Rangel Renewables, Inflation Reduction Act, 15MW GreenSpur Generators, and Mining the Ocean Floor

The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast

Will the Machin-Schumer bill really change the energy landscape? Tax incentives definitely drive new installations. Speaking of changing the landscape, rare-earth metals do that, in a bad way. We discuss new technology, designs, materials and costs that are wound up in the "rare-Earth free generator." Should we mine faults in the seabed floor for metals? The Metals Company says it would deliver a "Net Positive" environmental impact. Yes, the energy landscape is definitely changing. Don't miss this discussion and the interview with Josh Rangel of Rangel Renewables. The company has grown FAST, and now, repowering is driving even more growth. Visit Rangel Renewables at https://www.rangelrenewables.com LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/rangelrenewables/ Twitter - @RangelRenewable Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Uptime 125 Allen Hall: Hey everybody. Welcome to the Uptime podcast. Really busy episode. We have a discussion on the Manchin-Schumer inflation reduction act and what that's likely to do for renewable energy. We talk about a company that's developing a 15 megawatt rare earth free offshore wind turbine generator. And, the implications for that in the future. Allen Hall: And then we deep dive in a sense with the Metals Company who is trying to pull metals from the ocean floor and why we need to go do that and what the complications and environmental impact of that going to be. At the end of this, we have an interview with Josh Rangel, president and CEO of Rangel Renewables based in Houston, Texas. Allen Hall: They're a big O&M wind turbine maintenance company. They're busy right now, going around the Midwest, replacing blades and, and fixing up wind turbines and doing repowering projects. So it's a great interview with Josh, stay tuned. It's gonna be an excellent episode. Allen Hall: So the Manchin-Schumer administration is putting together a bill that is supposedly going to pass through Congress. It's called the Inflation Reduction act. I think the first response from everybody in America is like, yeah. Right. Okay. So Rosemary, you don't even know about inflation in Australia, do you? Allen Hall: Because here in America, you know, we are like at 8%, 9% inflation rate, we're talking about a lot too. So the, the, are you, well, we could, we could send you some of our inflation if you'd like, we'd be Rosemary Barnes: glad. Be pretty cool to not, not going higher. Rosemary Barnes: Thanks. Anyway. so the there, well, Allen Hall: don't say Americans, aren't generous. so the, the, the, the, the deal is there there's a broad mix of, so pretty much anything you could think of is in this bill. It's the craziest thing. It's like 700 pages long. I was scanning through it over the weekend, thinking my god, who can put all this together, but let me give you a summary. Allen Hall: Of all the things are inside of it. Basically it's gonna have include tax rebates or production tax credits is what it sounds like for wind and solar. And then eventually bring in storage, battery storage as part of it green hydrogen. Is part of this mix where they're gonna give tax incentives to create green hydrogen that is not created by natural gas. Allen Hall: So, but there is, you're allowed to create some CO2 when you create this green hydrogen there's, there's a graduated scale there. I don't know whoever came up with that there are also going to open up some oil sites in the Gulf of Mexico for drilling that the administration had said they, they weren't gonna close but were closed.