21MW Siemens Turbine Revealed, EU Wind vs. Norway’s $25B Oil Push

This week, we discuss Siemens Gamesa's MASSIVE 21 MW turbine
prototype, Vestas and Siemens Gamesa layoffs in Europe, trade
relations between the US and EU in 2025, and the proper
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www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Allen
Hall: If you want to know why Siemens Gamesa is betting big on a 21
megawatt offshore turbine while others scale back, what Norway's 25
billion oil and gas investment means for renewables, and how
manufacturing challenges are reshaping European wind energy, stick
around. Plus, we've got big news about Wind Energy O& M
Australia and a chance to win an exclusive Uptime Podcast mug in
our first ever listener survey. I'm Allen Hall, and this is the
Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. You're listening to the Uptime Wind
Energy Podcast, brought to you by BuildTurbines. com. Learn, train,
and be a part of the clean energy revolution. Visit buildturbines.
com today. Now here's your hosts, Allen Hall, Joel Saxum, Phil
Totaro, and Rosemary Barnes. Allen Hall: Just the season of giving,
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windaustralia. com. Allen Hall: There's a dynamic story in
international trade relations happening at the moment where the
president elect of the United States has issued a statement
regarding US EU trade dynamics and through a social media post U.
S. leadership has called for a European Union to address its trade
deficit with the United States through increased purchases. Of all
things, American oil and gas. Now this threat comes in to light
with all the tariff discussions that have been happening over the
last several weeks. And the EU and the U. S. I think privately
behind closed doors have been talking and trying to tap this down a
little bit. But this comes in light of, Joel, that Norway is busy
drilling away also, that they plan to spend about 25 billion
dollars in 2025 drilling a number of holes, looking for more oil
and gas, which I assume are headed right to the EU. Joel Saxum:
Yeah, absolutely. I think the thing about this that we have to
understand is we're, this is a wind energy podcast, so we're into
renewable energy. We want we're looking for energy transition. I
think the thing that we all need to understand is that the energy
transition is not going to be a flick of a switch, right? We're oil
and gas is in literally everything that you touch every day. Like
the mouse, my computer, my cell phone, my coffee cup, like
petroleum products are in everything. So until we find out.
different source for that, those products, it's not going to go
away. So with that being said, the, you also have to understand
that it's going to play a huge factor on global economics because
like we're talking here, EU in the U S and you have Norway, there.
So Norway being the, one of the largest natural gas producers in
the world, I think they're number four behind like the U S Russia
and Qatar, however you want to say it. But we saw this in the last
few years, the economics and the political geopolitical strife play
out in Eastern Europe with the, the conflict we're having over
there. And then we had this last Presidential campaign series over
here in the United States. One of the big things that president
elect Trump said was drill, baby drill. We're going to continue to
push the United States on what we can do for output for natural gas
and oil, which we've hit records year after year in the last few
years. So it's a way to balance the books globally, right? So if we
want to if the U S wants to flex muscle this is a way to do it,
definitely force, force some of our trade partners to take some oil
and gas. Allen Hall: Does this change the dynamic though in terms
of renewable energy in Northern Europe or greater EU? Joel Saxum: I
don't think so as of yet. I think people will continue to push for
renewable energy projects. They're just not happening quick enough,
right? You can't, there's only so many goods, like spots for wind
farms, say like in Germany that have been cited for their wind
farms are built there, they're in operation. So you're seeing,
instead of all kinds of new field, like we have in the United
States, a hundred, 120 turbine wind sites that just not being
built. So you still have this gap where the thirst for natural gas
for heating and power is very. It's going to continue to happen. I
don't think it'll change in the near term a whole lot. I think you
still have, in my opinion, we still have 10, 20 years left of the
same kind of hydrocarbon thirst that we have right now. Allen Hall:
Phil, is there going to be a big push in terms of growth in the EU
to grab more oil and gas exploration while Phil Totaro: they can?
But let's keep a couple of things in mind with this conversation.
One is that the trade imbalance between the U. S. and Europe is
roughly only about 200 billion. Obviously that's a lot of money,
but in the grand scheme of things I don't know why. This is coming
up as a topic when that's something that could, it could be closed
by them buying more, liquefied natural gas from the U. S., which is
what they're obviously trying to accomplish. But I don't know why
this is a big thing. And in the meantime, Europe has bigger issues
with having Norway basically replacing, Norway's drilling,
replacing Russian gas supply when they could also be investing
equally as heavily into, repowering repowering in Spain, repowering
in France, repowering in Germany. And Portugal although that's
already happening a little bit but, they're just not doing what
they could be doing to take advantage of renewable energy as power
source as opposed to continuing to operate on an oil and gas based
infrastructure. Allen Hall: It just seems like there's a limited
amount of growth in oil and gas in Europe. I know there's, they're
trying to deal obviously with a lack of resources coming further
from the east, but that won't last that long. It doesn't seem like
it with all the electricity generation that's happening. Off the
coast of the United Kingdom and other places. There's going to be a
lot of electricity feeding Europe here shortly. It doesn't seem
like it would be the right time necessarily to put a bunch of money
into oil and gas, but Equinor, being one of the players here, is
doing it, in which is. Odd also because Equinor is what, the second
largest stakeholder in Orsted, which is the renewable energy leader
in Europe for the most part. There is, there's a lot of dynamics
happening here. Do you think that this is going to over the next
couple of months as the new administration comes in, do you think
this is going to tamper down or is this just going to get elevated
even more and more as the discusses about trade deficits and
tariffs pick up? I think it'll ramp up.