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Speaker 1: Federal regulators made it official. Vineyard Wind will be the

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Speaker 1: first large scale offshore wind energy project in the United States.

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Speaker 1: This project will generate enough electricity for about four hundred

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Speaker 1: thousand homes. The CEO of Vineyard Wind, Lars Peterson, says

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Speaker 1: this new project will kickstart the industry. Vineyard will be

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Speaker 1: the first to use a new turbine that stands more

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Speaker 1: than eight hundred and fifty feet tall, with each of

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Speaker 1: its three blades stretching more than the length of a

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Speaker 1: football field.

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Speaker 2: About fifteen miles south of Nantucket, off the coast of Massachusetts,

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Speaker 2: a massive new wind farm is rising out of the

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Speaker 2: Atlantic Ocean. The project is expected to start delivering electricity

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Speaker 2: this fall. Those turbines will bring the Biden administration closer

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Speaker 2: to its goal of the US generating thirty giglewatts of

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Speaker 2: power from clean offshore wind by twenty thirty. But that

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Speaker 2: goal won't be easy to Building those super tall wind

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Speaker 2: turbines is not cheap, and some projects have faltered.

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Speaker 3: Costs have gone up, price of steel has gone up.

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Speaker 3: These giant towers use a lot of steel. All of

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Speaker 3: a sudden, the project's costs are higher than they expected.

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Speaker 2: That's Bloomberg's Will Wade. He got on a big boat

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Speaker 2: to check out the wind farm, and a bit later

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Speaker 2: I talked to Nick Schultz. He's a commercial diver working

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Speaker 2: on this project, and I asked him what it's like

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Speaker 2: to build a wind turbine in deep water.

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Speaker 4: Most of our day.

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Speaker 5: Is just making sure it all goes right, because you know,

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Speaker 5: when you pick up something that weighs a million pounds,

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Speaker 5: you've got to have it as safe as you possibly can.

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Speaker 2: I'm West Kosova today on the Big take the answer,

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Speaker 2: my friend is blowing it. Well, you know, Will, you

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Speaker 2: went out to see this giant wind project. What was

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Speaker 2: it like?

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Speaker 3: It was really fun. I had to go to Cape

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Speaker 3: Cod in the summer of Like all my coworkers were like, wow,

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Speaker 3: that's a real hardship assignment.

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Speaker 2: Well, journalism can be tough.

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Speaker 5: It is.

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Speaker 3: We had a about two hours due south from Hyanas

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Speaker 3: out past Martha's Vineyard, and then when we get there,

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Speaker 3: there's six monopiles sticking out of the ocean. The monopile

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Speaker 3: is the foundation that they're going to attach the turbines too.

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Speaker 3: Eventually there's going to be sixty two turbines, so they'll

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Speaker 3: have to do sixty two monopiles and then they go

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Speaker 3: out and attach the turbine. So there were six of

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Speaker 3: them there and they're sticking out of the ocean maybe

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Speaker 3: fifty feet, But then a couple of miles away they've

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Speaker 3: got the substation. That thing was just huge. They needed

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Speaker 3: four model piles for that, and then they built the

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Speaker 3: platform on top of that. It's a couple one hundred

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Speaker 3: feet up and then the substation. And you know, when

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Speaker 3: you're in the ocean, it's hard to see scale. So

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Speaker 3: this thing is literally almost as big as a football field,

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Speaker 3: just sitting on a platform in the middle of the ocean.

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Speaker 3: So all the turbines are going to be wired to

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Speaker 3: the substation. The substation takes the electricity and it puts

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Speaker 3: it on a big cable and it sends it all

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Speaker 3: the way to shore.

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Speaker 2: And so they have these platforms, these monopiles that the

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Speaker 2: turbines will go on. And then how big are the

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Speaker 2: turbines themselves going to be? I think we've all seen

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Speaker 2: those things, you know, the big blades spinning.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, if you've ever seen a wind turbine on land,

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Speaker 3: you know it's big. But the ones they make for offshore,

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Speaker 3: they're even bigger. They're really big. So these are going

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Speaker 3: to be about eight hundred and fifty feet tall, and

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Speaker 3: I did a little math that works out almost exactly

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Speaker 3: to the height of the Washington Monument with the Statue

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Speaker 3: of Liberty stacked on top. This project's going to be

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Speaker 3: sixty two of them. It's about eight hundred megawatts of capacity.

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Speaker 3: That's going to be enough to power four hundred thousand

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Speaker 3: homes in the region. It's a big project.

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Speaker 2: And how long has this been under development.

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Speaker 3: It's been under development for a long time. They got

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Speaker 3: their initial power purchase agreement back in twenty eighteen.

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Speaker 2: So they're just now starting to put these turbines up.

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Speaker 2: How long until this thing is up and running.

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Speaker 3: It's supposed to be complete in early twenty twenty four,

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Speaker 3: but they told me that the first ones that are

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Speaker 3: going to be installed, they're going to be wiring up

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Speaker 3: as soon as they can. They should be delivering electricity

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Speaker 3: in October already delivering.

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Speaker 2: Wow, that seems pretty soon.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really soon. This will be the first electricity

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Speaker 3: from a large scale US offshore wind project. There are

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Speaker 3: two other offshore wind projects in service in the United States,

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Speaker 3: but they're really just test projects. One is near Block Island.

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Speaker 3: It's just thirty megawatts with five turbines. That was the

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Speaker 3: first one, and then there's another one down in Virginia.

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Speaker 3: It only has two turbines. There was really just, you know,

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Speaker 3: a demonstration project.

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Speaker 2: So I imagine that people who like to use the

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Speaker 2: beach and own property along the shoreline don't really want

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Speaker 2: to look out and see giant turbine spinning. Can you

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Speaker 2: see it from the shore?

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Speaker 3: I mean they're big. You could see them from a while,

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Speaker 3: but I'm told that you will not be able to

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Speaker 3: see it from the shore.

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Speaker 2: We talk a lot about how we're trying to wean

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Speaker 2: ourselves from natural gas, from coal, from other fossil fuels,

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Speaker 2: and move toward wind and solar. Why did it take

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Speaker 2: so long for a project like this to get underwig.

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Speaker 3: This has just been a slow moving industry in the

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Speaker 3: United States, and certainly since this is the first big project,

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Speaker 3: it's getting a lot of attention. They all have to

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Speaker 3: go through a lot of environmental reviews. You've got to

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Speaker 3: go through state and federal oversight, You've got to do

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Speaker 3: all of those environmental impact studies. The fishermen had plenty

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Speaker 3: to say about the topic. It takes a long time

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Speaker 3: to get all of the approvals that you need.

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Speaker 2: And there's a whole bunch of other projects also planned

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Speaker 2: up and down on the East coast. Is that right, Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Offshore wind is a big component of the US's climate strategy,

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Speaker 3: and there's about seventeen projects that are planned running all

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Speaker 3: the way up from the mid Atlantic up to the Northeast.

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Speaker 3: President Joe Biden has set a goal of having thirty

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Speaker 3: gigawatts of offshore wind and service by twenty thirty, so

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Speaker 3: we'll see if we get there. But we're starting to

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Speaker 3: hit some snags because this is such a slow moving industry.

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Speaker 3: Vineyard Wind is under construction now, and there's another project

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Speaker 3: almost in the same area, South Fork Wind. It's under

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Speaker 3: construction now. They'll probably be finished faster, but they won't

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Speaker 3: have electricity delivered as fast, or so they say, but

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Speaker 3: South Fork Wind is much smaller. But after that, nothing

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Speaker 3: else is under construction, and instead we've seen several projects

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Speaker 3: trying to get out of their agreements, trying to cancel

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Speaker 3: some of their contracts, trying to renegotiate their contracts. So

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Speaker 3: here's the problem. The basic business model for an offshore

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Speaker 3: wind project is you plan your project. Then you have

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Speaker 3: to get a PPA. That's a power purchase agreement. That

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Speaker 3: means you've got someone on shore that's willing to buy

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Speaker 3: the electricity, and they're usually run for decades twenty twenty

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Speaker 3: five years as standard, So you have a utility usually

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Speaker 3: that says we'll buy your electricity at this price for

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Speaker 3: this length of time. As a developer, once you have that,

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Speaker 3: you're good to go. You take that to the bank

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Speaker 3: and the bank says, ah, this company we trust is

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Speaker 3: promising to give you money. We'll loan you money. Now

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Speaker 3: you've got the bank promising to loan you money. You

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Speaker 3: can take that to your suppliers and say, we would

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Speaker 3: like to buy one hundred wind turbines, and the bank

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Speaker 3: is promising to loan us the money, and the suppliers say,

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Speaker 3: all right, we're all good to go. That's how it's

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Speaker 3: supposed to work. What's happened here is these projects take

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Speaker 3: a long time. So Vineyard Wind got its PPA in

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Speaker 3: twenty eighteen, it lined up its bank, it's financing, it

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Speaker 3: lined up its supply deals. It's good to go. Other

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Speaker 3: projects that got their PPAs later, they're encountering big problems

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Speaker 3: with inflation. So they got their PPAs they started to

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Speaker 3: line up their financing. When they went to line up

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Speaker 3: supply deals, costs have gone up in the past twelve

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Speaker 3: eighteen months. Price of steel has gone up. These giant

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Speaker 3: towers use a lot of steel. The supply chain has

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Speaker 3: gotten all bogged down. It takes longer to get there

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Speaker 3: components that go into all the gears and the electronics.

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Speaker 3: Those costs have gone up. All of a sudden, the

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Speaker 3: project's costs are higher than they expected, and the developers

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Speaker 3: are crunching the numbers and they're like, wait a minute,

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Speaker 3: we promised to deliver electricity at this price. We can't

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Speaker 3: deliver it at that price. Our costs have gone up.

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Speaker 3: Now they're stuck. So we've seen a lot of projects

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Speaker 3: that have gone back to the utilities, back to the States,

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Speaker 3: and they're saying, we have a little problem here. We

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Speaker 3: can't deliver the electricity that we promised to deliver, not

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Speaker 3: at that price. Can we get out of that deal?

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Speaker 3: And they're not getting a lot of sympathy at all.

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Speaker 3: The utilities of the States are going, nah, no, you

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Speaker 3: promised us that power. We want that power. So, for example, Avanngrid,

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Speaker 3: the developer of Vineyard Wind has another project right in

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Speaker 3: the same area. It's even bigger. It's called Commonwealth Wind.

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Speaker 3: It's going to be one point two gigawatts, so that's

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Speaker 3: about fifty percent bigger. The Commonwealth Wind project agreed to

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Speaker 3: pay a penalty to get out of that contract because

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Speaker 3: it can't make money. They're going to try and rebid

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Speaker 3: in a January auction and see if they can get

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Speaker 3: a higher ppa. We'll see how that works for them.

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Speaker 2: When you went to them and asked them about it,

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Speaker 2: what did they have to say?

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Speaker 3: They said that they're hoping to find a way forward

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Speaker 3: with their projects.

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Speaker 2: After the break the challenges of building more huge wind

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Speaker 2: projects like this.

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Speaker 6: When I think about climate change, I think jobs, almost

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Speaker 6: one hundred wind turbines going up off the coast of

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Speaker 6: Massachusetts Rhode Island. Jobs manufacturing two thousand, five hundred ton

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Speaker 6: steel foundations that anchor these offshore wind farm to the seafloor.

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Speaker 2: Will you mentioned before that President Biden has this goal

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Speaker 2: of thirty gigawatts of wind power. Exactly what does that mean?

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Speaker 2: A gigawatt sounds big, but what does that translate to?

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Speaker 3: Well, it is big, it's a lot of power. But

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Speaker 3: what it translates to it's harder to measure. So, for example,

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Speaker 3: Vineyard wind is going to be eight hundred megawatts.

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Speaker 2: A little side note here to help wrap our brains

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Speaker 2: around this, there are one thousand megawatts in a gigawatt,

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Speaker 2: So this eight hundred megawatt project is eighty percent of

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Speaker 2: a gigawatt.

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Speaker 3: And they say that's going to be enough for four

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Speaker 3: hundred thousand homes in the area. So keep in mind

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Speaker 3: it's in New England, because a gigawatt of power in

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Speaker 3: New England isn't the same as a gigawatt of power

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Speaker 3: in Texas.

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Speaker 2: Why is that?

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Speaker 3: Texas is really hot. They use a lot of air conditioning.

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Speaker 3: That's a lot of electricity, So a gigawat there won't

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Speaker 3: go as far as a gigawat in Maine, where they

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Speaker 3: don't need as much electricity.

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Speaker 2: So the idea is that powering an air conditioner is

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Speaker 2: more than powering a light bulb exactly.

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Speaker 3: Plus you have to think about what kind of electricity

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Speaker 3: it comes from. One of my standard measures is a

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Speaker 3: nuclear power plant, a big conventional nuclear power plan. Most

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Speaker 3: people can probably just imagine what it looks like. Those

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Speaker 3: are about a gigawatt each but they run night and

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Speaker 3: day twenty four to seven, almost three hundred and sixty

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Speaker 3: five days a year. A gigawatt of wind power they're

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Speaker 3: not going to run twenty four to seven. The best

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Speaker 3: winds are usually at night. So a gigawatt of nuclear

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Speaker 3: will go further than a gigawatt of wind.

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Speaker 2: Just because it's operating twenty four hours a.

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Speaker 3: Day, because it runs around the clock.

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Speaker 2: They're placing these giant turbines out in the Northeast.

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Speaker 3: Why the US Northeast is one of the two best

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Speaker 3: places in the world for offshore wind power, And there's

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Speaker 3: two reasons for that. One, the winds are strong and consistent.

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Speaker 3: And two, and this is really important, the water's not

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Speaker 3: very deep. Vineyard wind's going to be in about thirty

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Speaker 3: to fifty meters of water. It's like one hundred to

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Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty feet. That is not a huge

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Speaker 3: engineering challenge. When you go off to California, for example,

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Speaker 3: off the whole West coast, the water offshore gets real deep,

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Speaker 3: real fast. So you couldn't build an offshore wind turbin

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Speaker 3: like that in a thousand feet of water.

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Speaker 2: So what are they going to do about that. Is

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Speaker 2: there a solution to that.

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Speaker 3: Yes, they're experimenting with floating wind farms, so they won't

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Speaker 3: be on monopiles that are bolted to the bottom of

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Speaker 3: the ocean. They're going to be literally these floating platforms

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Speaker 3: with a wind turbine attached to it, and they're going

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Speaker 3: to anchor them at the bottom. It's an experimental technology,

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Speaker 3: but they say it's a lot easier to do because

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Speaker 3: you can build it on shore and then tow it

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Speaker 3: out to sea, so that should be faster and cheaper.

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Speaker 3: But it's still new and unproven.

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Speaker 2: And those things aren't going to be bobbing in the water.

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Speaker 3: They will bob in the water, but they have counterweights

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Speaker 3: on the bottom, so they'll bob down and bob back up.

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Speaker 2: And the turbines will always stay straight up and down.

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Speaker 3: They'll move around a little bit, but not so much

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Speaker 3: that they don't work.

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Speaker 2: Europe has been building these wind farms for a long time.

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Speaker 2: They're way ahead of the US.

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Speaker 3: Why are they, Oh, it's really simple. They don't have

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Speaker 3: as much space. Europe's not as big as the United States.

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Speaker 3: If you drive across the country, you're going to see

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Speaker 3: so much wind farms out in the middle of the

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Speaker 3: country in Iowa, Nebraska, they've got tons of space and

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Speaker 3: it's really windy there. Europe is much especially Western Europe,

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Speaker 3: it's much more dense. They don't have as much space.

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Speaker 3: They had to go offshore. There's another reason why offshore

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Speaker 3: wind in the US, especially on the East coast, is

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Speaker 3: a good idea. It's close to where the people are.

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Speaker 3: All those wind farms in Iowa, very far from New

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Speaker 3: York City where there's so many people that need electricity, and.

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Speaker 2: So then you have to run all those lines further.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, we need thousands of miles of transmission lines in

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Speaker 3: this country. It's actually a huge problem for the renewable

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Speaker 3: energy transition.

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Speaker 2: Are there any precautions they have to take? They're building

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Speaker 2: these things in the ocean. There's a lot of wildlife

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Speaker 2: all around them.

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Speaker 3: Well, they're really concerned about whales. They don't want the

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Speaker 3: construction to disrupt the whales. Everybody loves the whales. I'm

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Speaker 3: out on the boat and it's really beautiful and I

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Speaker 3: was thinking, Wow, I hope we get to see some whales,

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Speaker 3: and the people in the project, I hope we don't

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Speaker 3: see whales. If we see whales, we have to stop work.

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Speaker 2: So actually they have to pause the project if they see.

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Speaker 3: Whalel Yeah, no construction allowed when there's whales in the area.

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Speaker 2: So how much is this big project going to cost?

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Speaker 3: A vineyard wing that's about four billion dollars and that

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Speaker 3: substation was like almost a quarter of it. I was

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Speaker 3: like nine hundred million dollars for that.

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Speaker 2: Will you mention there are a lot of other projects

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Speaker 2: in the works up and down the East coast. What

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Speaker 2: about in those big open spaces in the middle of

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Speaker 2: the country. Are we going to start to see more

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Speaker 2: and more wind farms across America?

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Speaker 4: Oh?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, there's still plenty of wind farms under development

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Speaker 3: all across the country. Wind and solar if solar takes

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Speaker 3: up a lot of space too. They're all key components

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Speaker 3: of the green energy transition that the US is trying

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Speaker 3: to pursue. They're even planning one in the Great Lakes

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Speaker 3: Icebreaker wind in Lake Erie near Cleveland.

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Speaker 2: And how long do they think it'll take for Joe

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Speaker 2: Biden's goal of thirty gigawatts of wind power to be real?

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Speaker 3: Well, the target's twenty thirty. We'll see if we get there.

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Speaker 3: In terms of the projects that are delayed, right now.

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Speaker 3: I don't think that they're going to be killed. I

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Speaker 3: think there's enough desire. I think there's enough interest from

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Speaker 3: the governments and from state governments in having this clean energy.

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Speaker 3: I think they're going to find a way forward, but

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Speaker 3: it's going to take some time to work through this.

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Speaker 2: Will thanks so much for coming on the show. Happy

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Speaker 2: to be here when we come back. What is like

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Speaker 2: to go to work on the ocean floor.

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Speaker 4: My name's Nick Schultz.

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Speaker 5: I'm a member of pile Driver's Local Union fifty six.

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Speaker 5: I'm a commercial diver and pile driver, and I do

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Speaker 5: all kinds of marine construction.

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Speaker 2: So, Nick, you've worked on some of these big offshore

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Speaker 2: wind projects. Your work in the water is on the

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Speaker 2: kind of the infrastructure that goes beneath these giant turbines. Yes,

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Speaker 2: and that's really what's been happening right now as they're

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Speaker 2: preparing to start putting up the first of them. Can

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Speaker 2: you describe what that work is like. I mean, you're

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Speaker 2: out in the middle of the water and you're putting

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Speaker 2: in these really big structures to hold giant turfines.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, the foundations themselves, that's our kind of work.

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Speaker 4: What we do here at the pile drivers.

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Speaker 5: We do the big monopiles, and those are enormous. They

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Speaker 5: like thirty feet around in four inch thick steel and

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Speaker 5: it takes them like almost a whole day to get

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Speaker 5: one in.

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Speaker 4: But there's so much stuff we do in the water.

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Speaker 5: Recently, I started doing what's called a big bubble curtain,

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Speaker 5: and that's like to reduce sound noises for the animal

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Speaker 5: life in the area. It's really like an I've never

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Speaker 5: seen it before, never even done it before, and it's

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Speaker 5: like one of the neater things we do because they

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Speaker 5: do acoustical readings.

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Speaker 2: So a bubble curtain what exactly.

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Speaker 5: Is that it's a giant hose that they lay around

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Speaker 5: the perimeter of the pile they're driving, and they pump

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Speaker 5: a large amount of air through it and it creates

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Speaker 5: a continuous wall of air bubbles to the surface and

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Speaker 5: it reduces the noise from the r of the pile

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Speaker 5: because it starts off at like one hundred sixty decibels

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Speaker 5: and with the bubble curtain, they can get it down

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Speaker 5: closer to under one hundred.

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Speaker 2: And that's when they're trying to put down the foundation

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Speaker 2: by basically just pounding it into the ocean floor.

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Speaker 5: They use a massive hammer that generates close to two

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Speaker 5: million pounds of forest with each blow. They're trying to

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Speaker 5: reduce the sound to protect the wildlife in the area.

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Speaker 2: And that's what they're using to stabilize these giant platforms.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, that's the initial foundation that these sit on, and

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Speaker 5: they're massive and they go into the ground probably one

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Speaker 5: hundred twenty feet one hundred and fifty feet.

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Speaker 2: What are they there for, Like, why are they trying

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Speaker 2: to reduce the sound?

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Speaker 5: In water, sound travels like four and a half times

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Speaker 5: faster than in the air, and when the sound hits

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Speaker 5: the air bubbles it slows it down.

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Speaker 4: So they usually put one.

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Speaker 5: Or two of these curtains around to lessen the sound

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Speaker 5: for in case there's any animals or wildlife in the area.

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Speaker 5: It doesn't damage anything. I mean, they have a pretty

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Speaker 5: strict protocol. They run where we're not allowed to work

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Speaker 5: at all if they're in within a certain perimeter if

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Speaker 5: they spot a whale, like, all work has stopped till

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Speaker 5: the whale leaves the area for at least an.

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Speaker 4: Hour or more before they let you continue working.

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Speaker 2: Does that happen a lot.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, some days it's really frustrating because you get all

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Speaker 5: set up to go, and.

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Speaker 4: Then you can't do anything for half the day.

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Speaker 2: Can you describe what it's like to put one of

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Speaker 2: these giant piles down?

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Speaker 5: The one ship on Vineyard Wind one is the Orion.

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Speaker 5: It's like nine hundred feet long. It has a massive crane.

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Speaker 5: They put one of these big piles into like a cradle.

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Speaker 5: They stand it up with this giant cradle, and then

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Speaker 5: they set it on the seabed and they let it

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Speaker 5: settle out, and then they swing the crane over and

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Speaker 5: they put their giant hammer that then smashes it into

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Speaker 5: the ground.

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Speaker 2: You have those piles down, then what happens.

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Speaker 4: They have to put a.

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Speaker 5: Cage in that has sacrificial annos.

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Speaker 4: To keep it from rotting.

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Speaker 2: Most people, like me, I have no idea what a

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Speaker 2: sacrificial anode is.

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Speaker 5: What is that They attach something that's like the aluminum

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Speaker 5: gives up. It rots away faster than the steel wheel,

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Speaker 5: So the aluminum goes away before the steel.

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Speaker 4: Does, so it protects that part of it, so it

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Speaker 4: keeps it from rusting and rotting.

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Speaker 5: They aluminum will disappear before the steel disappears. And then

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Speaker 5: they put a transition piece on which is eighty seven

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Speaker 5: to ninety feet tall, and that's the piece that gets

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Speaker 5: it up to like.

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Speaker 4: A working platform.

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Speaker 5: And then there's another section that goes up in the

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Speaker 5: air that the turbine sits on. That's another like two

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Speaker 5: hundred feet tall, and then the turbine sits on top

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Speaker 5: of that, and then they put the blades on after.

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Speaker 4: There's a lot to it.

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Speaker 2: And what's this work like? Like when you're doing it?

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Speaker 2: Can you describe just what it's like to work in

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Speaker 2: that environment? I imagine it's pretty unusual. Like most people's jobs

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Speaker 2: are way different than this job.

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Speaker 5: I mean, honestly, the hardest part is being away from

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Speaker 5: everybody because you go to work for four to ten

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Speaker 5: weeks and just not being home to do your normal

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Speaker 5: things or you know, like I have a wife and kids,

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Speaker 5: I have a single mother at home while I'm at work,

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Speaker 5: and that's probably the hardest part.

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Speaker 2: I imagine A large part of your job just must

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Speaker 2: be troubleshooting what sorts of stuff can go wrong.

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Speaker 4: Like most of our day is just making sure it all.

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Speaker 5: Goes right, because you know, when you pick up something

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Speaker 5: that weighs a million pounds, you've got to have it

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Speaker 5: as safe as you possibly can.

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Speaker 4: You got to look at everything a couple of times.

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Speaker 5: You know, it's not like you know, I drop a

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Speaker 5: two by four building a shed, I might, you know,

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Speaker 5: bruise my toe you drop something this big, I want

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Speaker 5: to know what happens.

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Speaker 2: Well, I imagine you must have some pretty strict safety protocols.

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Speaker 4: We do. We do.

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Speaker 5: We go through one hundred and eighty hours of training

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Speaker 5: on top of the training we already have.

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Speaker 2: We do a lot of and what is that training?

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Speaker 2: What do you have to do? Like, what's an example

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Speaker 2: of the sort of safety training you have to do.

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Speaker 5: We do like a see survival training that the Global

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Speaker 5: Window Organization puts on, a forty hour rigging course, another

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Speaker 5: twenty four hour rigging course. We got to be CPR

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Speaker 5: to the helicopter egress training, which is people find fascinating

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Speaker 5: because they turn a helicopter upside down with us in

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Speaker 5: it and drop it in the water and we have

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Speaker 5: to escape it.

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Speaker 4: As part of the training.

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Speaker 2: They ditch a helicopter in the ocean and you have

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Speaker 2: to get out of it.

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Speaker 5: They have like a training center that they have like

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Speaker 5: a car body of the helicopter that they do in

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Speaker 5: a pool and safety divers.

440
00:22:52,520 --> 00:22:53,879
Speaker 4: But they do teach you how.

441
00:22:53,800 --> 00:22:56,679
Speaker 5: If your helicopter crashes, how to get out of it.

442
00:22:56,680 --> 00:22:58,760
Speaker 2: Because that's how you get to and from the site.

443
00:22:59,160 --> 00:23:01,320
Speaker 5: Yeah, a time we have to fly in and out,

444
00:23:01,680 --> 00:23:04,120
Speaker 5: whether like if the ship can't make port and they

445
00:23:04,160 --> 00:23:07,159
Speaker 5: have to do crew change, they'll change us out via helicopter.

446
00:23:09,600 --> 00:23:13,680
Speaker 2: You said that you spend weeks away. How long do

447
00:23:13,720 --> 00:23:15,800
Speaker 2: you get off after you complete a shift.

448
00:23:16,359 --> 00:23:18,840
Speaker 5: Some of the boats are on six weeks on, six

449
00:23:18,920 --> 00:23:22,800
Speaker 5: weeks off, some of them are four weeks on, four

450
00:23:22,840 --> 00:23:26,200
Speaker 5: weeks off. But it's all subject to change on schedule,

451
00:23:26,320 --> 00:23:29,239
Speaker 5: like sometimes it's give or take, but that's generally like

452
00:23:29,320 --> 00:23:33,760
Speaker 5: your regular rotation. We work twelve hours a day, sometimes longer.

453
00:23:34,280 --> 00:23:36,720
Speaker 4: Every day. There's no real days off. There's always something

454
00:23:36,760 --> 00:23:37,000
Speaker 4: to do.

455
00:23:38,040 --> 00:23:41,119
Speaker 2: You talked a bit about the safety training, but how

456
00:23:41,160 --> 00:23:42,840
Speaker 2: do you learn how to do this work? Did you

457
00:23:42,880 --> 00:23:43,520
Speaker 2: have to go to.

458
00:23:43,440 --> 00:23:44,000
Speaker 4: School for this?

459
00:23:45,040 --> 00:23:49,240
Speaker 5: Through my union, we have an apprenticeship program. This is

460
00:23:49,359 --> 00:23:51,600
Speaker 5: a few of our members that haven't gone, but almost

461
00:23:51,640 --> 00:23:53,040
Speaker 5: all of them have gone to it. It's a four

462
00:23:53,119 --> 00:23:57,920
Speaker 5: year training period. I also went to dive school. I'm

463
00:23:57,960 --> 00:24:02,800
Speaker 5: a certified commercial diver. That took me like six months also,

464
00:24:02,960 --> 00:24:06,760
Speaker 5: so I've probably spent four or five years training myself

465
00:24:07,240 --> 00:24:08,200
Speaker 5: on top of all.

466
00:24:08,200 --> 00:24:09,800
Speaker 4: Our upgrades and whatnot.

467
00:24:09,920 --> 00:24:12,879
Speaker 5: We get on top of it for specific projects like

468
00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:14,280
Speaker 5: the wind farms.

469
00:24:14,680 --> 00:24:16,480
Speaker 2: Do you use diving in your work?

470
00:24:17,119 --> 00:24:21,920
Speaker 5: Yes, we have to do some work underwater, some underwater excavating.

471
00:24:22,560 --> 00:24:23,080
Speaker 2: What's that like?

472
00:24:23,680 --> 00:24:25,400
Speaker 5: The first time I did it, it was a little

473
00:24:25,400 --> 00:24:28,840
Speaker 5: scary because I was brand new, probably like ten twelve

474
00:24:28,960 --> 00:24:33,480
Speaker 5: years ago. That's what I started doing, was submarine cable work.

475
00:24:33,880 --> 00:24:36,560
Speaker 2: When you go into the water, now, are you still

476
00:24:36,600 --> 00:24:37,480
Speaker 2: a little bit Oh?

477
00:24:37,560 --> 00:24:41,359
Speaker 5: Now, no, I'm pretty confident. But when I was new,

478
00:24:42,080 --> 00:24:45,320
Speaker 5: you go twenty thirty one hundred feet under the surface

479
00:24:45,320 --> 00:24:49,119
Speaker 5: of the water, and it's a little nerve wracking to.

480
00:24:48,600 --> 00:24:49,080
Speaker 4: Be in with.

481
00:24:49,440 --> 00:24:53,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, I imagine, how'd you decide to get into this work?

482
00:24:54,000 --> 00:24:56,359
Speaker 5: When I was younger, I was I worked as a

483
00:24:56,440 --> 00:24:58,280
Speaker 5: driller for a little while, and I had met some

484
00:24:58,320 --> 00:25:02,680
Speaker 5: commercial divers and the housing crash around two thousand and

485
00:25:02,760 --> 00:25:06,120
Speaker 5: eight started. I was having trouble finding decent employment there

486
00:25:06,160 --> 00:25:09,000
Speaker 5: for a year or two, and I remember the divers

487
00:25:09,040 --> 00:25:11,480
Speaker 5: telling me that they made pretty good money all the time,

488
00:25:11,560 --> 00:25:14,440
Speaker 5: and I was like, well, there's water everywhere and old

489
00:25:14,440 --> 00:25:16,679
Speaker 5: bridges around this country. I'm sure that will keep me

490
00:25:16,720 --> 00:25:19,320
Speaker 5: employed for a long time. And then once I got

491
00:25:19,359 --> 00:25:22,240
Speaker 5: doing it, it was the variety of jobs I like.

492
00:25:22,640 --> 00:25:24,680
Speaker 5: I probably have seven jobs I do.

493
00:25:25,480 --> 00:25:26,680
Speaker 2: What's best part of your job?

494
00:25:27,200 --> 00:25:28,080
Speaker 4: I like what I do.

495
00:25:28,640 --> 00:25:31,320
Speaker 5: It's big, it's neat. Not a lot of people get

496
00:25:31,359 --> 00:25:33,520
Speaker 5: to do it. It's always an adventure.

497
00:25:34,800 --> 00:25:37,440
Speaker 2: Nick, I really enjoyed talking to you. Thanks for taking

498
00:25:37,480 --> 00:25:41,840
Speaker 2: the ten. Okay, thank you, thanks for listening to us

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00:25:41,840 --> 00:25:44,080
Speaker 2: here at The Big Take. It's a daily podcast from

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00:25:44,119 --> 00:25:48,000
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00:25:52,280 --> 00:25:55,080
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00:25:55,119 --> 00:25:58,760
Speaker 2: to Big Take at Bloomberg dot net. The supervising producer

504
00:25:58,800 --> 00:26:02,080
Speaker 2: of The Big Take is Vicky Virgina. Our senior producer

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00:26:02,240 --> 00:26:06,320
Speaker 2: is Catherine Fink. Our producers are Mow Barrow and Michael Falero.

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00:26:06,880 --> 00:26:10,800
Speaker 2: Raphael i'm Sei is our engineer. Our original music was

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Speaker 2: composed by Leo Sidrin I'm west Kasova. We'll be back

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00:26:14,359 --> 00:26:16,080
Speaker 2: tomorrow with another Big Take.