Broken Molds And Layoffs: The Turbulent State of LM and GE Vernova

A 107-meter mold at the LM factory in Sherbrooke, France has been
damaged and LM in Denmark faces significant layoffs. Researchers at
TU Delft develop noise-reducing "Muteskin" technology. The U.S wind
industry suffers from shortage of skilled welders. 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! Pardalote Consulting -
https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech -
www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Allen
Hall: Alright, Joel, so we seem to have eaten our weight in
barbecue in the last three days. Joel Saxum: Yes. Allen Hall: That
is a literal fact. Joel Saxum: Now should I tell you the perfect
barbecue plate order? If you're in Texas and you're getting
barbecued, this is what you want. You want a two meat plate, you
want brisket, you want a jalapeno cheese sausage, you want fried
okra, and some mac and cheese. That's it. Allen Hall: We were
sitting with some Danish folks last night and trying to explain
what okra was or is. And then I thought, I betcha Rosemary doesn't
know what okra is either. Have you had okra before, Rosemary?
Rosemary Barnes: Oh, we have it. Yeah, I haven't eaten it a lot,
but you can, yeah, it's in the supermarkets, usually. Yeah. Allen
Hall: Does it have a taste? Can you describe what the taste of okra
is for those who have been uninitiated? Rosemary Barnes: It's not
something that I eat often. I've tasted it, but I I don't even
really remember. I know that it gets if you don't do it well, it
gets slimy. That's its biggest crime. It has to be well cooked,
otherwise it's a slimy mess. Allen Hall: Now. So we went to our
restaurant and Joel and I didn't say anything to our waitress. It
was a nice restaurant. It was a barbecue restaurant, of course.
We're in Texas. But the waitress came up and immediately associated
Joel with Texas, even though he's from Wisconsin and then
associated me with being an outsider. Now, I was born in Nebraska.
I'm a lot closer to Texas than Joel, but I was seen as being an
East Coast person. Immediately, I thought, oh my gosh, I think the
Massachusetts is starting to show on me. Joel Saxum: It's the
glasses. I think. Allen Hall: Is it the glasses? You think that
makes me look Danish? Rosemary Barnes: Don't you have glasses too,
Joel? I'm looking at you both. Joel Saxum: Allen's looks way too
smart. That's what it is. Or they can smell the east coast on you.
I don't know what it was, but she knew right away. She's like,
where are you from? Northerner. Yankee. Allen Hall: Rosemary has
been jet setting all over the world, and, which is awesome, but
When she's gone, then we have all these questions. We just hold,
hold until she comes back. And meanwhile everything had happened at
LM at the same time, and Rosemary wasn't even around to, to ask
what's going on. But let's talk about the most important one first
right now, which is that in Sherbrooke, France, the LM factory 107
meter mold was broken somehow. And it's really thrown a kink into
the works over at Sherbrooke, because There's not that many mulches
like you can pull out a spare mold and start making blades Do you
have you heard what actually happened in Sherberg? Did they? How do
they damage this mold? And how would you damage a mold? Maybe
importantly is like, how could you damage a mold like this?
Rosemary Barnes: Oh, there's all sorts of ways that you can damage
a mold. Obviously you can drop something heavy on it or drive
something into it or that they do eventually wear out though. It
doesn't sound like that. That's what's happened here. So yeah,
obviously, I would say, yeah, it's obvious that there was an
accident of some sort that involved some sort of blunt force trauma
to the mold. And maybe not blunt, maybe it was sharp. I don't know.
But anyway, the mold is damaged enough that it's It's going to take
some time to repair and when you only have, one or a small number
of lines of manufacturing, then that has a significant impact. Joel
Saxum: Yeah. And it's interesting too, because it doesn't just
impact the LM factory. People think, Oh, the LM factory. I've
actually seen on LinkedIn a ton of the technicians from Dogger Bank
where they were supplying a lot of these blades looking for jobs
because yes, they were furloughed. So a lot of them will come back,
but some of these guys are subcontractors and technicians out there
that. They don't know if they'll come back and it's getting to be
busy season for anybody offshore that's a contract worker. So
they're looking for projects. Rosemary Barnes: Is it plausible that
this is the only thing that has caused that? It's just it's wild
that, like they were just. a blade was coming off the line and then
being driven straight out to the wind farm to be installed. It's
not normally that tight, so maybe this was the straw that broke the
camel's back, but it would be surprising to me if the blame rested
solely on the shoulders of whoever, whoever damaged this mold. Joel
Saxum: Yeah, no, you're a hundred percent correct. They had vessel
issues and some other things out there, but as those things started
to spool up and snowball. On that project. There's a lot of people
out there that are looking for work. Allen Hall: How do you build a
mold quickly? Rosemary, is there a way, or do you just say, you
know what, it's going to be 90 days. Rosemary Barnes: There have
actually been a lot of improvements in the mold manufacturer
because, for a long time, the design, the building of the mold, the
procuring of the mold was basically the critical path for a new
blade designer. It used to take. say roughly six months, maybe
longer for such a big mold to get the mold made. And so it was
always, yeah, like I said, the critical part, you had to lock in
the blade geometry quite early on so that you could get the mold
made. But now they are starting to use 3d printing and composites.
So instead of, machining the entire mold, they can 3d print a
framework and then. Lay composites in it, and then I think that
they use 3D yeah, manufacturing to to, make the surface perfect and
that's a lot faster, but it's a huge mold. So I don't think that,
it's going to happen instantly. And usually the molds are not
manufactured in the same place that they're needed. I, for example,
worked on a project where we were. Desperately waiting on our mold
to arrive so that we could get started making our blades and then
it just fell off a ship in the ocean. And and then, like it was a
big, it was a big deal that caused some problems. So yeah, stuff
can happen and it takes a long time. Allen Hall: Wait a minute.
Timeout, timeout. Did that really happen? Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. I
was only peripherally involved with that one. So there was
definitely, project managers who were more, more bothered by that
occurrence than I was. But there was, the number of times that my
blades on the way to site would get, the truck would roll over and
the blade would end up in a ditch and you're like, okay so it's one
thing. We've got to get the blade out of the ditch, which is not
that easy. Always in the middle of winter, of course, because I
worked in de icing. And then you gotta figure out is it broken as
well. And, like when you're working with prototypes, you only have
three blades. Allen Hall: So what happens to the mold that falls
off the ship, Rosemary? Rosemary Barnes: It's bobbing around
somewhere in the Atlantic, that's my assumption. Joel Saxum: That's
what happens. That happens all the time. Container ships lose
containers all the time. They just bloop. Philip Totaro: If they
can salvage it, they do, but most of the time they can't salvage
it, it's too deep. Allen Hall: So they just let it go? Rosemary
Barnes: It wouldn't have been in a container, obviously, but. Allen
Hall: How much is it going to cost to make another 107 meter Mold?
Philip Totaro: Several millions. Allen Hall: Yeah, one million,
five million. Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, quite a few, but bear in mind,
they are like a wear, wear part, right? You do expect to replace
them. So they would have brought forward the replacement of this
one. I don't know by how much, I've got no idea where they're,
where they're at in their cycle, but it's not like you just buy one
set of molds and use that for the entire lifetime of the blade when
it's something that they're, making so many others as this one. So
yeah, it's impossible to say if it was. small deal or a big deal.
Obviously it's not a small deal. Otherwise if they were just about
ready to replace it, then they would have the next one ready to go.
So obviously they weren't expecting it's life to be up just yet,
but. Allen Hall: It's life is over now. Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. It
is interesting to think like what's happened to it, that they
couldn't repair it. Cause if you just dropped a hammer on it and
bash the hole, you'd obviously be able to repair it pretty well.
It's not like totally straightforward cause you do need to make
sure that the surface is perfect. But yeah. Yeah I'm wondering if
maybe Gantry just, smashed down, dropped on it, and bent the whole
thing in half, or, it's got total speculation, obviously, but it is
amusing to wonder what happened, and what happened. The vibe in the
factory was like, as that was happening and afterwards, it yeah.
Joel Saxum: The person who did it. Can you come to the office,
please? Allen Hall: Just walk out. Joel Saxum: Yeah. You might as
well. No, not in France and France.