:41:20
You have an ocean not far away,
but you have temperature now that cold.

00:24:42:04 – 00:24:44:20
We found that after 24 hours

00:24:44:20 – 00:24:48:06
of the storm, that a slow condition

00:24:48:18 – 00:24:52:18
the blade at the leading edge of the tip,

00:24:53:04 – 00:24:56:23
the thickness can be as high as point
three meters.

00:24:57:04 – 00:24:58:06
That’s about twelve

00:24:59:07 – 00:24:59:17
inch.

00:24:59:17 – 00:25:02:07
What was fatally shot?

00:25:02:07 – 00:25:02:15
Yeah.

00:25:02:15 – 00:25:05:23
Of this,
yeah, slow is significant, rosemary.

00:25:05:23 – 00:25:08:03
Obviously, you worked on

00:25:08:03 – 00:25:11:16
the ice mitigation team for on wind power,
did you guys?

00:25:11:16 – 00:25:15:04
I mean, was this issue of run back ice
a pretty significant challenge?

00:25:15:10 – 00:25:18:04
Well, it’s interesting
because it’s all through the academic

00:25:18:04 – 00:25:21:07
literature on deicing.
It’s mentioned a lot.

00:25:21:21 – 00:25:24:07
And so I made a point to

00:25:24:17 – 00:25:27:17
to ask every wind farm
operator and cold climates

00:25:27:17 – 00:25:31:22
about how much of a problem
it was because you can’t.

00:25:31:23 – 00:25:32:18
one of the issues

00:25:32:18 – 00:25:36:01
with installing a deicing system
is that you can’t hate the whole blade

00:25:36:01 – 00:25:39:19
if you like the amount of heat energy
that you need to melt the ice.

00:25:40:10 – 00:25:44:08
If you put that over
the entire blade surface, then it’s it’s

00:25:44:10 – 00:25:46:07
absolutely prohibitive.

00:25:46:07 – 00:25:50:10
It’s megawatts of energy
that you’d need to disarm a blade.

00:25:50:21 – 00:25:53:04
So you have to target it.

00:25:53:04 – 00:25:57:05
And the trailing edge area has a lot
more surface area than the leading edge.

00:25:57:20 – 00:26:01:08
So in most cases,
people are leading a heating

00:26:01:08 – 00:26:03:01
just the leading edge of the Blades.

00:26:03:01 – 00:26:06:02
So there’s this big contrast
between what the academic literature is

00:26:06:02 – 00:26:10:06
saying is important
as a lot of focus on one black ice versus

00:26:10:06 – 00:26:11:15
what’s happening in industry.

00:26:11:15 – 00:26:15:10
And it was really interesting
because without exception, every single

00:26:15:10 – 00:26:19:19
wind farm operator that I talked to said
run back ice is something that academics

00:26:19:19 – 00:26:24:01
care about, and it’s never
no one had ever noticed a problem.

00:26:24:10 – 00:26:27:11
But that said, I never
I never talked to anybody who saw

00:26:27:23 – 00:26:30:12
300 millimeter thick run black ice.

00:26:30:12 – 00:26:33:21
If found if they were experiencing that,
then I can guarantee you that they

00:26:34:05 – 00:26:35:19
they would have been very concerned
about it.

00:26:35:19 – 00:26:40:08
So yeah, and the wind farms
that I was working with were in areas

00:26:40:08 – 00:26:44:10
like Quebec and New Brunswick,
which are pretty, pretty moist.

00:26:45:07 – 00:26:48:13
And then a lot in Sweden,
those were the main areas I was working.

00:26:48:13 – 00:26:51:20
So a bit a bit different weather
conditions than, yeah, than

00:26:53:06 – 00:26:54:22
Texas or something like that.

00:26:54:22 – 00:26:58:03
Our air rage, depending on location,
for example, in that

00:26:58:03 – 00:27:01:20
in the Midwest area,
that poor reduction due to the ice,

00:27:02:01 – 00:27:07:03
maybe about 10% of the up to 15%

00:27:07:03 – 00:27:11:09
not as high as what Texas get, about 50%.

00:27:11:16 – 00:27:14:05
And in the in the paper we published

00:27:14:12 – 00:27:18:06
based on the field measurements
during that stone period,

00:27:18:14 – 00:27:21:00
we see the maximum of 80%

00:27:21:09 – 00:27:24:03
and that’s correspond that

00:27:24:06 – 00:27:28:13
about three meter
thickness of ice buildup.

00:27:28:13 – 00:27:32:06
Of course, that’s a particularly strong

00:27:32:13 – 00:27:35:20
experienced by the turbine for 24 hours.

00:27:36:04 – 00:27:39:14
And for others,
maybe not as significant as that, but

00:27:40:02 – 00:27:46:04
the power reduction from 10% to 30%
that’s yearly

00:27:46:06 – 00:27:50:19
is the average based on what we know
from the wind farmers.

00:27:51:08 – 00:27:54:06
And when when we’re talking about
the power reduction, is it?

00:27:55:08 – 00:27:58:02
Because obviously,
Alan, like these can stall out, right,

00:27:58:02 – 00:28:01:01
and they’ll just stop spinning
if the error is the airfoil gets,

00:28:01:01 – 00:28:03:11
you know what to poorly shaped
from glazed eyes.

00:28:03:11 – 00:28:07:09
But I mean, if you said
80% power reduction, does that just mean

00:28:07:09 – 00:28:10:13
it’s been off like completely not moving
for a pretty long period of time?

00:28:10:13 – 00:28:11:22
Or is it really speed,

00:28:11:22 – 00:28:16:04
you know, spinning 80% slower than normal
or some combination of the two?

00:28:16:14 – 00:28:19:12
Yeah, that’s during the field we see.

00:28:19:12 – 00:28:23:21
We also know that honey use our drone
to fly near that hip hop popped

00:28:25:13 – 00:28:26:06
one turbine.

00:28:26:06 – 00:28:30:15
That’s about 50 meter
milhao blade to take a picture.

00:28:30:15 – 00:28:33:04
Also, we do where we’re lucky.

00:28:33:05 – 00:28:36:22
William
Farmer wants a great shared operation data

00:28:38:03 – 00:28:39:03
of the turbine.

00:28:39:03 – 00:28:43:07
We measured one speed at the tower.

00:28:43:14 – 00:28:46:07
We also measured
the rotation speed up the blade.

00:28:46:12 – 00:28:47:13
We also get a power

00:28:48:18 – 00:28:50:16
output from the generator.

00:28:50:16 – 00:28:53:11
All these things
indicate during that period

00:28:53:19 – 00:28:57:11
there are significant time

00:28:57:20 – 00:29:02:06
that turbine just stop and rotation
velocity equals zero.

00:29:02:11 – 00:29:06:00
But sometimes that also they do rotate.

00:29:06:01 – 00:29:10:19
However, the output from the generator
is not as high

00:29:10:19 – 00:29:16:22
as without the ice does
cause the both stop

00:29:17:01 – 00:29:20:20
rotation also even their rotation
that don’t generate enough

00:29:21:08 – 00:29:24:18
electricity,
the power as they’re supposed to be.

00:29:24:19 – 00:29:28:17
So both these two combination
make that particular turbine.

00:29:28:17 – 00:29:34:05
We study up to 80% of that
energy reduction during that period.

00:29:34:17 – 00:29:37:07
And that’s exactly
what I was going to say.

00:29:37:07 – 00:29:39:18
I’m actually really surprised to hear that

00:29:39:18 – 00:29:44:02
any wind turbine is operating
with 300 millimeter thick at that I,

00:29:44:07 – 00:29:47:06
because that must be hundreds
and hundreds of kilos of of ice.

00:29:47:06 – 00:29:51:17
And I know that when turbine blades
are not designed to are not designed

00:29:51:17 – 00:29:56:11
with that load case in mind,
so are they’re not ice detection systems

00:29:56:11 – 00:30:00:02
on a lot of the
the turbines that you’re looking at.

00:30:00:23 – 00:30:03:21
Why? Why is it the case
that they’re still trying to operate

00:30:03:21 – 00:30:05:18
with so much weight of ice there?

00:30:05:18 – 00:30:06:23
Yeah, that’s a good question.

00:30:06:23 – 00:30:10:14
And that’s why I say we really
we have tried to identify

00:30:10:14 – 00:30:14:09
the collaborators
and many of the women farmers

00:30:14:10 – 00:30:18:15
that usually the most common
strategy is one to have.

00:30:18:23 – 00:30:22:21
The detection of ICE is bigger

00:30:22:21 – 00:30:25:21
than some amount
based on vibration desktop.

00:30:26:08 – 00:30:30:00
But for this particular study,
we really are

00:30:30:16 – 00:30:32:21
very glad we have a wind hammer.

00:30:33:03 – 00:30:37:04
They agreed that during that period,
no matter what happened

00:30:37:13 – 00:30:42:18
and still can produce that data for us,
that’s not the routines operation.

00:30:43:02 – 00:30:46:08
It’s just for the scientific study
we do out there.

00:30:46:09 – 00:30:50:16
We really grateful that we
they can collaborate

00:30:51:04 – 00:30:53:07
for this field of study.

00:30:53:18 – 00:30:56:16
So before we move on to
some of the coatings

00:30:56:16 – 00:31:00:00
that you’ve worked with
and some of the other physics,

00:31:00:10 – 00:31:04:03
is there a way to prevent one type of ice
versus the other?

00:31:04:03 – 00:31:06:00
Or is there anything to really be done

00:31:07:02 – 00:31:09:01
with Reimer Glaze ice?

00:31:09:01 – 00:31:12:03
Or is it really just more like based
on your climate, you’re going to get one

00:31:12:03 – 00:31:15:15
or the other or, you know, a
higher proportion of one versus the other

00:31:15:20 – 00:31:19:18
for many of the wind farmers,
when they really see that, I don’t

00:31:19:20 – 00:31:25:05
I mean, they just turned down the turbine
that may be safer and also easier

00:31:25:11 – 00:31:28:14
to take care after than you.

00:31:29:00 – 00:31:32:05
Deicing costs
lots of energy in the meantime.

00:31:32:05 – 00:31:34:23
Also, Ross Mayor mentioned that

00:31:34:23 – 00:31:39:04
when the turbines have the ice buildup,
that’s going to generate

00:31:39:06 – 00:31:43:06
tremendous set of the fatigue
loading to the blade.

00:31:43:07 – 00:31:48:05
That’s easy to short the lifetime
of the turbine, or not only a turbine

00:31:48:12 – 00:31:53:10
blade also within that gear system
that can cost, per Boswell.

00:31:53:18 – 00:31:59:07
So therefore, what we do in recent
years is try to figure out a way

00:31:59:11 – 00:32:02:16
you won’t get rid of the ice
but do not cost

00:32:02:16 – 00:32:06:10
too much energy as current system do.

00:32:06:16 – 00:32:08:16
So we do fund that

00:32:09:19 – 00:32:11:07
one research

00:32:11:07 – 00:32:14:08
object is related to some special coating.

00:32:15:02 – 00:32:19:14
Usually, people call them hydro
for cutting out ice.

00:32:19:14 – 00:32:22:20
For recording in this,
too is a little bit different,

00:32:22:20 – 00:32:26:10
even though they sometimes
come back to each other.

00:32:26:17 – 00:32:32:15
Hydro means water, so hydrophobic
means water don’t easy to stay there.

00:32:32:16 – 00:32:36:11
Of course,
the last water is less ice buildup.

00:32:36:18 – 00:32:40:23
Ice phobic means was
you have ice build up on there,

00:32:41:08 – 00:32:46:18
and the bonding between the substrate
and the ice is weak.

00:32:46:18 – 00:32:50:08
Therefore,
if you have some vibration or even

00:32:50:08 – 00:32:53:18
sometimes that wind speeds generate that.

00:32:53:18 – 00:32:54:01
Airflow.

00:32:54:04 – 00:32:56:23
Airflow over their blades

00:32:56:23 – 00:33:01:01
that can generate a shear stress
that can blow those eyes away.

00:33:01:05 – 00:33:06:03
If that bonding between the eyes
and the substrate is low enough,

00:33:06:08 – 00:33:10:03
therefore we do locate hydrophobic hody.

00:33:10:04 – 00:33:14:13
Also ice phobic cordon
and combine them with a heater.

00:33:15:11 – 00:33:20:11
That means you really only need
to use a heating area

00:33:20:21 – 00:33:23:15
into a critical position that’s usually

00:33:23:15 – 00:33:28:08
based on our study of the thunder
along the leading edge of the blade.

00:33:28:11 – 00:33:33:07
And there we usually see
a spider called stagflation point.

00:33:33:15 – 00:33:37:19
What that means there
the velocity of the air go to a zero

00:33:38:00 – 00:33:42:14
also share stress, and
there are also worries more close to zero.

00:33:42:18 – 00:33:46:22
So will that water go into those regions
that don’t move it?

00:33:47:02 – 00:33:51:00
When the water to move temperature is cold
there turn into ice.

00:33:51:10 – 00:33:54:00
So wouldn’t that start to gather ice?

00:33:54:00 – 00:33:58:17
Build up, then lacks water
impinging in the labor hold

00:33:58:21 – 00:34:02:16
while on the surface of that water ice,

00:34:02:23 – 00:34:06:07
they’re not on the Coating
Oblates surface anymore.

00:34:06:07 – 00:34:08:02
That region became bigger and bigger.

00:34:08:02 – 00:34:11:21
Therefore, for those regions,
doesn’t matter what you use,

00:34:12:13 – 00:34:16:12
don’t solve the problem
that space, our extensive studies show.

00:34:16:19 – 00:34:19:14
However, in those area, if you can put

00:34:20:14 – 00:34:23:02
the heater or under

00:34:23:13 – 00:34:28:19
mechanical vibration on something,
make that that bonding to

00:34:28:19 – 00:34:33:07
the surface is not strong,
then the shut off does is help.

00:34:33:14 – 00:34:36:02
So therefore, we do recently study.

00:34:36:02 – 00:34:40:06
We call the hybrid system
a very small area

00:34:40:06 – 00:34:42:21
near the leading edge, not like a regular

00:34:43:22 – 00:34:46:15
current design cover,

00:34:46:15 – 00:34:49:07
significant amount and the leading edge.

00:34:49:07 – 00:34:50:08
That’s, for example,

00:34:50:08 – 00:34:54:10
we best how what we know
they can cover about 20% of the current,

00:34:55:00 – 00:35:00:07
but we are talking about only 5%
or less in those regions.

00:35:00:16 – 00:35:03:23
And you put a not significant up

00:35:03:23 – 00:35:08:13
the heat are due to a small area
also due to him

00:35:08:13 – 00:35:13:14
because the bonding between the ice
and the surface became much smaller.

00:35:13:19 – 00:35:18:10
So by doing that,
we do have a did a composition study.

00:35:18:10 – 00:35:19:19
We found that compared

00:35:19:19 – 00:35:25:15
with the regular design,
we can save about 80% to 90% of energy

00:35:26:03 – 00:35:29:14
to keep whole surface free of the ice

00:35:30:00 – 00:35:32:22
in most of the commercial systems
that are operating.

00:35:32:22 – 00:35:37:03
In fact, in all of them,
your heating more of the leading edge

00:35:37:03 – 00:35:40:06
than than just that you’re trying
to hate the whole leading edge surface go.

00:35:40:07 – 00:35:44:11
That’s the that’s where most of the ice
builds up, and that’s where most of the

00:35:45:06 – 00:35:48:23
the aerodynamic effect is, you know, clean
leading edge is much more important

00:35:48:23 – 00:35:52:11
for the aerodynamics
and the than the rest of the air foil.

00:35:52:22 – 00:35:57:18
So it was yeah, I wouldn’t say
I was specifically more worried about that

00:35:57:18 – 00:36:00:05
because it was already taken,
taken care of.

00:36:00:20 – 00:36:06:03
I definitely was interested in passive
coatings, anti anti ice coatings and

00:36:07:02 – 00:36:09:00
how different ice phobic coatings.

00:36:09:00 – 00:36:12:07
But the problem that we had and me
and other people

00:36:12:07 – 00:36:15:02
at GE had done studies over,
you know, over

00:36:15:09 – 00:36:19:19
ten years, also keeping up to date
with new advances in the materials.

00:36:19:19 – 00:36:25:09
And there were there were a lot of people
promising an ice phobic coating

00:36:26:00 – 00:36:30:12
a lot less that actually performed
in ice and tunnel tests.

00:36:30:12 – 00:36:33:14
And by the time I left LM,

00:36:33:16 – 00:36:37:10
I’d seen zero that had actually done
anything in the field.

00:36:37:18 – 00:36:40:01
And the problem was that

00:36:40:01 – 00:36:43:04
when you put a surface on a wind
turbine blade, then it’s, you know, it’s

00:36:43:04 – 00:36:46:23
rotating around through dust
and moisture and bugs.

00:36:47:00 – 00:36:50:00
And as soon as the surface
got even slightly

00:36:50:00 – 00:36:53:04
damaged, it wouldn’t perform
the way that it was supposed to.

00:36:53:04 – 00:36:58:10
And in most cases, we actually saw when
something that was ice phobic was slightly

00:36:58:10 – 00:37:01:22
damaged in the field, which happens,
you know, immediately after installing it,

00:37:02:11 – 00:37:06:19
you’d actually say it attracted more ice
then than a normal, a normal surface.

00:37:06:20 – 00:37:11:08
So by the time I finished up
on anti-aliasing technology,

00:37:12:11 – 00:37:12:22
I had

00:37:12:22 – 00:37:16:17
ever seen a surface, a finish that was,
you know, providing

00:37:17:03 – 00:37:19:09
provide it like it was, you know,

00:37:19:17 – 00:37:23:02
actually
delivering on the ice phobic on ice.

00:37:23:02 – 00:37:23:20
So it promises.

00:37:23:20 – 00:37:27:03
But I was definitely always
keeping an eye out for advances

00:37:27:03 – 00:37:30:13
because sometime it’s got a
it’s got to happen that someone

00:37:30:17 – 00:37:35:01
someone gets there
with a, yeah, an anti enticing coating.

00:37:36:01 – 00:37:39:05
Well, and with the offshore wind
that’s happening

00:37:39:09 – 00:37:42:11
in Europe and the United States
and eventually in Australia that

00:37:43:12 – 00:37:48:13
we’ve and the aerospace community,
we have played around with ice

00:37:48:13 – 00:37:52:13
phobic hydrophobic coatings
that have been a little more resilient

00:37:52:13 – 00:37:56:10
and it does take obviously,
airplanes are pampered

00:37:56:17 – 00:37:59:23
devices, freighter mechanics
and people on them all the time,

00:38:00:05 – 00:38:03:06
making sure they’re clean and shiny
and keeping all the ducks and

00:38:04:12 – 00:38:06:11
the bugs the dirt off.

00:38:06:11 – 00:38:09:05
But I
think there’s has been a gradual shift

00:38:09:05 – 00:38:12:06
here in the last,
I would say, two to three years.

00:38:12:06 – 00:38:17:04
And I’ve seen some really interesting
work done on coatings where they do

00:38:17:04 – 00:38:22:12
rely upon a sort of a micro surface
to keep ice and water off.

00:38:22:18 – 00:38:24:12
But they’ve become much more durable.

00:38:24:12 – 00:38:28:15
And the sort of the second piece of this
is that the thought processes

00:38:28:15 – 00:38:32:10
that we put them sort of further back
keep them away from the leading edge.

00:38:32:10 – 00:38:36:23
Whether you’re right, rosemary, where the
the bugs in the dirt, in the rain

00:38:36:23 – 00:38:40:21
and the birds hit the impact and will
almost immediately destroy the coating

00:38:41:05 – 00:38:45:08
that the back end of this thing of a wind
turbine blade or an airplane wing.

00:38:45:21 – 00:38:50:22
I think there is the possibility now
because the science really and research

00:38:50:22 – 00:38:52:11
and the doctor who was doing that,

00:38:52:11 – 00:38:56:08
we may be able to use some hydrophobic
coatings and some ice phobic coatings

00:38:56:15 – 00:39:01:00
on the cleaner areas of the blade
to reduce the amount of heat.

00:39:01:00 – 00:39:05:06
We need to de-ice or keep our anti ice
a winter and blade.

00:39:05:07 – 00:39:08:05
And in Dr. Hu
is that where research is headed now?

00:39:08:05 – 00:39:11:07
Is there some promising new ice

00:39:11:07 – 00:39:14:11
phobic hydrophobic coatings for wind
turbines?

00:39:14:23 – 00:39:17:12
Really, how you manufacture our code in

00:39:17:22 – 00:39:23:04
and how how long they can survive
the harsh environment,

00:39:23:10 – 00:39:27:10
particularly as mention of a wind turbine
blade leadership.

00:39:27:14 – 00:39:33:03
We talk about impinging speeds
about 50 to 80 meters per second.

00:39:33:08 – 00:39:35:12
Now you talk about aircraft leading.

00:39:35:12 – 00:39:38:14
You talk about 100 to 300 meters
per second.

00:39:38:19 – 00:39:42:07
That device is different,
is in a different range.

00:39:42:18 – 00:39:45:09
So here actually you

00:39:45:10 – 00:39:49:04
our lab recent years,
we are funded by a levy.

00:39:49:11 – 00:39:54:22
We work with some material scientists
develop some code is that can survive

00:39:55:22 – 00:39:58:13
for wiring high speed impinging.

00:39:58:13 – 00:40:03:12
That’s usually within our 100 meters
per second to 300 meters per second.

00:40:03:19 – 00:40:06:16
We try to put on the surface

00:40:06:16 – 00:40:09:03
of the fan blade for the engines.

00:40:09:17 – 00:40:12:07
Just talk to some friends.

00:40:12:07 – 00:40:18:07
They are locate some insects in Alaska,
in the Arctic region,

00:40:18:16 – 00:40:22:10
and some of that is
that they have some special protein

00:40:22:20 – 00:40:27:02
that Cain can generate
make that water not frozen.

00:40:27:03 – 00:40:29:20
Otherwise, those inside cannot survive.

00:40:29:21 – 00:40:33:14
Therefore,
I do remember that at that level,

00:40:33:14 – 00:40:38:23
we have MURIs – Multi
University Research Initiatives –

00:40:38:23 – 00:40:43:06
the unity total investment about him
in a US dollars

00:40:43:11 – 00:40:49:13
to study those and frozen proteins
that may be next generation of the

00:40:50:02 – 00:40:54:00
or something
that’s incorporated the engineered design.

00:40:54:08 – 00:40:58:12
So I want to say as a scientist is not
just,

00:40:58:17 – 00:41:02:01
you know, after that dinner,
just nothing to do.

00:41:02:06 – 00:41:04:12
We are looking into something else now.

00:41:04:22 – 00:41:09:23
And not only the banana
also look at other creatures that live in

00:41:10:09 – 00:41:14:19
and try to get inspiration
for all this interesting observations.

00:41:15:01 – 00:41:18:21
Get the new idea
new coding develop does actually is make

00:41:19:20 – 00:41:21:20
progress, at least based on

00:41:21:20 – 00:41:26:13
my personal knowledge experience
in the past two years.

00:41:26:14 – 00:41:30:01
That’s significant progress
to make it there, of course.

00:41:30:14 – 00:41:34:12
Still, there’s no way
you find the one cutting galaso

00:41:34:12 – 00:41:37:02
other program well, moving forward.

00:41:37:15 – 00:41:39:11
We want to talk a little bit
about offshore wind.

00:41:39:11 – 00:41:40:06
Obviously, that’s going to be

00:41:40:06 – 00:41:43:23
a really rough environment,
really cold, depending on where they are.

00:41:44:01 – 00:41:45:19
Obviously, like the coast of Maine,

00:41:45:19 – 00:41:49:12
New Hampshire, Vermont,
very cold, obviously works out to sea.

00:41:49:23 – 00:41:53:00
I mean, do you doctor
who do you see this accelerating research

00:41:53:00 – 00:41:56:12
into coatings
and and other heating systems?

00:41:56:12 – 00:42:00:21
I mean, what do you predict will happen
here as offshore starts to really boom?

00:42:00:21 – 00:42:03:17
Obviously, it’s been all over the world,
so this is not new, but

00:42:04:00 – 00:42:04:21
especially here in the U.S.

00:42:04:21 – 00:42:07:05
Do you see a boom in research

00:42:07:05 – 00:42:10:16
and queries from other companies
trying to figure out, Hey, what can we do

00:42:11:02 – 00:42:13:21
to keep our hands off these turbines
and keep them running and keep them ice

00:42:13:21 – 00:42:15:00
free as best we can?

00:42:15:00 – 00:42:17:19
I have visited a particular day

00:42:17:19 – 00:42:22:02
address the problem with offshore
wind turbine.

00:42:22:02 – 00:42:26:17
I see several unique things
I think we need to look into.

00:42:26:18 – 00:42:29:05
first is there.

00:42:29:21 – 00:42:33:11
They could watch
content is much, much higher, OK,

00:42:33:12 – 00:42:35:14
because the moisture on the ocean.

00:42:35:14 – 00:42:38:02
Another, because the sea spray,

00:42:38:09 – 00:42:41:22
the water droplets
size is much, much bigger.

00:42:42:06 – 00:42:42:18
Okay.

00:42:42:18 – 00:42:45:18
Oh, they say, is to contribute more severe

00:42:45:21 – 00:42:48:13
disaster glass ice formation.

00:42:49:09 – 00:42:53:22
So that’s actually
is make suggesting offshore much better.

00:42:54:03 – 00:42:57:03
Much badge companies are much worse

00:42:57:03 – 00:43:00:13
compared with
what happened for the onshore. OK?

00:43:00:17 – 00:43:02:02
That’s what happened.

00:43:02:02 – 00:43:05:12
Another also very important perspective

00:43:05:12 – 00:43:08:13
we will look into is a solidity in that.

00:43:09:14 – 00:43:10:13
In the water,

00:43:10:13 – 00:43:13:16
because you have salt water
and the salinity

00:43:14:04 – 00:43:16:23
for the ice in perspective e

00:43:16:23 – 00:43:20:04
while we change the frozen point, sure.

00:43:20:04 – 00:43:24:04
And however, in the meantime,
also that quite bad

00:43:24:13 – 00:43:27:07
for the blade of the turbine

00:43:27:07 – 00:43:31:19
because turbine blade unit
is a polymer based.

00:43:32:10 – 00:43:34:00
And then when the salt added there,

00:43:34:00 – 00:43:37:21
they’re easy
to get a lot from the cylinder head there.

00:43:37:21 – 00:43:39:09
So all this has to work.

00:43:39:09 – 00:43:43:23
Cobbling together make a surface that that
that sort of winemaker’s surface.

00:43:45:00 – 00:43:48:04
Not a smooth
you as easily as Jenna roughly is

00:43:48:12 – 00:43:52:10
now roughly it is a bat for trapping
water, gather ice beer.

00:43:52:18 – 00:43:56:00
Oh, that is what make icing for offshore

00:43:56:15 – 00:44:00:12
quite different
from what you see in our show.

00:44:00:17 – 00:44:03:15
So I’m sure when that happen, then

00:44:04:02 – 00:44:08:10
maybe I does get more public attention

00:44:08:20 – 00:44:11:00
that I need more research
funding to do it.

00:44:11:00 – 00:44:16:18
Right now, I try and write a proposal
to the aid and do you last year.

00:44:16:18 – 00:44:20:04
It seems right now
that ABC to put that terrible up

00:44:20:08 – 00:44:23:11
under down really
to see how they’re going to operate.

00:44:23:16 – 00:44:25:17
I hope in the future we will.

00:44:25:17 – 00:44:32:01
Our research will help to better protect
on the offshore tarp in the winter.

00:44:33:06 – 00:44:35:01
Yeah,
you guys are landlocked out there in Iowa.

00:44:35:01 – 00:44:38:17
Maybe you could just drill,
make your own salt salt pond.

00:44:40:05 – 00:44:41:22
You know, we turn out we do

00:44:41:22 – 00:44:46:01
put salt into the spray

00:44:46:05 – 00:44:49:08
and try to see what was the difference.

00:44:49:18 – 00:44:54:00
And there are also
we may change the laws or system,

00:44:54:06 – 00:44:58:04
make our droplets
size is more close to what you see

00:44:58:04 – 00:45:02:08
in the ocean compared with in the air
d’assurer une about.

00:45:02:12 – 00:45:03:00
Yeah, yeah.

00:45:03:00 – 00:45:04:11
ten to 100 Macron.

00:45:04:11 – 00:45:07:04
Right now you talk about the MM droplets.

00:45:07:18 – 00:45:11:06
Have you tried
coating the blades in insults?

00:45:11:06 – 00:45:12:22
You know, like obviously

00:45:12:22 – 00:45:16:04
a lot of places in the winter,
they salt the roads when it’s going to go

00:45:16:04 – 00:45:20:14
a little bit below zero so that you know
you don’t get any ice forming.

00:45:20:14 – 00:45:21:18
It stays liquid

00:45:21:18 – 00:45:26:02
because the melting point of saltwater
is a lot lower than freshwater.

00:45:26:11 – 00:45:27:13
So do you think?

00:45:27:13 – 00:45:28:19
Because I know, like obviously in Europe,

00:45:28:19 – 00:45:32:00
they have lots of offshore
wind farms in fairly cold places,

00:45:32:00 – 00:45:36:17
and they currently don’t have any ice
protection systems in place.

00:45:36:17 – 00:45:40:10
And I haven’t heard of any,
you know, huge problems.

00:45:40:10 – 00:45:44:07
It’s not like,
you know, areas like Sweden and Quebec.

00:45:44:07 – 00:45:49:01
The wind farm owners are crying, you know,
like desperate for any kind of solution.

00:45:49:01 – 00:45:52:20
Because I say in such big losses,
we haven’t seen that in the offshore wind

00:45:52:20 – 00:45:53:09
farms.

00:45:53:09 – 00:45:56:06
And, you know, like Finland, for example.

00:45:56:19 – 00:46:00:07
And yeah, all around the the North Sea.

00:46:00:18 – 00:46:03:01
Do you think that it’s
because the salty blades a

00:46:03:09 – 00:46:07:00
you wouldn’t often get temperatures
so low that ice would freeze

00:46:07:00 – 00:46:08:18
even on a salty blade?

00:46:08:18 – 00:46:09:19
Yeah, that’s a good point.

00:46:09:19 – 00:46:13:07
As I already mentioned that
because due to the salt existence,

00:46:13:16 – 00:46:15:19
the frozen point of be.

00:46:15:19 – 00:46:20:17
But really depends on how cold
your weather is and how low that are.

00:46:21:01 – 00:46:23:22
That frozen point can decrease to

00:46:24:03 – 00:46:29:11
if you’re in warm and hemorrhages blow
that way you are good ice to build up.

00:46:29:12 – 00:46:32:02
Obviously, this has been a terrific
talk on icing today.

00:46:32:02 – 00:46:34:02
Where can people follow up with you
on the web

00:46:34:02 – 00:46:36:06
and your research over at Iowa State?

00:46:36:06 – 00:46:41:08
In my email, you should see that
there’s we have that lab web page.

00:46:41:09 – 00:46:45:10
There also have my email
if any people have a interest

00:46:45:10 – 00:46:46:21
as them to send me a email.

00:46:46:21 – 00:46:48:17
Actually, I do get

00:46:49:16 – 00:46:52:21
from time to time, get email from people,

00:46:53:06 – 00:46:58:11
or even last year when I publish a paper
on that, on that communication.

00:46:58:18 – 00:47:00:14
There’s again, many email.

00:47:00:14 – 00:47:03:11
I’ll sometimes
phone calls to the to the office.

00:47:03:11 – 00:47:05:22
I’ll do the best I can do Doctor Who.

00:47:05:23 – 00:47:06:23
Thank you so much.

00:47:06:23 – 00:47:07:13
So we’ll link.

00:47:07:13 – 00:47:10:03
We’ll link to your,
your email on your research

00:47:10:03 – 00:47:12:22
and so people can find you in the show
notes or description on this podcast.

00:47:12:22 – 00:47:14:11
But thanks again for coming on the show.

00:47:14:11 – 00:47:16:16
We really appreciate The Conversation’s
terrific.

00:47:16:16 – 00:47:19:14
And good luck
with all your future research.

00:47:19:14 – 00:47:22:13
I’m sure you’ll be well on demand.
Appreciate it! Yeah, thank you.

00:47:22:13 – 00:47:25:03
Thanks for the invitation.
Nice talk to you guys.

00:47:25:10 – 00:47:27:10
Yeah, but.

00:47:34:07 – 00:47:34:14
All right,

00:47:34:14 – 00:47:37:15
so we want to thank again
our guest, Dr Hu who again,

00:47:37:15 – 00:47:41:11
you can check out his research
and follow them in the description

00:47:41:18 – 00:47:43:05
and the show notes below.

00:47:43:05 – 00:47:46:00
So in our last chunk of the podcast
today, we’re going to talk

00:47:46:00 – 00:47:50:17
about undersea cables
and then we’ll finish with reefs.

00:47:51:03 – 00:47:53:06
So first in Japan,

00:47:54:06 – 00:47:54:23
there’s a

00:47:54:23 – 00:47:59:04
allocating $43 million on a undersea cable
feasibility study.

00:47:59:10 – 00:48:04:07
Obviously, Japan has their own goals
with getting wind power set up there.

00:48:04:07 – 00:48:07:07
Alan reading through some of this,
their feasibility studies.

00:48:07:07 – 00:48:09:08
Now, what does it look like
they’re trying to do?

00:48:09:14 – 00:48:13:04
Obviously, land is is about a huge
premium in Japan.

00:48:13:15 – 00:48:15:10
So it sounds like
they’re pretty committed.

00:48:15:10 – 00:48:18:22
That undersea cabling looks like maybe
the best solution for them, right?

00:48:19:07 – 00:48:23:07
Bypasses, having to do
a lot of infrastructure on land.

00:48:23:14 – 00:48:28:03
So essentially, they have a significant
amount of wind energy towards the North,

00:48:29:04 – 00:48:31:23
and they also use our straight teak
product up there, too on the wind

00:48:31:23 – 00:48:32:09
turbines.

00:48:32:09 – 00:48:35:01
But there’s a lot of wind energy
up towards the north,

00:48:35:06 – 00:48:39:00
and they need to get it back
kind of mid-south as where a lot of the

00:48:39:01 – 00:48:43:10
larger cities are right, like Tokyo, and
you could either put transmission lines

00:48:43:18 – 00:48:47:01
through already developed land
or farmland for that matter.

00:48:47:09 – 00:48:51:12
Or you can just drop a cable
right at around the island and pop it up

00:48:51:18 – 00:48:54:05
right at the cities
where you want to deliver energy to.

00:48:54:18 – 00:48:58:16
So I think, well, the interesting pieces
about this is like, we haven’t

00:48:58:16 – 00:49:01:11
thought about that before, at least
I haven’t thought about that before.

00:49:01:23 – 00:49:06:20
I think that the high voltage DC systems
are getting to be super efficient

00:49:07:05 – 00:49:11:13
where you can drop a cable in
and it’d be a lot less money and time

00:49:11:18 – 00:49:15:22
to put a cable on the sea floor,
rather than trying to build a number

00:49:15:22 – 00:49:19:06
of transmission towers all the way
from the north to the south of Japan.

00:49:19:15 – 00:49:23:09
That’s what’s interesting about it,
because Japan won’t be the only one

00:49:23:09 – 00:49:24:12
who’s thinking about this.

00:49:25:13 – 00:49:26:20
There are a number of the islands.

00:49:26:20 – 00:49:29:11
Take the U.K., for example Ireland,

00:49:30:09 – 00:49:33:08
Australia, New Zealand,
where this may make a lot of sense.

00:49:33:08 – 00:49:34:17
It may be just cheaper

00:49:34:17 – 00:49:39:04
because of the new technology and high
voltage DC to drop a cable in the ocean

00:49:39:04 – 00:49:42:11
instead of running transmission
towers and lines on land.

00:49:43:00 – 00:49:46:01
Rosemary, do you see you see how this is
going to change the way

00:49:46:01 – 00:49:49:13
we think about energy distribution
and how we power nations?

00:49:49:20 – 00:49:50:17
Yeah, definitely.

00:49:50:17 – 00:49:54:08
And you’re right
that Australia, we’ve got one planned

00:49:54:17 – 00:49:58:05
in the Bass Strait that connects Tasmania
with Mainland Australia.

00:49:58:06 – 00:49:58:21
There’s a

00:49:58:21 – 00:50:01:18
a project that I think is still trying
to trying to figure out who’s

00:50:01:18 – 00:50:03:18
going to pay for it.
But they want to run a couple of

00:50:04:20 – 00:50:08:18
big cables to connect Tasmania’s hydro,

00:50:09:05 – 00:50:12:00
huge hydro resources with the mainland.

00:50:12:23 – 00:50:16:23
And then, of course, there’s the Sun Cable
project in the north of Australia, where

00:50:16:23 – 00:50:21:03
they’re planning to connect to provide
a lot of electricity to Singapore.

00:50:22:05 – 00:50:25:06
Huge cable recently

00:50:25:06 – 00:50:29:05
recently started operation between Norway
and the UK, and I know there’s other ones

00:50:29:11 – 00:50:33:02
that the UK is planning to
to connect around.

00:50:33:13 – 00:50:36:04
And I think that it is going to become

00:50:36:21 – 00:50:41:06
I mean, I kind of I really like the
some say, cable technology.

00:50:41:06 – 00:50:42:09
I like the idea of,

00:50:42:09 – 00:50:42:16
you know,

00:50:42:16 – 00:50:45:07
you can connect a much bigger
geographic areas

00:50:45:07 – 00:50:48:14
and that makes the variability
of renewables way

00:50:48:14 – 00:50:51:17
less variable for any individual location.

00:50:52:07 – 00:50:55:06
And so, yeah, I think that
this is going to be a big solution.

00:50:55:17 – 00:50:59:04
one thing I think is interesting
about Japan, they’re committed to the

00:50:59:11 – 00:51:02:13
the energy transition and, you know,
they have been working towards that

00:51:02:13 – 00:51:06:13
for a while, but they’ve got a tough
compared to a country like Australia

00:51:06:13 – 00:51:10:21
or the US where we’ve got heaps of wind
and solar and lots of space.

00:51:10:21 – 00:51:12:19
They don’t really have much of that.

00:51:12:19 – 00:51:15:05
They’ve got some good wind
resources in places.

00:51:15:18 – 00:51:18:03
But what you see with Japan
is that they’re trying everything.

00:51:18:03 – 00:51:22:00
You know, they’ve got one project where
they’re getting ammonia from Saudi Arabia,

00:51:22:01 – 00:51:24:13
I think, or somewhere in that region,

00:51:24:13 – 00:51:26:19
they’re going to kofar that
with coal power plants.

00:51:27:00 – 00:51:31:00
These are hugely controversial project
in Australia right now.

00:51:31:00 – 00:51:35:19
There’s a liquid hydrogen ship
that has just arrived in port in Victoria,

00:51:35:19 – 00:51:40:20
the world’s first liquid hydrogen
transport ship, and they’re going to take

00:51:40:23 – 00:51:46:02
hydrogen from Victoria and transported
8000 kilometers by ship to Japan.

00:51:46:22 – 00:51:49:20
That project really controversial
because they’re making that hydrogen

00:51:49:20 – 00:51:53:13
from brown coal and just letting the CO2
into the atmosphere.

00:51:53:13 – 00:51:57:00
They’re buying offsets and pretending that
that makes it blue hydrogen, which,

00:51:57:08 – 00:51:59:00
in my opinion, it does not.

00:51:59:00 – 00:52:02:16
But yeah, anyway,
the the the interesting part of that

00:52:02:16 – 00:52:06:00
project is the liquid hydrogen transport,
because that will be a world first.

00:52:06:00 – 00:52:09:08
But Japan, you know, they’re in a
they’re in a bit of a bind.

00:52:09:08 – 00:52:12:05
And I think that they’re doing
a pretty good job of trying

00:52:12:10 – 00:52:13:23
a lot of different things.

00:52:13:23 – 00:52:16:23
And yeah, they try a lot of things,

00:52:16:23 – 00:52:20:09
say, what the f,
you know, paths of least resistance are.

00:52:20:09 – 00:52:21:09
And that’s a good,

00:52:21:09 – 00:52:24:01
a good strategy, I think,
because I don’t have any amazing options.

00:52:24:23 – 00:52:26:00
You know, it’s hard for them.

00:52:26:00 – 00:52:27:08
Well, an over in England.

00:52:27:08 – 00:52:32:01
So in Bly, if there’s a new direct
current conversion facility set up to.

00:52:32:02 – 00:52:35:02
Provide a landing point for a new cable
that’s going to bridge

00:52:35:02 – 00:52:37:13
the gap between England and Norway.

00:52:38:08 – 00:52:40:16
So Alan,
you said that most of these undersea

00:52:40:16 – 00:52:43:19
cables are direct current and you said
the conversion technology is improving.

00:52:43:21 – 00:52:44:12
All right.

00:52:44:12 – 00:52:46:03
Yes. Oh, it definitely so.

00:52:46:03 – 00:52:47:23
And so obviously,

00:52:47:23 – 00:52:50:18
you know, there’s tons of wind energy
and renewable energy

00:52:50:18 – 00:52:52:06
in general over in Europe.

00:52:52:06 – 00:52:55:23
But it sounds like more and more countries
are seeing this interconnectedness

00:52:55:23 – 00:52:57:13
as essential

00:52:58:12 – 00:53:01:06
so that one country can benefit
from different resources.

00:53:01:06 – 00:53:03:16
And another
is that kind of how you see this going.

00:53:03:16 – 00:53:08:14
Rosemary, where if wind is really high
at night in one country, for example,

00:53:09:04 – 00:53:11:18
but low in some other country
that can sort of benefit from each other,

00:53:11:18 – 00:53:14:07
sending one back and forth
is that kind of how this maybe

00:53:14:07 – 00:53:16:16
this big web of cables
might work in the future?

00:53:16:17 – 00:53:17:10
Yeah, I think so.

00:53:17:10 – 00:53:19:23
And I mean, like between Norway and

00:53:19:23 – 00:53:23:09
and other countries,
it’s about getting the economics right.

00:53:23:09 – 00:53:26:15
So Norway has hydro pretty much 20 47
if they want.

00:53:26:22 – 00:53:29:17
But now that’s become quite valuable
to be able to generate

00:53:29:17 – 00:53:33:07
electricity on demand so they’ll be buying
electricity from the UK.

00:53:33:07 – 00:53:38:01
When it’s when there’s heaps of wind
solar, there will be really cheap

00:53:38:01 – 00:53:40:18
and then they’ll sell it, sell electricity
back to them.

00:53:40:18 – 00:53:44:14
When it’s expensive and they’ve got hydro,
they can turn on it cost them

00:53:44:14 – 00:53:48:03
the same to generate that
even if the wind isn’t blowing. But

00:53:48:03 – 00:53:53:00
I think one big possibility that’s kind of
still a few years away is connecting

00:53:54:02 – 00:53:57:02
making connections that will
help with some of the seasonal variations.

00:53:57:02 – 00:54:01:20
So, you know, I imagine
the UK has a really high heating load in

00:54:01:20 – 00:54:06:01
winter if they want to replace
that gas heating now with electricity.

00:54:06:07 – 00:54:07:01
They’re going to have a problem

00:54:07:01 – 00:54:11:05
because you don’t always have a lot
of a lot of electricity in the winter.

00:54:11:12 – 00:54:15:04
If they can connect to Africa
with a subsidy cable,

00:54:15:04 – 00:54:19:07
then they would be able to get some
really good solar resources at that time.

00:54:19:07 – 00:54:23:09
So I think that we might even once
the technology

00:54:23:09 – 00:54:24:12
just needs to get a little bit better,

00:54:24:12 – 00:54:27:09
I think, and Alan can talk more about what
we’re up to with that.

00:54:28:04 – 00:54:30:20
But I think that there is,
you know, a chance to solve

00:54:30:20 – 00:54:34:03
even bigger problems
than just intraday variability.

00:54:34:15 – 00:54:37:18
No, I think there’s a couple of challenges

00:54:37:18 – 00:54:40:21
that are rapidly going to be put aside.

00:54:41:06 – 00:54:43:23
The way that the UK is is handling

00:54:43:23 – 00:54:49:14
the offshore wind effort
is they really can’t become

00:54:49:14 – 00:54:54:17
weirdly enough, the Saudi
Arabia of wind in Europe, right?

00:54:54:19 – 00:54:56:05
Right now, there’s a lot of ships

00:54:56:05 – 00:55:00:21
going from the Middle East with the oil
and whatever else up to Europe.

00:55:00:21 – 00:55:03:22
And we also have the Russia pipeline
that’s pumping

00:55:04:08 – 00:55:07:16
petroleum down to Germany
and parts of other parts of Europe.

00:55:08:18 – 00:55:12:06
What the UK is doing and
other countries are doing, Norway is doing

00:55:12:06 – 00:55:13:15
it too is looking at what

00:55:13:15 – 00:55:17:10
their natural resources are and saying
We have an overabundance of wind.

00:55:17:21 – 00:55:21:13
We can take advantage of that
and then we can sell that to Europe.

00:55:22:22 – 00:55:24:18
And they’re doing the same thing
between France

00:55:24:18 – 00:55:27:09
and the UK in terms of nuclear power, too.

00:55:28:06 – 00:55:31:01
So you see these countries
become interconnected.

00:55:31:02 – 00:55:33:05
It’s like the United States and Canada.

00:55:33:05 – 00:55:34:02
Many people know that,

00:55:34:02 – 00:55:37:19
but a lot of the energy in the Northeast
actually comes from Canada.

00:55:38:03 – 00:55:40:23
So we are connected that way
and we’re connected for a reason.

00:55:40:23 – 00:55:42:17
It provides stability.

00:55:42:17 – 00:55:45:00
But in terms of economics,

00:55:45:10 – 00:55:49:14
it could be a huge revenue
generating source

00:55:49:16 – 00:55:53:01
for the United Kingdom
because they have so much wind

00:55:53:01 – 00:55:56:22
and they have the technology
to make the wind turbines close to shore.

00:55:56:22 – 00:55:59:16
They have all the, you know,
they’ve been seafaring forever, right?

00:55:59:16 – 00:56:04:17
So they have all the built in pieces
to be very successful in offshore wind.

00:56:05:00 – 00:56:07:03
I think Norway’s doing the same thing
for hydro.

00:56:07:03 – 00:56:11:06
So it’s a very odd thing because Rosemary,

00:56:11:23 – 00:56:15:23
ten years ago, we would never have thought
that that would even happen.

00:56:16:06 – 00:56:17:17
And yet here we here we go.

00:56:17:17 – 00:56:22:02
We’re on the precipice of massive changes
in the way Europe is connected.

00:56:22:04 – 00:56:22:22
Yeah, I agree.

00:56:22:22 – 00:56:24:15
I mean, I wouldn’t have thought of it,
but I guess

00:56:24:15 – 00:56:28:14
some people were thinking of it because
the technology that we say rolled out now,

00:56:28:22 – 00:56:30:18
I assume it’s been in development
that long.

00:56:30:18 – 00:56:35:09
So lucky, like we’ve got some clever
electrical engineers on the task.

00:56:37:01 – 00:56:38:09
Yes. So

00:56:38:09 – 00:56:41:15
last on the docket today,
there’s an interesting article

00:56:42:10 – 00:56:45:10
by a ship captain who also does

00:56:45:12 – 00:56:48:09
consulting for clean oceans
and other such things, but

00:56:48:15 – 00:56:52:00
wrote an interesting sort of counterpoint
article to a lot of the what we hear

00:56:52:00 – 00:56:56:00
from fishermen and fishermen groups,
which is opposition to wind farms.

00:56:56:20 – 00:57:01:04
But this captain was basically saying
that, Hey, we know and we’ve known

00:57:01:04 – 00:57:05:14
for a while that a lot of offshore
and basically these offshore

00:57:06:04 – 00:57:08:21
structures,
whether from oil rigs or from wind

00:57:08:21 – 00:57:13:22
farms, are building ecological reefs
in their little lattice work,

00:57:14:11 – 00:57:17:12
you know, foundation jackets below
so that we shouldn’t and we shouldn’t

00:57:17:22 – 00:57:20:18
necessarily jump to the conclusion
that all wind farm

00:57:22:05 – 00:57:24:03
construction is going to be bad for fish
long term.

00:57:24:03 – 00:57:26:20
And in fact,
if you if you dig a little deeper,

00:57:27:11 – 00:57:30:18
you know, California’s rigs to reef
law was passed in 2010,

00:57:31:04 – 00:57:33:23
although platforms
have not been briefed with it.

00:57:33:23 – 00:57:37:04
And that law basically said that, hey,
when we have these oil

00:57:37:04 – 00:57:39:09
rigs decommissioned,
we’re going to look at them

00:57:39:09 – 00:57:43:23
and they can remove the upper
85 foot portion of the oil platform

00:57:44:04 – 00:57:48:04
and then leave a lot of it
and leave the rest of it in the ocean

00:57:48:15 – 00:57:53:17
to basically not disturb the habitat
that had grown there over all those years.

00:57:53:17 – 00:57:58:00
Because oddly enough, after this
initial opposition to, you know, offshore

00:57:59:05 – 00:58:00:12
oil rigs,

00:58:00:12 – 00:58:03:04
then people like, Wait, OK, it’s
been there for so long.

00:58:03:04 – 00:58:06:20
There’s so much wildlife underneath that
there’s mussels, there’s all these fish.

00:58:06:20 – 00:58:09:20
There’s just like it’s
a whole little reef of its own.

00:58:09:20 – 00:58:12:12
Don’t pull these back up
like we need to preserve these.

00:58:12:23 – 00:58:17:18
So it’s an interesting dynamic in this a
this rig’s three floor

00:58:18:03 – 00:58:21:12
and just the way sediment changed,
at least with oil rigs over time.

00:58:22:08 – 00:58:25:00
Rosemary,
I mean, this seems like an obvious thing,

00:58:25:00 – 00:58:28:04
but obviously you can’t just leave
every metal structure in the ocean,

00:58:28:04 – 00:58:29:13
and not every metal structure in the ocean

00:58:29:13 – 00:58:31:16
is going to be a net positive
for wildlife.

00:58:32:00 – 00:58:34:06
Yeah, I mean, maybe you can leave
every single one there.

00:58:34:06 – 00:58:35:05
I don’t.

00:58:35:05 – 00:58:35:20
I don’t know.

00:58:35:20 – 00:58:37:16
I guess you’d have to take
it case by case,

00:58:37:16 – 00:58:40:09
but I have for a long time
thought that it was weird that certain

00:58:41:15 – 00:58:42:15
complaints that

00:58:42:15 – 00:58:45:20
environmental groups
are raising against offshore wind.

00:58:46:08 – 00:58:49:18
Many of the points this specific points
they’re raising should have

00:58:49:18 – 00:58:52:14
already been answered by other things
that we’re doing in the ocean.

00:58:52:20 – 00:58:54:14
I mean, yeah, offshore wind

00:58:54:14 – 00:58:56:09
is not the first structures
that we’ve built in the ocean,

00:58:56:09 – 00:59:00:12
so I’m interested
to see what the experience has been

00:59:00:12 – 00:59:03:16
with some of those other
other types of structures.

00:59:03:16 – 00:59:07:14
And it does kind of seem like there would
in general

00:59:07:14 – 00:59:13:00
be a play off between what’s good for fish
and what’s good for fish or fisheries.

00:59:14:11 – 00:59:17:12
And I don’t know where the world is

00:59:18:08 – 00:59:22:22
is not in a really sustainable place for,
you know, for fish in the world.

00:59:22:22 – 00:59:24:20
And so I don’t see it as such.

00:59:24:20 – 00:59:26:20
A such a bad thing is that, you know,

00:59:26:21 – 00:59:30:05
we would put something in the ocean
that made it easier for fish

00:59:30:05 – 00:59:34:17
to get along and harder
for big commercial fishing operations.

00:59:34:17 – 00:59:37:19
And it seems like the smaller fish

00:59:38:11 – 00:59:41:18
fishing vessels
are not really being adversely affected

00:59:41:18 – 00:59:42:17
because they’re saying,

00:59:42:17 – 00:59:46:04
you know you, you put in this structure
and you get animals living in it,

00:59:46:04 – 00:59:49:14
and then the animals that live that eat
those animals are attracted.

00:59:49:14 – 00:59:53:16
And so it seems like, yeah, other
than like really huge

00:59:53:21 – 00:59:56:22
fishing vessels,
everybody else is is winning.

00:59:56:22 – 01:00:00:11
So yeah, I’ll be interested to monitor
how that goes.

01:00:00:23 – 01:00:03:06
Now in Massachusetts,
there’s a really big concern

01:00:03:06 – 01:00:06:10
about leaving the steel in the water

01:00:07:07 – 01:00:09:11
that the fish, the fishermen groups

01:00:10:07 – 01:00:13:09
near us
think that it’s going to be a problem

01:00:13:15 – 01:00:17:04
because that still really doesn’t
go anywhere with the Titanic are

01:00:17:04 – 01:00:18:22
still sitting at the bottom of the ocean.

01:00:18:22 – 01:00:20:08
That was so that was 100 years.

01:00:20:08 – 01:00:21:23
What they built
that one really well, Alan.

01:00:22:22 – 01:00:25:05
They did, but they really did.

01:00:25:16 – 01:00:28:05
But it still does
not rust under water. Right.

01:00:28:05 – 01:00:30:04
And we all assume steals
rusting all the time,

01:00:30:04 – 01:00:33:15
and I guess it sort of does,
but it doesn’t really go away.

01:00:33:21 – 01:00:35:13
And so if you’re going to put

01:00:35:13 – 01:00:40:01
thousands of pylons out in the ocean,
I think the fishermen would prefer

01:00:40:01 – 01:00:43:10
when you’re done
that you at least cut them down.

01:00:44:02 – 01:00:47:20
You may leave the bases at the bottom
of the ocean and you’ll yank them up.

01:00:47:20 – 01:00:51:06
But I think there’s a big concern
about leaving them there

01:00:51:06 – 01:00:54:10
because how long are they going
to be there and eventually?

01:00:55:10 – 01:00:59:02
The probability here, eventually, somebody
some ships

01:00:59:02 – 01:01:02:13
going to run into these things
and it’s going to be a big problem,

01:01:02:13 – 01:01:04:22
just like the iceberg
the Titanic didn’t see, right?

01:01:05:08 – 01:01:09:09
It’s the really well built on going around
and the really well, actually.

01:01:09:12 – 01:01:09:20
Yeah.

01:01:11:03 – 01:01:11:11
Yeah.

01:01:11:11 – 01:01:15:11
So there is pushback about that
and there may be

01:01:16:20 – 01:01:17:21
some legislation.

01:01:17:21 – 01:01:19:20
I wouldn’t doubt
this would be some legislation like what

01:01:19:20 – 01:01:23:06
you put in the ground in the ocean,
you’re to take back out when you’re done.

01:01:24:08 – 01:01:26:10
And I’m sure that’s the right answer.

01:01:26:10 – 01:01:30:08
But I there is some negotiations
that are yet to be done.

01:01:30:18 – 01:01:33:18
Yeah, well, you wonder
if any and I don’t know the answer to this

01:01:33:19 – 01:01:37:10
if any of these have been designed
in the same way, like, hey, we know this.

01:01:38:03 – 01:01:42:03
Let’s build this new jacket
to stay down there when it’s done.

01:01:42:03 – 01:01:44:05
So we’ll make it with like a break point.

01:01:44:06 – 01:01:47:13
You know, just like saw here,
when it’s finished in the bottom,

01:01:47:13 – 01:01:50:17
maybe they put some more intricate designs
or intricate metal

01:01:50:17 – 01:01:53:14
work like, you know, little hoops
for the fish to jump through whatever.

01:01:53:22 – 01:01:56:07
And just, I don’t know.

01:01:56:07 – 01:02:00:12
It seems like with all the recyclability
we’ve talked about in designing blades

01:02:00:12 – 01:02:04:10
for end of life, why not design
these jackets to stay down there forever?

01:02:04:10 – 01:02:06:14
I mean, that seems like a no brainer,
doesn’t it?

01:02:06:14 – 01:02:07:15
Rosemary, my author.

01:02:07:15 – 01:02:08:15
That’s why I imagined it.

01:02:08:15 – 01:02:10:17
But I think they’re too far. Sure.

01:02:10:17 – 01:02:13:10
Yeah, I mean, if they’re close to shore,
I think cool.

01:02:13:10 – 01:02:16:10
But they’re we’re talking about 20 miles
offshore,

01:02:17:03 – 01:02:18:12
and I think that’s a little bit different.

01:02:18:12 – 01:02:20:13
I think fishermen
see that as being a little bit different

01:02:20:13 – 01:02:23:01
because it’s someplace
that you would traverse.

01:02:23:01 – 01:02:24:13
You may not be fishing there,

01:02:24:13 – 01:02:28:03
but if you do create this natural habitat,
there’s a lot more fish in that area.

01:02:28:12 – 01:02:30:03
Fishermen are
what are going to get access to that,

01:02:30:03 – 01:02:33:21
but that the pylons
won’t let them have access to it.

01:02:34:04 – 01:02:37:18
So this is just like this little catch 22,
where they make sure that the,

01:02:37:18 – 01:02:41:03
you know, the the depth that the boat goes
is not going to hit it.

01:02:41:17 – 01:02:43:20
Maybe
if they’re going to put that nets down

01:02:43:20 – 01:02:45:19
really deep,
then they can get stuck on something. But

01:02:46:23 – 01:02:47:22
I think what’s being

01:02:47:22 – 01:02:52:15
talked about right now and I’ve only seen
one side of this argument so far.

01:02:52:15 – 01:02:55:16
So I’m not taking sides here,
but I’ve only seen one side,

01:02:55:16 – 01:02:56:16
which is the fisherman side.

01:02:56:16 – 01:02:58:08
They’re saying, you know, there’s a
there’s a

01:02:58:08 – 01:03:00:11
the pylon that goes
in, there’s a sleeve over top.

01:03:00:11 – 01:03:03:11
They’re saying that the top sleeve
gets pulled off and everything down

01:03:03:12 – 01:03:05:10
the bottom stays.

01:03:05:10 – 01:03:08:01
And they think that’s a problem
you couldn’t dragonet through there

01:03:08:01 – 01:03:09:13
to catch fish, that’s for sure.

01:03:09:13 – 01:03:11:02
And be a big problem.

01:03:11:02 – 01:03:11:22
Good for the fish.

01:03:11:22 – 01:03:14:20
And they foresee it
and be good for the fish.

01:03:14:21 – 01:03:17:17
And maybe it may be good for the fish
and may not be good for British.

01:03:17:17 – 01:03:19:03
We don’t know, right?

01:03:19:15 – 01:03:21:18
But it’s an argument. And I think

01:03:22:17 – 01:03:23:06
until these

01:03:23:06 – 01:03:26:09
things get flushed out a little bit,
you’re going to see a lot of pushback.

01:03:26:09 – 01:03:29:08
And we’re seeing a lot of pushback
because when people are going to YouTube,

01:03:29:08 – 01:03:32:02
one of the first commercials
that YouTube wants to throw at me

01:03:32:10 – 01:03:36:10
is this little fishermen’s ad about
when turbines are bad for the environment.

01:03:37:02 – 01:03:40:19
We got to get to some solution,
and I’m not sure leaving everything in the

01:03:40:22 – 01:03:42:22
in the ocean
floor is the right answer yet,

01:03:43:11 – 01:03:45:14
but we’ve got decades to figure that out.

01:03:45:14 – 01:03:48:14
I think what we’ve got to do is,
you know what we do, watch,

01:03:48:16 – 01:03:52:23
watch, what happens, watch what
the effect is, try, you know, try it out

01:03:52:23 – 01:03:57:05
, leaving a couple of stumps in there
and see how that goes.

01:03:57:10 – 01:03:58:13
You don’t have to do it all at once.

01:03:58:13 – 01:04:02:09
And yeah, it’ll be 30 years or more before
we’ve got like a significant amount

01:04:02:09 – 01:04:04:17
of these things to remove,
and I’ll be surprised

01:04:04:17 – 01:04:06:10
if they don’t rip out
at the end of that anyway.

01:04:06:10 – 01:04:12:00
So I think that there’s maybe this time
to solve it to deal with this gradually.

01:04:12:07 – 01:04:15:00
All right, that’s going to do it for this
week’s episode of Up Time Again.

01:04:15:00 – 01:04:17:12
Be sure to check out the links
in the description below,

01:04:17:12 – 01:04:20:16
where you’ll find ways
to contact our guest today, Dr.

01:04:20:16 – 01:04:24:03
Hu who we greatly appreciate his time
and again.

01:04:24:03 – 01:04:28:00
They’re doing great things over there
at Iowa State in their research facility,

01:04:28:00 – 01:04:30:19
so definitely check up,
check them out and follow up with them

01:04:30:19 – 01:04:33:03
if you have any questions
about wind turbine icing.

01:04:33:11 – 01:04:33:21
And again,

01:04:33:21 – 01:04:36:06
we want to remind you, sign up for uptime
tech news,

01:04:36:06 – 01:04:38:12
which you’ll find in the show notes
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01:04:38:19 – 01:04:42:10
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01:04:42:13 – 01:04:45:16
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01:04:45:21 – 01:04:48:06
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01:04:56:10 – 01:04:59:18
Operating a profitable wind farm
is all about mitigating costs,

01:04:59:18 – 01:05:03:22
minimizing risks and being efficient
with maintenance repairs and upgrades.

01:05:04:11 – 01:05:07:06
It’s incredibly expensive
to send a team of rope access

01:05:07:06 – 01:05:10:01
technicians up tower
to make even simple repairs.

01:05:10:13 – 01:05:13:02
We also know how costly lightning damage
can be,

01:05:13:02 – 01:05:17:04
requiring inspection, repairs and downtime
for even minor lightning strikes.

01:05:17:16 – 01:05:20:18
This is why it just makes sense
to install a weather guard strike tape

01:05:20:20 – 01:05:24:17
LPS upgrade the next time
your technicians are going up tower,

01:05:25:06 – 01:05:28:13
maximize the time efficiency of your techs
and prevent

01:05:28:13 – 01:05:31:17
future lightning damage
by installing our strike tape LPS.

01:05:31:18 – 01:05:34:18
Upgrade the next time
your crews are going up on ropes.

01:05:35:07 – 01:05:36:08
Learn more in today’s show

01:05:36:08 – 01:05:40:06
notes or visit us on the web
at Weather Guard Wind Dotcom.