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Speaker 1: Hi, it's West Kosova. We're taking a break this week,

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Speaker 1: so here's an episode you might have missed and an

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Speaker 1: update on this story. Since the show aired, a number

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Speaker 1: of planned offshore wind projects in the northeastern US have

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Speaker 1: been put on hold or are in doubt, mostly because

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Speaker 1: of rising costs, and that's also raised doubts about President

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Speaker 1: Biden's goal of reaching thirty gigawatts of offshore wind power

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Speaker 1: capacity by the end of this decade. At the same time, though,

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Speaker 1: the Massachusetts project we talk about in this episode completed

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Speaker 1: construction of its first wind turbine last month, and a

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Speaker 1: developer of another big win project off the coast of

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Speaker 1: Virginia says it's moving ahead with its project. Thanks so

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Speaker 1: much for listening. We'll be back on Monday with a

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Speaker 1: new big take.

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Speaker 2: Federal regulators made it official. Vineyard Wind will be the

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Speaker 2: first large scale offshore wind energy project in the United States.

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Speaker 2: This project will generate enough electricity for about four hundred

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Speaker 2: thousand homes. The CEO of Vineyard Wind, Lars Peterson, says

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Speaker 2: this new project will kickstart the industry. Vineyard will be

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Speaker 2: the first to use a new turbine that stands more

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Speaker 2: than eight hundred and fifty feet tall, with each of

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Speaker 2: its three blades stretching more than the length of a

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Speaker 2: football field.

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Speaker 1: About fifteen miles south of Nantucket, off the coast of Massachusetts,

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Speaker 1: a massive new wind farm is rising out of the

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Speaker 1: Atlantic Ocean. The project is expected to start delivering electricity

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Speaker 1: this fall. Those turbines will bring the Biden administration closer

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Speaker 1: to its goal of the US generating thirty giglewatts of

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Speaker 1: power from clean offshore wind by twenty thirty, but that

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Speaker 1: goal won't be easy to reach. Building those super tall

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Speaker 1: wind 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: Giant towers use a lot of steel. All of a sudden,

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

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Speaker 1: That's Bloomberg's will Wade. He got on a big boat

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Speaker 1: to check out the wind farm, and a bit later

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Speaker 1: I talked to Nick Schultz. He's a commercial diver working

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Speaker 1: on this project, and I asked him what it's like

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Speaker 1: to build a wind turbine in deep water.

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Speaker 4: 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 got to have it

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Speaker 5: as safe as you possibly can.

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Speaker 1: I'm west Kosova today on the Big Take the answer.

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Speaker 1: My friend is blowing it.

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Speaker 6: Well, you know, will you went out to see this

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Speaker 6: giant wind project.

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Speaker 1: What was 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 to the Like. All my coworkers were like, wow,

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Speaker 3: that's a real hardship assignment.

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Speaker 1: Well, journalism can be tough.

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Speaker 4: It is.

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Speaker 3: We head at 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 monolpiles for that, and then they built the platform

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

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Speaker 3: up and then the substation, and you know, when you're

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

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Speaker 3: 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 table and it sends it all

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Speaker 3: the way to shore.

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Speaker 1: And so they have these platforms, these monopiles that the

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Speaker 1: turbines will go on. And then how big are the

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Speaker 1: turbines themselves going to be? I think we've all seen

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Speaker 1: 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: of capacity. That's going to be enough to power four

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

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Speaker 1: 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 1: So they're just now starting to put these turbines up.

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Speaker 1: 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 1: 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 a

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Speaker 3: demonstration project.

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Speaker 1: So I imagine that people who like to use the

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Speaker 1: beach and own property along the shoreline don't really want

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Speaker 1: to look out and see giant turbine spinning. Can you

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Speaker 1: 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 1: We talk a lot about how we're trying to wean

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Speaker 1: ourselves from natural gas, from coal, from other fossil fuels

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Speaker 1: and move toward wind and solar. Why did it take

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Speaker 1: so long for our 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 1: And there's a whole bunch of other projects also planned

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Speaker 1: up and down the East coast. Is that right?

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Offshore wind is a big component of the US's

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Speaker 3: climate strategy, and there's about seventeen projects that are planned

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Speaker 3: running all the way up from the mid Atlantic up

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Speaker 3: to the Northeast. President Joe Biden has set a goal

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Speaker 3: of having thirty gigawatts of offshore wind and service by

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Speaker 3: twenty thirty, so we'll see if we get there. But

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Speaker 3: we're starting to hit some snags because this is such

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Speaker 3: a slow moving industry. Vineyard Wind is under construction now,

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Speaker 3: and there's another project almost in the same area, South

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Speaker 3: Fork Wind. It's under construction now. They'll probably be finished faster,

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Speaker 3: but they won't have electricity delivered as fast, or so

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Speaker 3: they say, but South Fork Wind is much smaller. But

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Speaker 3: after that, nothing else is under construction, and instead we've

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Speaker 3: seen several projects trying to get out of their agreements,

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Speaker 3: trying to cancel some of their contracts, trying to renegotiate

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Speaker 3: their contracts. So here's the problem. The basic business model

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Speaker 3: for an offshore wind project is you plan your project,

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Speaker 3: then you have to get a PPA. That's a power

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Speaker 3: purchase agreement. That means you've got someone on shore that's

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Speaker 3: willing to buy the electricity and they're usually run for

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Speaker 3: decades twenty twenty five years as standard. So you have

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Speaker 3: a utility usually that says we'll buy your electricity at

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Speaker 3: this price for this length of time. As a developer,

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Speaker 3: once you have that, you're good to go. You take

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Speaker 3: that to the bank, and the bank says, ah, this

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Speaker 3: company we trust is promising to give you money. We'll

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

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Speaker 3: loan you money. You can take that to your suppliers

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Speaker 3: and say, we would like to buy one hundred wind turbines,

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

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Speaker 3: and the suppliers say, all right, we're all good to go.

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Speaker 3: That's how it's supposed to work. What's happened here is

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Speaker 3: these projects take a long time. So Vineyard Wind got

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Speaker 3: its PPA in twenty eighteen. It lined up its bank,

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Speaker 3: it's financing, it lined up its supply deals. It's good

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Speaker 3: to go. Other projects that got their PPAs later they're

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Speaker 3: encountering big problems with inflation. So they got their PPAs

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

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Speaker 3: to line up supply deals, costs have gone up in

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Speaker 3: the past twelve eighteen months. Price of steel has gone up.

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

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Speaker 3: chain has gotten all bogged down. It takes longer to

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Speaker 3: get there components that go into all the gears and

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Speaker 3: the electronics. Those costs have gone up all of a

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

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

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Speaker 3: a minute, we promised to deliver electricity at this price.

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Speaker 3: We can't deliver it at that price. Our costs have

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Speaker 3: gone up. Now they're stuck. So we've seen a lot

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Speaker 3: of projects that have gone back to the utilities, back

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Speaker 3: to the States, and they're saying, we have a little

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Speaker 3: problem here. We can't deliver the electricity that we promised

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Speaker 3: to deliver, not at that price. Can we get out

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Speaker 3: of that deal? And they're not getting a lot of

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Speaker 3: sympathy at all. The utilities of the States are going, nah, no,

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Speaker 3: you promised us that power. We want that power. So,

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Speaker 3: for example, Avngrid, the developer Vineyard Wind, has another project

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Speaker 3: right in the same area. It's even bigger. It's called

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Speaker 3: Commonwealth Wind. It's going to be one point two gigawatts,

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Speaker 3: so that's about fifty percent bigger. The Commonwealth Wind project

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Speaker 3: agreed to pay a penalty to get out of that

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Speaker 3: contract because it can't make money. They're going to try

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Speaker 3: and rebid in a January auction and see if they

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Speaker 3: can get a higher ppa. We'll see how that works

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Speaker 3: for them.

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Speaker 1: When you went to them and asked them about it,

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Speaker 1: 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 1: After the break the challenges of building more huge wind

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Speaker 1: projects like this.

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Speaker 7: When I think about climate change, I think jobs, almost

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Speaker 7: one hundred wind turbines going up off the coast of

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Speaker 7: Massachusetts Rhode Island, jobs manufacturing two thousand and five one

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Speaker 7: hundred ton steel foundations that anchor these offshore wind farm

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Speaker 7: to the seafloor.

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Speaker 1: Will you mentioned before that President Biden has this goal

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Speaker 1: of thirty gigawatts of wind power. Exactly what does that mean?

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Speaker 1: A gigwatt 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 1: A little side note here to help wrap our brains

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Speaker 1: around this. There are one thousand megawatts in a gigawatt,

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Speaker 1: So this eight hundred megawatt project is eighty percent of

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Speaker 1: a gigawatt, and.

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Speaker 3: They say that's going to be enough for four hundred

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Speaker 3: thousand homes in the area. So keep in mind it's

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

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Speaker 3: England isn't the same as a gigawatt of power in Texas.

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Speaker 3: Way is that Texas is really hot. They use a

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Speaker 3: lot of air conditioning. That's a lot of electricity, So

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Speaker 3: a gigawatt there won't go as far as a gigawatt

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Speaker 3: in Maine, where they don't need as much electricity.

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Speaker 1: So the idea is that powering an air conditioner is

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Speaker 1: 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 day,

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

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Speaker 3: days a year. A gigawatt of wind power they're not

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Speaker 3: going to run twenty four to seven. The best winds

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

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Speaker 3: go further than a gigawat of wind.

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Speaker 1: Just because it's operating twenty four hours a day.

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Speaker 3: Because it runs around the clock.

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Speaker 1: They're placing these giant turbines out in the Northeast.

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Speaker 3: Why there, The US Northeast is one of the two

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Speaker 3: best places in the world for offshore wind power, And

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Speaker 3: there's two reasons for that. One, the winds are strong

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Speaker 3: and consistent. And two, and this is really important, the

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Speaker 3: water's not very deep. Vineyard Wind's going to be in

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

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

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Speaker 3: a huge engineering challenge. When you go off to California,

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Speaker 3: for example, off the whole West coast, the water offshore

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Speaker 3: gets real deep, real fast. So you couldn't build an

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

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Speaker 1: So what are they going to do about that? Is

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Speaker 1: 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 1: And those things aren't going to be bobbing in the water.

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Speaker 3: They will bomb 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 1: 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 1: Europe has been building these wind farms for a long time.

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Speaker 1: 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 country.

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Speaker 3: In Iowa, Nebraska, they've got tons of space and it's

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: to the US, especially on the East coast, is a

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: 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 1: Are there any precautions they have to take they're building

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Speaker 1: these things in the ocean, there's a lot of wildlife

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Speaker 1: 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 that'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. So if we see whales, we have to

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Speaker 3: stop work.

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Speaker 1: So I actually have to pause the project as they

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Speaker 1: see wheel.

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

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Speaker 1: 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. It was

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Speaker 3: like nine hundred million dollars for that.

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Speaker 1: Will you mention that there are a lot of other

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Speaker 1: projects in the works up and down the East coast.

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Speaker 1: What about in those big open spaces in the middle

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Speaker 1: of the country. Are we going to start to see

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Speaker 1: more 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, Solar takes up

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

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Speaker 3: the green energy transition that the US is trying to pursue.

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Speaker 3: They're even planning one in the Great Lakes Icebreaker wind

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Speaker 3: in Lake Erie near Cleveland.

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Speaker 1: And how long do they think it'll take for Joe

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Speaker 1: 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.

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Speaker 1: This Will thanks so much for coming on the show.

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Speaker 1: Happy to be here when we come back. What is

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Speaker 1: like 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 1: So, Nick, you've worked on some of these big offshore

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Speaker 1: wind projects. Your work in the water is on the

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Speaker 1: kind of the infrastructure that goes beneath these giant turbines. Yes,

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Speaker 1: and that's really what's been happening right now as they're

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Speaker 1: preparing to start putting up the first of them. Can

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Speaker 1: you describe what that work is like. I mean, you're

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Speaker 1: out in the middle of the water and you're putting

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Speaker 1: in these really big structures to hold giant turbines.

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

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Speaker 5: we do here at the pile drivers We do the

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Speaker 5: big monopiles, and those are enormous. They like thirty feet

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Speaker 5: around in four inch thick steel and it takes them

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Speaker 5: like almost a whole day to get 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 1: So a bubble curtain what exactly is that.

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Speaker 5: It's a giant hose that they lay around the perimeter

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Speaker 5: of the pile they're driving and they pump a large

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

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Speaker 5: wall of air bubbles to the surface and it reduces

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Speaker 5: the noise from the driving of the pile because it

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Speaker 5: starts off at like one hundred and sixty decibels and

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

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Speaker 5: to under one hundred.

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Speaker 1: And that's when they're trying to put down the foundation

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Speaker 1: 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 1: 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.

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Speaker 4: One hundred twenty feet one hundred and fifty feet.

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Speaker 1: What are they there for? Like, why are they trying

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Speaker 1: 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 and within a certain perimeter if

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

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

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Speaker 5: or more before they let you continue working.

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Speaker 1: 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 then you can't do anything

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Speaker 5: for half the day.

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Speaker 1: Can you describe what it's like to put one of

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Speaker 1: these giant piles down.

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Speaker 5: The one ship on Vineyard Wind one it 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 1: So once you have those piles down, then what happens.

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Speaker 5: They have to put a cage in that has sacrificial annos.

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Speaker 4: To keep it from rotting.

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Speaker 1: Most people, like me, I have no idea what a

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Speaker 1: sacrificial anode is.

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Speaker 5: What is that They attach something that's like aluminum gives up.

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Speaker 5: It rots away faster than the steel wheel, so the

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Speaker 5: aluminum goes away before the steel does, so it protects

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Speaker 5: that part of it, so it keeps it from rusting

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Speaker 5: and rotting. They aluminum will disappear before the steel disappears.

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Speaker 5: And then they put a transition piece on which is

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

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Speaker 5: that gets it up to like a working platform. And

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

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

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

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Speaker 5: and then they put the blades on.

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Speaker 4: After there's a lot to it.

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Speaker 1: And what's this work like?

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Speaker 5: Like?

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Speaker 1: When you're doing it, can you describe just what it's

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Speaker 1: like to work in that environment. I imagine it's pretty unusual.

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Speaker 1: Like most people jobs 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.

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Speaker 4: Not being home to do your normal things.

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Speaker 5: 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 1: I imagine a large part of your job just must

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Speaker 1: be troubleshooting what sorts of stuff can go wrong.

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Speaker 5: Well, most of our day is just making sure it

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Speaker 5: all goes right, because you know, when you pick up

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

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Speaker 5: it as safe as you possibly can. You got to

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Speaker 5: look at everything a couple of times. You know, it's

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Speaker 5: not like, you know, I drop a two by four

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Speaker 5: building a shed, I might, you know, bruise my toe

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Speaker 5: you drop something this big, I don't want to know

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Speaker 5: what happens.

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Speaker 1: 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 train

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

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Speaker 4: We do a lot of.

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Speaker 1: And what is that training? What do you have to do,

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Speaker 1: Like what's an example of the sort of safety training

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00:23:08,240 --> 00:23:09,359
Speaker 1: you have to do.

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00:23:09,400 --> 00:23:13,200
Speaker 5: We do like a see survival training that the Global

444
00:23:13,240 --> 00:23:18,040
Speaker 5: Window Organization puts on, a forty hour rigging course, another

445
00:23:18,160 --> 00:23:21,280
Speaker 5: twenty four hour rigging course. We got to be CPR

446
00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:26,080
Speaker 5: to the helicopter egress training, which is people find fascinating

447
00:23:26,080 --> 00:23:28,639
Speaker 5: because they turn a helicopter upside down with us in

448
00:23:28,680 --> 00:23:30,199
Speaker 5: it and drop it in the water and we have

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00:23:30,320 --> 00:23:31,080
Speaker 5: to escape it.

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00:23:31,119 --> 00:23:34,359
Speaker 1: As part of the training, they ditch a helicopter in

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00:23:34,400 --> 00:23:35,760
Speaker 1: the ocean and you have to get out of it.

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00:23:36,119 --> 00:23:38,479
Speaker 5: They have like a training center that they have like

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00:23:38,560 --> 00:23:41,159
Speaker 5: a car body of the helicopter that they do in

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00:23:41,200 --> 00:23:42,920
Speaker 5: a pool and safety divers.

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00:23:42,960 --> 00:23:46,440
Speaker 4: But they do teach you how if your helicopter crashes, how.

456
00:23:46,240 --> 00:23:48,120
Speaker 1: To get out of it, because that's how you get

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00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:49,280
Speaker 1: to and from the site.

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00:23:49,600 --> 00:23:51,800
Speaker 5: Yeah, at times we have to fly in and out,

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Speaker 5: whether like if the ship can't make port and they

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00:23:54,600 --> 00:23:57,639
Speaker 5: have to do crew change, they'll change us out via helicopter.

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00:24:00,119 --> 00:24:04,119
Speaker 1: You said that you spend weeks away. How long do

462
00:24:04,160 --> 00:24:06,240
Speaker 1: you get off after you complete a shift.

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00:24:06,840 --> 00:24:09,320
Speaker 5: Some of the boats are on six weeks on six

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00:24:09,359 --> 00:24:13,280
Speaker 5: weeks off. Some of them are four weeks on, four

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00:24:13,320 --> 00:24:16,640
Speaker 5: weeks off. But it's all subject to change on schedule,

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00:24:16,760 --> 00:24:19,679
Speaker 5: like sometimes it's give or take, but that's generally like

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00:24:19,760 --> 00:24:23,720
Speaker 5: your regular rotation. We work twelve hours a day, sometimes

468
00:24:23,800 --> 00:24:25,159
Speaker 5: longer every day.

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00:24:25,240 --> 00:24:27,480
Speaker 4: There's no real days off. There's always something to do.

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00:24:28,480 --> 00:24:31,600
Speaker 1: You talked a bit about the safety training, but how

471
00:24:31,600 --> 00:24:33,280
Speaker 1: do you learn how to do this work? Did you

472
00:24:33,320 --> 00:24:34,520
Speaker 1: have to go to school for this?

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00:24:35,520 --> 00:24:39,720
Speaker 5: Through my union, we have an apprenticeship program. This is

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00:24:39,800 --> 00:24:42,080
Speaker 5: a few of our members that haven't gone, but almost

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00:24:42,119 --> 00:24:43,040
Speaker 5: all of them have gone to it.

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Speaker 4: It's a four year training period.

477
00:24:46,320 --> 00:24:50,080
Speaker 5: I also went to dive school. I'm a certified commercial diver.

478
00:24:51,280 --> 00:24:54,240
Speaker 5: That took me like six months also, so I've probably

479
00:24:54,280 --> 00:24:58,280
Speaker 5: spent four or five years training myself on top of

480
00:24:58,320 --> 00:25:01,080
Speaker 5: all our upgrades and what not. We get on top

481
00:25:01,119 --> 00:25:04,640
Speaker 5: of it for specific projects like the wind farms.

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00:25:05,119 --> 00:25:06,920
Speaker 1: Do you use diving in your work?

483
00:25:07,600 --> 00:25:12,400
Speaker 5: Yes, we have to do some work underwater, some underwater excavating.

484
00:25:13,000 --> 00:25:15,399
Speaker 5: What's that like the First time I did it, it

485
00:25:15,440 --> 00:25:18,520
Speaker 5: was a little scary because I was brand new, probably

486
00:25:18,560 --> 00:25:21,720
Speaker 5: like ten twelve years ago. That's what I started doing

487
00:25:21,920 --> 00:25:24,240
Speaker 5: was submarine cable work.

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00:25:24,359 --> 00:25:27,040
Speaker 1: When you go into the water, now, are you still

489
00:25:27,040 --> 00:25:27,560
Speaker 1: a little bit?

490
00:25:27,720 --> 00:25:27,920
Speaker 4: Oh?

491
00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:31,800
Speaker 5: Now, no, I'm pretty confident. But when I was new,

492
00:25:32,520 --> 00:25:36,159
Speaker 5: you go twenty thirty one hundred feet under the surface.

493
00:25:35,800 --> 00:25:38,359
Speaker 4: Of the water, and it's a little nerve wracking to

494
00:25:39,080 --> 00:25:39,520
Speaker 4: be in with.

495
00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:43,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, I imagine, how'd you decide to get into this work?

496
00:25:44,480 --> 00:25:45,719
Speaker 4: When I was younger, I was.

497
00:25:46,240 --> 00:25:48,080
Speaker 5: I worked as a driller for a little while, and

498
00:25:48,119 --> 00:25:52,160
Speaker 5: I had met some commercial divers. When the housing crash

499
00:25:52,200 --> 00:25:54,959
Speaker 5: around two thousand and eight started, I was having trouble

500
00:25:54,960 --> 00:25:57,560
Speaker 5: finding decent employment there for a year or two, and

501
00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:00,800
Speaker 5: I remember the divers telling me that they made pretty

502
00:26:00,840 --> 00:26:03,240
Speaker 5: good money all the time, and I was like, well,

503
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:06,119
Speaker 5: there's water everywhere and old bridges around this country.

504
00:26:06,119 --> 00:26:08,520
Speaker 4: I'm sure that will keep me employed for a long time.

505
00:26:08,880 --> 00:26:11,080
Speaker 4: And then once I got to it, it was the

506
00:26:11,200 --> 00:26:14,800
Speaker 4: variety of jobs. I like. I probably have seven jobs

507
00:26:14,840 --> 00:26:15,040
Speaker 4: I do.

508
00:26:15,920 --> 00:26:17,160
Speaker 1: What's best part of your job?

509
00:26:17,640 --> 00:26:18,560
Speaker 4: I like what I do.

510
00:26:19,080 --> 00:26:21,800
Speaker 5: It's big, it's neat, not a lot of people get

511
00:26:21,800 --> 00:26:22,800
Speaker 5: to do it.

512
00:26:22,560 --> 00:26:25,480
Speaker 4: It's always an adventure. Nick.

513
00:26:25,840 --> 00:26:28,000
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed talking to you. Thanks for taking the

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00:26:28,040 --> 00:26:32,440
Speaker 1: ten Okay, thank you, thanks for listening to us here

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00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:35,080
Speaker 1: at the Big Take. It's a daily podcast from Bloomberg

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00:26:35,119 --> 00:26:39,520
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Speaker 1: Take at Bloomberg dot net. The supervising producer of The

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Speaker 1: Big Take is Vicky Ergalina. Our senior producer is Catherine Fink.

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00:26:53,920 --> 00:26:58,000
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Speaker 1: Sidrin I'm west Kasova. We'll be back on Monday with

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Speaker 1: another Big Take. Have a great weekend.