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Mitch Hontzias is flying solo this week after a weird week in wrestling, and in life! Still, one half of the gWo is here to make his picks for SummerSlam, including whether or not Brock Lesnar will call it quits after tonight, and who will steal the show over the weekend! Plus, Mitch goes back to look at what some have called "The worst Raw creative" involving Danhausen and Joe Hendry, as well as his take on AEW's Redemption PPV and the TV following it.
Rosemary previews Pardalote’s new hands-on blade repair course. EverWind’s Ocean Lake, Canada’s largest wind project, will feed a green hydrogen and ammonia plant in Nova Scotia rather than the grid. Plus BP’s exit from an offshore project in Japan, and the wake-effect lawsuit pitting SSE, Equinor, and Vårgrønn against RWE’s Dogger Bank South. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter 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 YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! The Uptime Wind Energy podcast, brought to you by StrikeTape. Protecting thousands of wind turbines from lightning damage worldwide. Visit striketape.com. And now your hosts Allen Hall 2025: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy podcast. I’m your host, Allen Hall. I’m here with Matthew Stead, Yolanda Padron, and Rosemary Barnes is back this week. Rosemary, you’ve been to a number of training courses over the last couple of weeks. The first off was GWO. What was your experience at GWO training? Rosemary1: It was the fourth or maybe even fifth time that I’ve done it. Um, I did it a few times in Denmark and then, uh, this is the second time doing it in Australia. also, this was my first time doing first aid in Australia. Last time they did GWO here, but my first aid was still valid from Europe, so I, I didn’t redo it. And it’s like so much about [00:01:00] snakes and spiders and jellyfish But a good, good rule of thumb, not 100% accurate, but good rule of thumb, if it is something from the ocean that stung you, then you put something warm on it, and if it’s something from the land that stung or bit you, then something cold on it, Allen Hall 2025: well, how often do you usually take GWO training? Rosemary1: You gotta do it every two years to be valid. I don’t do it every two years because, um, if you do it every two years, like within two years, then you can do the refresher course. So that’s three days instead of four However, um, because I don’t climb constantly, like often it will be six months or more in between climbs, I’ll just do it before I know that I’ve got a climb. all the other people except for one were technicians who, you know, have been working for a while. So they’re also doing the full course, not the refresher. So they get a little bit more practice than I do. But, um, it’s just not often enough. Y-you know, like every time I go it’s like I, I really feel the need to have the refresher, um, because I’m just not fully on top of it. ‘Cause it’s [00:02:00] not just that you need to know what to do. You need to be able to… Like if you need to use it, you’re gonna be freaking out, you know? This is the worst thing that’s probably ever happened in your life, and now you’ve gotta remember all your training. It’s like you want it to be actually second nature to some extent. So yeah, first day is manual handling, which is v- you know, very– That one’s very easy and I would be happy to never do that again. Like I will always remember that. Um, then you got fire, um, fire safety awareness, and that one’s just fun ’cause you just get to, um, light fires and put stuff out then first aid, which I definitely always want a refresher on. The CPR dummies at this place, they had lights, um, and it lit up green if you were doing it right, and I haven’t used a dummy that was so advanced before, so that was quite good. I realized I wasn’t pressing hard enough. and then yeah, last two days is working at heights training, which is the most intense ’cause you got your harness on all day and, um, you know, climbing up and down and rescuing people. this was Rite Training in Goulburn, and, um, the [00:03:00] instructor’s name was Claire. highly recommend doing that one. Allen Hall 2025: Is that a general requirement in Australia that you have GWO before you can climb? Rosemary1: Like, yeah, they will sometimes, um, let you climb if you are babysat by people. I would not recommend other engineers, like if you’ve never climbed a wind turbine before, like I would really not recommend that you just go up with a team and haven’t done the training because you do need to be able to use a ladder safely and, um, you can, y- you can easily, like even inside the nacelle, you could easily hurt yourself really badly if you’re used to working in an office, uh, you’re upping your danger level by, you know, like many, many, many times by going up a turbine and it’s just something that you gotta take seriously. Allen Hall 2025: How busy are the courses in Australia? Are a lot of technicians trying to get in and get trained? Rosemary1: No, it’s people that have a job that are getting trained. But there were heaps of techs in this course. There were maybe eight or so, which is also part of the reason why it took a really long time. Allen Hall 2025: So [00:04:00] this week, as we record, y- you’re presenting a blade repair course for engineers and technicians. a completely new area that you’re, uh, going into in terms of offering advice and expertise that it’s really hard to find on the planet. It’s probably a, a, a busy or, or requested course, I would imagine, in Australia, where you just don’t have access to a lot of the manufacturers. Rosemary2: it’s a, it’s a course for just for engineers or technical type people, um, but including hands-on stuff. So the way that I I forced this to come into being was just the last five years. I, um, you know, I started working a lot on wind turbine blade repairs and, um, people would ask me, you know, “Have these repairs been done right?” And the thing is that the only repairs that I had anything to do with when I was working at LM were weirdo ones, right? [00:05:00] Where the normal, like a technician couldn’t, couldn’t handle it. It was outside of, um, yeah, their, their standard, uh, kind of repairs that they can do for whatever reason. and now in the work that we do at Part Load, it’s primarily normal repairs, and I just didn’t know exactly what technicians know. You know, how do they, how do they know whether they can repair it or not? What do they know before they go up there? When are they calling the engineer? Um, all that sort of stuff, like the normal stuff. eventually it became less about me learning, ’cause like I said, I kind of picked up most of it. Um, but now I’ve got staff that I’m training up to be, uh, you know, composites engineers and to work with these kinds of issues. There’s a lot of repetitive tasks involved in what we do when we, like, assess the condition of a wind farm. A lot of what we do is look main- manually looking through photos and thing- if things are classified right or not. I [00:06:00] Found this guy from Direct Wind Services, Jurij Eska. He’s a blade engineer. He’s worked in Europe and then come back to Australia, so a little bit like me. And, um, I just worked with him on a few projects and I’m like, “Oh, okay. Well, this guy, uh, he really gets it.” And I asked him, “How do you, how do you train your technicians? What course do they do? Maybe I can do that course.” And he said, “Oh, we train them ourselves.” And so then I asked him to put this course together. So where we started off the course yesterday, that was, um, uh, an indoor session where I was talking through how are blades designed, uh, certified, tested, manufactured, um, what kinds of manufacturing defects can you see and what do they do about them in the factory? ‘Cause you know that they’re doing a lot of repairs in the factory already before you ever see a, a brand new blade. and then the next three days we’re going to be working on, um, yeah, grinding and [00:07:00] infusions and a bit of a, a bit of theory about, um, composite repairs. Allen Hall 2025: What do you feel like are those key skill sets that engineers should know how to do, maybe not as well as a, a professional technician that does it a lot, but at least at a beginner’s level should be able to complete them before they start repairing blades on their own and giving advice about how to repair blades? What, what are those key items? Rosemary2: part of it is that I want them to be able to understand what is a bad damage and what’s not a bad damage cause you look a lot at images from the outside, but it’s really about what’s on the inside and how deep it goes is the real thing. So, um, it’ll be about learning, you know, developing some judgment about, um, how bad it can be and how bad it can look on the outside. We’re not gonna be looking at so many real damages ’cause like obviously we’re just dealing with pieces that are in the, um, in the, uh, workshop and Yuri has [00:08:00] made some samples for us, um, purposely made them badly so that we’ve got some, you know, damage to find. Allen Hall 2025: Are you addressing carbon fiber at all? Rosemary2: Uh, I actually haven’t asked about that. I don’t think so. Carbon fiber is, um, is a real pain to work with because it’s conductive. Like, even grinding it makes a bit of a hazardous work environment. We did talk a little bit about the different materials yesterday and, um, about pultrusions. And actually, it turns out Yuri used to work somewhere where they, uh, manufactured pultrusions, and I had always, I was always under the impression that a pultrusion is, you know, like, perfectly s- perfectly straight. That’s the point. And he’s like, “No way.” No way. There’s waviness in the pultrusions Allen Hall 2025: And on March 3rd through 5th at WOMA 2027, Rosie, you’re gonna give part of this course as part of WOMA, right? Rosemary2: Little, little mini course. We’ll have to decide what, what makes sense to include, ’cause it was… Yeah, I went through really a, a fair [00:09:00]bit about blades yesterday, you know, like why they are shaped the way that they are. So we had to talk about aerodynamics and, um, why they’re made of composite. So we had to talk about, you know, like composite materials, like how, how they, how they work So I don’t know if, uh, people wanna write in comments that m- we should, we should do some sort of, um, poll beforehand to see what are the topics that are most interesting to people, ’cause I think we’ll have a half day, right? So we’ll need to be, we’ll need to be focused. Allen Hall 2025: the description of repairs and what repairs should look like could be tremendously valuable. Everybody who has seen a repair always wonders, “Was that repair done right?” And s- and if you can have some general tools to know, like, “Uh, maybe there’s something not quite right here,” or, “That looks like a solid repair,” that would be a tremendous help to the industry, p- particularly for asset managers Rosemary2: Yeah. And you know what I think is even more useful than being able to pick out when it’s wrong is to be able to know when it’s right. You can– Y-you know, like it is so– [00:10:00] It’s such a relief. Like it takes such a mental load off you when you’re just like, “Yeah, that’s all, that’s all good. That’s normal. Okay, I know that that– I knew that that would happen, so this is not a surprise.” ‘ know, once you know you can make that judgment, you can do it very quickly and focus your attention where it should be, so you don’t need to stress for an hour over every repair. You’re just like, “Yeah. Good, good, good, good, good.” And then, “Mm, please explain why you have chosen to not, not repair this, but just put a Band-Aid over it.” that’s the goal of this training is to get everybody, y-you know, technical people, not people who wanna ever be a blade repair technician. They’ve got their own training that covers what they need to know. But this one is just, yeah, getting people like asset managers or my employees to learn what they need to know about composites, given that they have already got a strong engineering education. So, um, you know, they know a lot of the stuff, but just need to know the composite-specific stuff and wind turbine blade-specific stuff I will run this course again, by the [00:11:00] way, ’cause there was a lot of people who wanted to do it I couldn’t fit in. So it’ll happen at least once. I’ll keep on running it until everybody that wants to do it has, has done it. But, um, yeah, feel free to get in touch Allen Hall 2025: So if you wanna attend Rosie’s short blade course at WOMA 2027, just visit woma2027.com and register today Allen Hall 2025: [00:12:00] Well, over in Canada, they just approved a, really a wind farm big enough to power a small city, and almost none of the electricity is going to the grid, which is a very interesting aspect to some of the things that are happening in Canada at the minute. So up in Nova Scotia, uh, they’ve conditionally approved the Ocean Lake Wind Project. This’d be the largest wind farm in the province’s history. Up to 158 turbines will rise, uh, generating as much as 1.2 gigawatts of power. But this power is not headed to households in Canada. Nearly all of it will be feeding Everwind Fuels’ green hydrogen and ammonia plant at Point Tupper, where clean electrons will become a fuel that can be shipped across the ocean to Europe. And Matthew, there’s been a lot of [00:13:00] projects like this in Europe that have stopped more recently, particularly in northern Europe and up in Scandinavia, uh, on the hydrogen side. Or at least they’ve slowed them down. Canada seems to be going into that breach maybe to fill that void. And is there a marketplace for this to occur up in Canada? Matthew Stead: Yeah, I think it’s very interesting. Um, you know, like you say, a number of canceled projects, and in Australia there’s been numerous canceled projects. So I like, um, the analogy or use of the term hopium rather than hydrogen, um, where, um, everyone’s hoping hydrogen will be the answer. Um, although, you know, what I, what I’ve read and understood is that, um, you know, the commercials just don’t really stack up and, um, yeah. So in terms of South Australia anyway, um, there was some major, um, hydrogen, uh, development planned with, um, you know, it, it never stacked up. So, you know, it sounds like a great [00:14:00] idea, um, but I’m not sure that the commercials will ever stack up unless you’ve got that guaranteed offtake for the, for the ammonium Allen Hall 2025: Yolanda, what kind of uphill battle is this to get this wind farm up and running knowing that it’s one customer and that commercial market is a little shaky at the minute? Yolanda Padron: what we saw, they have a lot of ca- caveats, right? So they’ve, they need to secure the customers before they start building and before they do anything, um, behind the meter. But it’s, I mean, it’s, it’s a pretty big wind farm, and it’s pretty far up north. But I mean, we, we talked to someone in, in northern US today who was having icing issues. So I mean, of course we know Canada is no, no stranger to that, if they do make it work, I think it’d be really, really exciting to, to have sort of one technology power another, um, instead of just what we’ve been hearing a lot of the potential data centers and, and just wind po- [00:15:00] powering data centers. Matthew Stead: Why not data centers? You know, seriously, like you said, Yolanda. why not go something that does have commercial demand? Yolanda Padron: we’ve talked a lot about the potential of da- data centers, right? And we’ve talked a lot about people wanting to do them. Um, but there’s also a lot of talk of potentially doing data centers up in space and a lot of talk of maybe what if we do it offshore or, you know. And so I think there’s a lot of what ifs with data centers. Of course, there’s a lot of what if with this, but just from a technology standpoint, I think this is really intriguing to have something that’s, that’s a little bit even more out there than what we’ve heard so far Allen Hall 2025: Is it a build it and they will come type of s- situation here that hydrogen and ammonia may be the, the first offtake, but realistically, if that doesn’t work out, they can still connect to the grid and feed Canada, feed the Northeast of the United States or something else Matthew Stead: Also, um, like Japan has [00:16:00] also expressed strong demand for, um, ammonia, and so, you know, they- they’re on the East Coast, aren’t they? So, you know, shipping it from East Coast to Japan is not gonna be so, so easy. I stick by what I said before. It’s hopium. it’s not a plan Allen Hall 2025: I just saw an article today talking about Airbus continuing on with a hydrogen aircraft, and I think they were gonna work with a Japanese firm to work on that together. Six months ago I thought that died, but maybe it’s still in the offering. Maybe there’s an offtake for hydrogen. B- besides the, you know, replacement for some of the, uh, more unpleasant gases that are used in steel production and in some other industry things, maybe part of this is airplane fuel. Which ammonia is one of those offerings also, right? The, there’s been a number of efforts to turn ammonia fuel into essentially jet fuel. They configure the engines to burn ammonia, which is a possibility. It does seem remote though, [00:17:00] honestly. There doesn’t seem to be a huge pull for hydrogen, and there’s not a, a major market for ammonia at at least at the moment. So I don’t know. It, it’s… When you’re talking about gigawatts of capacity you’re gonna build, you, you hopefully have an offtake for it Yolanda Padron: if they designed it for it being not connected to the grid, right, it just is kind of like a behind the meter thing, and then could they later retrofit it into there? Like, how would all that permitting and everything Allen Hall 2025: I– well, that’s a great question. I– There are a number of, uh, connections between the United States and Canada at the moment. guess is that when they place this wind farm, they have that alternate route lined up, just like any wind farm in here in the States, that you’ll find them real close to high-voltage transmission lines. Generally, those are the easy ones because transmission lines cost money and take time for permitting. I’m not sure Canada has those kind of restrictions, right? But Nova Scotia is not the easiest place in the world to do heavy construction work, just the [00:18:00] nature of Nova Scotia. It will be fascinating to see how they progress with this, but it’s something to keep an eye on because a lot of other projects like this have slowed down Matthew Stead: Do you remember when some of the OEMs were talking about, um, putting electrolyzers on their offshore wind turbines? So the, the theory, the theory was you’ve got offshore wind turbine, you don’t connect it to the grid standalone, um, and you generate hydrogen or, uh, possibly ammonia on the actual wind turbine. And then every now and then you just decant it, you know, drive up with a boat, you know, plug in the hose, and then suck out the hydrogen or ammonia. So, um, yeah, once again, all of those have gone quiet, haven’t they? Allen Hall 2025: speaking of Japan, a global oil giant is walking away from the Japanese offshore wind project, uh, but the project’s not dying. BP has told its Japanese partners it intends to withdraw from a wind farm planned off Yamagata Prefecture, uh, apparently worried about [00:19:00] profitability. The 450-megawatt project sits, uh, just off the coast, and it is led by trading house Marubeni, which says it will press ahead without BP. Kansai Electric and Tokyo Gas remain on board also. So BP’s exit follows really a, a brutal year for Japan, where Mitsubishi has, and some others, have pulled out of, uh, at least three projects so far, uh, over rising construction costs, and I think a lot of that’s tied to inflation. Uh, the ambition’s still there for, uh, for a number of companies, but it’s just getting harder and harder to do projects in Japan. Is this just the nature of the economy in Japan at the moment, or is this more about Japanese policy on the offtake, Matthew Stead: I, I’m not really deep into the details but, you know, it just appears to me like a blip. I mean, there, I think there’s a lot of commitment in Japan to, you know, carry [00:20:00] out their offshore developments and I, I think this is probably more just a blip, um, and a little, you know, internal corporate, you know, argument rather than a sustained issue on offtake agreements and so forth Allen Hall 2025: Well, Yolanda, how hard is it to keep partners on a wind development in general? Are there a lot of moving pieces there until the turbines hit the water or hit the earth? there’s Yolanda Padron: I think a lot of moving pieces, but not, uh, I haven’t seen a lot of changes once it’s been publicly announced and everything’s, you know, everything’s been signed and everything. Um, I do think this is really interesting. I know we’ve talked a lot about, about having, about the idea of like sometimes people think wind’s really expensive, and the way that we’re gonna make wind work is just making it cheaper for everybody and just optimizing it as much as possible, um, and, and just being, having the turbines be as resilient as possible, right? And I think such a strong player just backing out maybe [00:21:00] will incentivize some of the people in Japan to sort of try to see how they can optimize it a little bit more. I’m really excited to see it. I don’t know. It’d be… I think it’d be a nice it Allen Hall 2025: Isn’t the bonus to offshore wind the price stability? Although the price may be higher today than you may be happy to pay, the stability of that price is a huge leverage point when you compare it to things like oil and gas or natural gas, um, in particular, which are highly volatile, that for electricity, at least you have this fairly steady source at a fixed price that you can plan out 10 years, 20 years, 25 years, maybe even 30 years. And as batteries become more prevalent on the grid, that the math even gets better over the years. Isn’t that the bonus? And, and if [00:22:00] everybody can focus on the long-term effects to the economy is where all the action will be? Matthew Stead: Yeah, I mean, when I first, um, started looking into wind, you know, 10 plus years ago, I, I won- wondered why. Why would you build offshore with all that expense? And then, you know, it became clear to me just around the, um, you know, the diversity, you know, the, the fact that you might get more wind at times that you don’t get onshore wind, and the fact that it’s more consistent. Um, yeah, and, you know, so those… I- it’s really a trade-off, isn’t it? Between the capital costs and the, um, more reliable, more consistent, um, offshore wind. So I think, you know, I, I was convinced at the start, I thought it was crazy, but then obviously it’s, it’s a, it’s a… it makes sense Yolanda Padron: Yeah, I agree. And I think, uh, depending on where you’re having your offshore wind farm, you run into things that you maybe haven’t run into before, right? I know onshore we run into a lot of things in the [00:23:00]US and Australia that we, you know, the, the turbines just maybe weren’t designed for, or there wasn’t a lot of research being done because it was being done in Europe and, and the conditions are really different. Um, and just the same way, you know, the sea is different in different places. There’s different depths. There are diff- different things that you need to worry about. but yeah, I, I completely agree that there’s a lot more generation, um, offshore. It’s, it’s bigger turbines. Um, there can be bigger, larger costs. You know, if you need to do a blade replacement or something, it, it can get, again, really expensive really quickly. But, but it’s, it’s a trade-off for sure. Allen Hall 2025: We’re gonna take a quick break, but when we come back, we wanna talk about a place where wind is being fought over versus projects slowing down [00:24:00] over in the UK, there’s a big fight about offshore wind, and not just about where wind turbines will be planted, but more about how they will affect other wind turbines. So RWE is defending the UK government’s approval of its three-gigawatt Dogger Bank South project, which won its consent order, uh, basically a month and a half ago. Uh, but the developers next door are taking that approval to court. Equinor, SSE, Vårgrön own the neighboring 3.6-gigawatt Dogger Bank wind farm, and they have filed for j-judicial review. Their argument is technical, but the price tag is not. They say wake effects, where one wind farm steals the wind from another due to turbulence, could cut their output and cost them between €500 million and [00:25:00] €669 million over the life of their project. That’s a lot of money, Matthew. A half a million euros is not something to ignore. It looks like this is headed to some judicial court or maybe arbitration. Wake effects, which are actually not that well understood from what I can tell at the moment, there’s a lot of discussion and argument about, uh, how real are they or, or what effect they can have on power output. Uh, there’s a lot of money at stake, and the location of some of these wind farms is pretty close to one another Matthew Stead: you know, we always, always talk about, you know, AEP loss and, you know, the, the challenge is actually measuring it. And, um, you know, I’ve heard different numbers, but, you know, plus or minus half a percent of AEP loss, um, appears to me from what– in discussions, you know, the, the limit of what you can actually ever measure on a good day. Um, I just wonder, I mean, while those numbers, you know, €500, um, [00:26:00] million is a, is a big number, um, but what is that as a percentage of the overall output of that, of that facility? Um, I, I don’t know the answer, but, you know, if, if it’s, you know, half a percent, I think you’d be struggling to, um, struggling to justify that, that wake effect loss. I mean, you know, going back to what you said, Allen, you know, there are wake effects of some sort, but it’s a question of how much. I mean, that-that’s why aircraft don’t take off, um, too closely, isn’t it? Because there’s wake effects. Um, so it’s definitely a given, definitely a given. Um, but, you know, how much of an impact it truly is. Um, and I mean, there’s always other variables, you know, variables in the weather, you know, wind patterns, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, and how much do this– does this actually compare to those other, other variables? Allen Hall 2025: Yolanda, how would you even mitigate wake turbulence on an adjacent wind farm? Are there ways to do that today? Yolanda Padron: I think the, the aerodynamics, Allen, would [00:27:00] be a lot more in your court than, than in mine. Matthew does have a really good point. I mean, what are we… With the UK wanting to ramp up offshore as much as they want to ramp up, right? They’re not going to just cancel a large project, and they need to… I mean, it’s not, uh, there’s a finite amount of space, right? So what, I mean, what, what are you, what are you gonna do? It’s like, it’s what, like, what happens in onshore where you, you really hope maybe that you don’t get a wind farm that’s really, really close by. Um, but you might also want to plan for it. I mean, I know of sites that have le- that lease a little bit of extra land so that way no one else can lease it, or that they can, they can use that to, to travel between turbines. Um, and it’s, I mean, it’s, it’s kind of… Isn’t it kind of just part of it, part of the trade? Allen Hall 2025: it has to be, right, at some point. [00:28:00] The question in my mind about all this is how much wake is there? Is it directly impacting the adjacent wind farm? Is there– are there things that can be done to minimize that wake turbulence? I think the answer is yes, but as wind turbine blade designers, I haven’t seen the same level of wake reduction that we have seen more recently in aerospace. It’s complicated to do some of these things on a wind turbine blade. You’re mass-producing. You’re making a blade a day or a blade in a day-and-a-half timeframe. Are you gonna design this really aerodynamic tip to go on to reduce the wake on a particular wind farm? Probably not, right? So it’s, it’s– is it worth doing that versus the, the cost it would be? So it’s gonna cost 500 million euros in loss to an adjacent wind farm. Do you put that 500 million into the design effort and the molds and [00:29:00]everything else to make these blades different? Uh, it’s a tight trade-off, right? It– from the engineering side. It may be better settled in the courts, honestly. Just it may be cheaper to do it that way. Matthew Stead: Uh, I, I was gonna go down a different avenue. I mean, obviously there’s always curtailment. There’s always curtailment due to grid congestion, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, maintenance. I mean, if they, if they just– when wind is coming from a certain direction, they could just de-rate and, uh, just not absorb as much energy, um, out of the wind when the wind is coming from that sector. And so that would be a way of, um, not modifying the turbine, just de-rating it under a certain wind condition. I mean, the same thing occurs with noise curtailment all the time. Um, so there’s, there’s noise modes. There could be a, a wake loss mode. We should trademark that Allen Hall 2025: Well, you know who’s gonna make money out of this no matter what? The lawyers. Allen Hall 2025: [00:30:00] Well, in this quarter’s PES Wind magazine, there are a number of great articles, and you can download the entire magazine and all those great articles at peswind.com. There’s a nice little article from Enerpac Tool Group, and if you’re not familiar with them, they make a, a number of tools that are handy in the wind industry. Uh, and, you know, routine torque checks is kind of a pain, right? And the problem with a lot of those checks is that you have to haul around a heavy hydraulic pump to do it. And so if you’ve ever been to a trade show and seen some of these [00:31:00] pumps, it is a pain. And if you h- have to move around, especially on a w- wind site a lot, you really don’t wanna have a heavy pump that maybe is made for something, uh, more robust. Uh, and you need something that’s portable. That’s what you really need, right? So the Enerpac Tool Group has really created this, uh, LU series they call. Which is a lightweight, portable, hydraulic pump, which is for intermittent work, which is what happens on most wind sites. It’s intermittent. Uh, so the product line director, Angie Wallace, uh, talks about this and says technician feedback has shaped this new tool, uh, from multiple carrying handles and an upward-facing gauge. And that is a big thumbs up from me. When you put the gauge on the side of the tool where you can’t see it, such a problem. It’s like they’ve never used it. Well, obviously, the Enerpac has been talking to technicians, and they put the gauge where the technician can actually see it. Uh, and it’s designed to go through towers and, and tight [00:32:00] spaces. Uh, so this is made specifically for offshore conditions. It’s ruggedized, and it’s a great tool. And a lot of times, Matthew, when you s- see the technicians about and some of the tools they carry, you’re like, man, that is not a good tool for this. That is, that is too much to be hauling around, particularly uptower. It’s nice that we can see some tools that are designed job Matthew Stead: I, I’m completely convinced. I, I don’t have much to say. Um, I mean, my, my day job is, um, you know, designing products and working out what products we’re going to, to work on, and, you know, the customer is the main voice you should listen to, um, at least in the first step. So always listen to the customer first, and I think from what you’ve described, customer first, and then develop the product to suit the application. Yeah, so yeah, I’m convinced Allen Hall 2025: Yolanda, you’ve seen Interpack on sites, haven’t you? It does seem like I run across them once in a while at some of the US sites Yolanda Padron: Every once [00:33:00] in a while. I do gotta say I love the idea of when, like, actual, like, boots on the ground people’s feedback is taken into consideration for, for anything really. And so this is, this just makes me really happy because I think a lot of times, like, as engineers, like, we love the idea of just, oh, I’m gonna do this really cool fancy thing, and then it’s just it- no one can use it, or a very specialized person has to be able to use it. And so actually doing, you know, modifying a product so that it, it makes sense for the people using it, and I know we’ve, we’ve all talked about it a lot internally and, and we continue to work towards making it easier and easier on, on the people actually installing the product. Like, this is, this is really exciting. Allen Hall 2025: So if you need a lightweight pump for tightening some bolts uptower, particularly if you’re offshore, take a look at this Enerpac line of LU lightweight series tools. It’s well worth it. And at that same time, you should check out PES Wind magazine. Just go to [00:34:00] peswind.com That wraps up another episode of the Uptime Wind Energy podcast. If today’s discussion sparked any questions or ideas, we’d love to hear from you. Reach out directly to Rosemary, and don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. for yolonda, Matthew, and Rosemary, I’m Allen Hall, and we’ll see you here next week on the Uptime Wind Energy podcast.
A week of returns, new champions and new storyline builds hit WWE and AEW, and Mitch and Dimitri are here to talk all about it! Is there a "new" CM Punk? How do the guys feel about it? Did Sami Zayn get shafted, or is it just "good for business"? Kenny Omega is the new AEW champion, but he's no Joey Chestnut! All this and more is discussed in your weekly meeting with the gWo!
GE Vernova pumps $1 billion into LM Wind Power, and KKR buys EDF’s US and Canada renewables arm. Plus CIP sweeps South Korea’s offshore auction and the CME plans wind derivatives across three continents. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter 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 YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! The Uptime Wind Energy podcast, brought to you by StrikeTape. Protecting thousands of wind turbines from lightning damage worldwide. Visit striketape.com. And now, your hosts. Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy podcast. I’m your host, Allen Hall, and I’m here with Matthew Stead and Yolanda Padron. Rosemary is at GWO training this week. And we have an announcement about Wind Energy O&M Australia 2027. Matthew, you wanna give all the details? Matthew Stead: Drum roll Um, very pleased to announce that WOMA 2027 will be at the East Pullman Hotel in Melbourne’s east, uh, not the other one, and, uh, 3rd to 5th of March. Um, the first two days will be two days of wind O&M, uh, conferences, [00:01:00] uh, and then the Friday will be a half-day, uh, training session. More information to come. Allen Hall: Well, she’s not here, so we can probably just announce it, that Rosemary will be giving a terrific four-hour-long seminar on blades and blade repair, so you sign up now. Matthew, where do you go if you wanna just check out what’s happening at WOMA Matthew Stead: 2027? Uh, well, actually, it’s woma2027.com. Allen Hall: Uh, over at GE Vernova and LM Wind Power, there’s been a whole bunch of turmoil over the last couple of years if you haven’t been paying attention. Well, GE Vernova just injected about a billion dollars into that company. So although LM recently has shown very little in terms of revenue, it definitely had needed some capital injection in, uh, at least according to the Danish press, the number of employees at the Danish site is about 20 to 30. So it’s really a fraction of what it once was. But [00:02:00] it does seem like GE is paying off all its existing debt and then giving it a little bit of a cash infusion to keep it rolling. The question really is, is what is GE Vernova gonna do with that business now? Are they planning on keeping it? Are they trying to get s- to get it back to health where they can service the other, uh, OEMs that they manufacture blades for? Or is there a larger action that will happen in the near future? What do we think? Matthew Stead: Yeah, I’m really confused by this one. I mean, a cash injection just so that you’re not bankrupt on paper is, um, that’s just playing with money as far as I’m concerned. Or I’m not sure if it’s a US term, but, you know, shuffling deckchairs on the Titanic. It doesn’t– Does it change anything? Allen Hall: Well, uh, th- they made no announcements about closing facilities. The LM blade facility in North Dakota still appears to be making blades. There’s the TPI factories, which are going through a transition r- right now, appear to be making GE [00:03:00] blades. I, I assume Gaspé up in Canada is still making blades, at least that’s the story. If GE’s gonna rely upon LM to make blades, they’re gonna need to keep them open. Is, is this more of just keeping the factories open with a skeleton engineering crew and possibly moving the blade design group into the States? Is that– Or India or, or somewhere? Yolanda Padron: And they’re still selling, right? They’re still selling blades. It seems like they’re still planning on manufacturing blades. Do we think that maybe- They’re just trying to avoid that whole TPI bankruptcy deal to not have to kind of scrap for parts? Allen Hall: Yeah, it’s a great question. I think TPI has been producing parts at high quantity, and some of the Things I’ve heard from the industry folk is that TPI is really busy in producing quality blades, and it’s like the bankruptcy transaction is not happening, which is great to hear because the [00:04:00]industry needs blades, and there’s a lot of repowering going on in the United States and a lot of activity in general, so they need blades. But does LM continue to be a part of that? Matthew Stead: Yeah, I mean, presumably the TPI, um, whole story only makes LM more important, you know, more important to have, uh, an additional manufacturer and, you know, providing, you know, options for the OEMs. Allen Hall: It does seem like, though, the GE offshore, GE Vernova offshore is not a thing. Although I’ve heard a couple of rumors that, yeah, GE Vernova is offering some products for offshore, it doesn’t seem like their heart is in it. I can see that happening. So are they just trying to focus on onshore business, and that’s it for the time being? Just let it play out and, uh, wait until the elections in 2028? I know that’s gonna get me blocked on YouTube, but that, that does feel like what’s happening at the moment. Matthew Stead: Yeah, I reckon it looks completely like that. Yolanda Padron: I mean, it also looks like they’re [00:05:00] just kind of trying to play everything a little bit more safe, right? So they are scaling up, but not as fast as they used to, so scaling the blade sizes. And then they’re– it seems like they’re, they’re having their FSAs cut quite a bit shorter than they used to, right? So are they maybe just trying to focus on, like, cash up front and just trying to play it safe until they can get their, their footing right again? Allen Hall: Or is it focus on key customers? I could see GE Vernova actually doing that, that they have a history with certain operators worldwide, and they’re just gonna focus on producing and delivering for those customers. Because you don’t see a lot of announced orders for GE turbines. Vestas is announcing things practically every week. Nordex is doing something similar. Siemens once in a while. But what you really don’t hear anything from in any quantity at [00:06:00] all at the moment is from GE Vernova. When a company needs cash badly enough, even the crown jewels go on the block. And EDF, the French state-owned utility, has to fund the upkeep of 57 aging nuclear reactors and build six new ones, so it is selling. EDF has agreed to hand its US and Canada renewables business, EDF Power Solutions, to the private equity firm KKR. The business runs 5.6 gigawatts of renewable assets across the two countries. Late last year, EDF’s chief executive floated selling anywhere from half to all of the unit in a deal that could be, well, it’s reported to be about $4.2 billion. That’s the latest news I’ve heard. This is a big transaction. KKR is Canadian, right? And is a massive investment firm Uh, which I, I don’t think have a lot of wind at the moment. Uh, what is the [00:07:00] KKR play here? Matthew Stead: I, I love this because this is, uh… So obviously I’m Australian, and Macquarie is a big Australian. So, um, Macquarie own a whole lot of wind farm, a whole lot of wind infrastructure. So I just see this as a wonderful g- you know, fight between KKR and Macquarie. And so KKR has a whole lot of, um, they o- they’ve got some, you know, stake in Australian wind farms. They’ve got some work, you know, through Europe with wind farms. So I, I, I think this is a good thing, just a bit more global competition and a bit more global growth. And I think it’s all coming from the data centers and, you know, the future increase in growth of, um, demand. Allen Hall: Yolanda, EDF’s wind fleet is a variety of turbines, right? They have some GE, some Siemens. Anything else in their portfolio? Yolanda Padron: I think they have a bit of Vestas there too, right? Is it something that we were saying? It’s– I think this is really interesting. Um, I know that there’s not– I mean, of course EDF is the latest, but there’s some [00:08:00] operators that seem to be, um, consolidating into a bit more of those just higher private equity firms, and it’s– Do we think that maybe this is the way that the US is going to lean towards? I know we talked a lot about leaning towards funding the data centers and maybe a bit more the behind the meter things. Uh, but do we think that maybe that’s the future of the US? There’s a couple of companies that kind of just own all the major infrastructures and then- A Allen Hall: couple Canadian companies. Yolanda Padron: And what does it mean for, like, asset management and stuff, like, that’s really, really different from what they’re seeing in their desks in New York and stuff, and just the larger financial models versus what’s happening on the ground, and how will they connect everything? Allen Hall: It’s a great question. Matthew Stead: NextEra and Dominion, you know, things are only getting bigger. Scale’s, scale’s coming. Allen Hall: Yeah. I wonder how much, uh, this transaction will have to go through regulators in the US, uh, because it scares me when you have a, a– such a [00:09:00] large foreign national company. There’s actually two involved in here, right? So you, you have a, a French company and a Canadian company trying to transact on, in the United States on a lot of assets. Uh, it probably won’t be that quick if there’s any oversight at all. I, I’m guessing that we’ll hear noise about it. So we’re, we’ll have to keep listening to all the news sources about it and, and telling our valued listeners what’s going on. Because there’s, uh, we know a whole bunch of people that work at EDF and like, love those people and are really concerned about what the future holds for them. I, at least it sounds like upfront that KKR is just gonna continue with operations, but I know, uh, uh, it’s a turbulent time, and if you work there, you, you hopefully things continue the way they’re, they’re supposed to because One of the things about EDF historically has been is that they’re really talented people, that they have hired well over time and that they know what they’re doing. And every time we, Weather Guard and [00:10:00] Yolanda and I’m sure Matthew have dealt with EDF quite a bit They are on top of what they’re operating. They know how their assets work, and they know how to manage them, and so you’d hate to lose those people in a transaction like this. It would decrease the value of the assets, I would say. Very interesting transaction. Matthew Stead: Yeah. But, I mean, what if the counter, what if, um, this is all part of a, a growth strategy? You know, a growth strategy with wind, solar, and battery, you know, providing more power. So it might actually be an opportunity. So, you know, opportunity to do more and some more exciting work across all three disciplines. Allen Hall: Definitely so. Uh, but it’s a little early. The ink hasn’t dried yet on the contract. So while offshore market pulls back in general, in a lot of places like the United States, another one is racing ahead. In, in South Korea’s latest offshore wind auction, one name walked away with the lion’s share, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, CIP. The Danish fund [00:11:00] secured more than one gigawatt of the 1.8 gigawatts on offer, including the single largest project and the only floating wind winner. And the appetite was record-breaking. They had a whole bunch of developers trying to bid on this. You had about 3.7 gigawatts being bid in, more than twice of the capacity available. So for a country that only began competitive offshore bidding in 2022, that’s a few short years ago, that market is coming of age. This is a huge announcement by CIP, right? That, uh, they have bid into the system. They’re, they’re winning, and they’re bringing Siemens Gamesa to the table, which we haven’t heard a lot of Siemens Gamesa’s turbines being selected, but this is a massive order and really gonna help secure at least some portion of, of the Siemens Gamesa business. Matthew, you’re closer to it. In, in South Korea, are you seeing the South Korean industry being built within [00:12:00] the country, or are you seeing, uh, partnerships with surrounding countries like Japan? ‘Cause it doesn’t seem like when– and I’ve looked at some of the South Korea, uh, efforts. It does seem like they’re trying to stand up their own offshore built-in country plan. Is, is that the goal? You think Siemens is gonna end up building a, a factory in, in South Korea for some of these projects? Matthew Stead: Maybe a couple of things. First of all, I have to apologize. I think, uh, we were talking the other week, and I, I, I sort of implied that floating offshore wind was dead, and I think we copped a bit of flack from that. But, uh, anyway, wrong, wrong on, uh, Allen Hall: floating offshore is dead. Matthew Stead: Um, but um, you know, I’ve had a fair bit of interaction with, uh, South Korean, um, you know, Philippines, Japan, obviously. I think they’re all trying to get their industries up, but I, I don’t think they’ve got the scale So, you know, I think they, they really need like the Siemens Gamesas, the Vestas’s, um, to come in and, and partner with them. I just don’t think they’ve got the scale, you know, the, the [00:13:00] installed fleet, the industry to really promote it. And, you know, to get the economies of scale, they’re gonna have to pull in the big existing incumbents. So, you know, good on CIP for, for pulling this off. Allen Hall: In terms of South Korea industry, I think steel is one of their strongest, uh, industries at the moment, and obviously shipbuilding. Those are the, that go hand in hand, so to speak. There’s a lot of steel in wind turbines, and particularly in floating offshore wind turbines. It would seem ripe for South Korea to get into that marketplace. Matthew Stead: I’m not sure the intellectual property is in steel tubes. Um, I, I guess what I’m trying to say is the intellectual property is in the turbine nacelle and the blades and, um, you know, I, you know, correct what I said that, you know, obviously the steel and the steel manufacturing in South Korea is, is pretty amazing. Um, but yeah, they’re clarifying what I said before. Allen Hall: So is this gonna turn into the leading floating project in the world? You know, Greenvolt’s gonna happen in the [00:14:00] UK. There’s some talk of things up in Scandinavia. But in terms of speed, will this be one of the leading candidates in t- in getting things in the water just because of the capability of South Korea to, to build at scale? I Matthew Stead: think it’s really exciting. Yeah, I, I’m, I’m gonna watch very closely. Allen Hall: I think this is gonna be amazing. I really do. Yolanda Padron: I was gonna say, could you imagine, like, a, a turbine and a blade where everything is just perfectly manufactured or close to perfectly manufactured? I g- I went to one farm last week, and there were… I mean, it was in the States, and there were so many patches on new blades. I was just talking to the people in operations like, “What’s, what’s going on here?” You know? Uh, so it’s just really… I don’t know. This is exciting. Matthew Stead: Do you think, um, they’ll build a blade factory, Yolanda? Do you think they’ll actually take on the blades? Yolanda Padron: I don’t know. Uh, I, I mean, it’d, it’d be great for them, I think, right? It’s a new area of business that they’re diving [00:15:00] into. Allen Hall: If they don’t have to build the building at the port, I think Siemens would be willing to erect something near the shoreline. And in Korea, there’s a lot of major industry right on the shoreline. It would be relatively easy, I think. You know, ev- it sounds easy now because you’re not actually doing it. But in terms of, you know, building a blade factory on the coastline of United States versus doing it in South Korea, South Korea’s gonna be way easier to do that and at scale quickly. That, that one seems like a win-win. I d- if there’s any place on the planet that could do it quick besides the UK or, you know, Denmark, someone like Netherlands, someplace like that, Germany, it’s gonna be South Korea. Matthew Stead: Maybe that’s a bet, you know. So prove me wrong again. My money at the moment is that Nacelles blades won’t be coming from South Korea. Allen Hall: Well, if they don’t come from South Korea, they’re gonna be on a South Korea-built ship. We’ll be bringing th- those [00:16:00] blades in country. That’s what will happen. So wind is getting its own set of financial instruments, which sounds weird, right? Wind is wind. It’s in a very legacy style industry. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange is planning to launch wind derivatives across three continents, which are contracts that are tied to the grid in Texas, the markets in the UK and Germany, and just the Victoria state in Australia. So today, most weather hedging happens through one-off over-the-counter deals that are sort of hard to trade and thin on liquidity, so it’s not a commodity you can pass around. A standardized exchange-listed contract changes all that. A utility or a wind farm owner could lock in a hedge in about 15 minutes. The contracts would settle against independent data that models how much power the wind should have produced in a given place, likely supplied by [00:17:00] the Finnish firm, drum roll, Vaisala. Plans are not final, but they could go live within months. So they’re hedging on the wind. Does this sound like a smart move, or w- what are some of the consequences of this? Matthew Stead: I think it goes back to that volatility. W- when there’s volatility, people can make money. Um, you know, and a side note, that’s where, that’s where offshore wind comes in because it’s much more predictable. Um, you don’t get the same lulls with offshore wind. Yeah. So I, I, I love all these, these creative ways of, um, generating, generating demand, financial demand. Allen Hall: It can be played though, right? I mean, that’s one of the things about wind, ’cause each turbine is its own separate little power plant that all connect to a substation, so if you have bought a hedge and the substation goes kaput for 24 hours, you could lose your shirt. It does seem kind of risky, depending on what the scale is here. If you’re doing all of Texas or all of [00:18:00] Victoria, maybe that makes a little more sense, but yikes. That’s gonna be a rough market. Yolanda Padron: Yeah, the market’s already open, right? Like, you can bid day ahead, um, instead of just real-time prices. But so this, this would be really interesting for owners, right? To be able to track that a lot better than just that gut feeling, which obviously I know people working in trading aren’t just going off of their gut feeling. I know it’s a very, very intense thing. Nobody go against me, please. This is very intense, and it’s better– They do a better job than I could ever do. They do great, 10 out of 10. But this– I think this is really interesting for those of us especially who maybe aren’t super in tune with what, uh, all goes into it. So being able to have something that helps you plan it a bit more for, you know, people like you mentioned earlier, the people that have their home batteries in Australia and are just working on the market itself and maybe [00:19:00] not– don’t have those 10, 20 years of experience of, of actually working on the market. So this is, this is exciting. Allen Hall: Does that explain all the weather sources and the weather companies when we go to a wind, a larger wind or solar event that there does seem to be a lot of people offering weather insights? Is that what that’s about, is they can hedge? If you have a slightly better weather model, that would give you an advantage in this kind, kind– really kind of market? Is that the, the goal of all those weather firms? Matthew Stead: Uh, absolutely. And, you know, we’re, we’re part of that because, um, ice, ice, um, you know, reduces power output, and ice forecasting and weather forecasting is, uh, really important in, you know, the Nordics, where you don’t want to be promising certain power and find you can’t deliver ’cause everything’s iced up. So, you know, we, we do work with forecasting companies to improve the, [00:20:00] uh, the quality, and it does have a mer-material difference on, on the financial markets. Allen Hall: So is that something that we can all get paid for? by these weather companies and these, uh, forecast companies if we provide insights on lightning, so to speak, and icing, uh, is that a revenue chain for at least one of us? Matthew Stead: Absolutely. Allen Hall: Maybe I like this more and more. I was, I was very hesitant of this exchange, thinking like, “Oh man, not a, not another highly leveraged situation with energy. That doesn’t sound smart.” But, yeah, if we can make a small fortune, Matthew, I think we should do it. Matthew Stead: Fun fact, there was a flight from, um, yeah, from London to Australia the other week, um, and it’s a direct flight, you know, so 17 hours, and, uh, there was a change in the weather. So there was a change in the weather, and that aircraft didn’t have enough fuel to fly to Perth anymore, so it had to land in the outback of Australia. Allen Hall: No. Did that happen? Matthew Stead: Yep, because there was a [00:21:00] change in the weather. Allen Hall: Are there just, like, kangaroos lined up in a runway shape to get the airplane on the ground? Or how do they– Is there a runway out in the outback that would accommodate a large… That’s a large airplane that’s making a London to Australia trip. Triple 7380? It Matthew Stead: was a Dreamliner. Um, but, um, it, yeah, it landed in Kalgoorlie. So Kalgoorlie’s a mining town. Yeah, they’ve got, they’ve got big stuff in Kalgoorlie. Allen Hall: In this quarter’s PES Wind magazine, in which there is a whole bunch of great articles, a interesting article about grease. Grease not the country, although I would love to go visit Greece. Grease the lubricant that’s in all our bearings and keeps the world moving at any one particular time. Uh, Sh-Shell was talking about doing a lot of research on grease, and when poor lubrication, uh, happens, it’s one of the leading causes of bearing failure. And so when you see a bearing all tore up, usually the first indication is, is there’s something wrong with the grease. Uh, [00:22:00] so Sh-Shell and bearing maker SKF and the University of, uh, Twente joined forces to answer a deceptively simple question: How do you predict when grease inside a bearing will let go? Well, their answer comes down to film thickness. The microscopic layers of grease that keeps the steel from grinding on each other is the magic variable. The work won a major tribology award and is already feeding into, uh, some of the tools that operators use to schedule relubrication before a bearing fails. And It all comes down to lubrication. That’s the lifetime of a wind turbine. There’s so many pieces that are rotating and are heavily loaded with really complicated bearing surfaces. If you don’t have the grease right, it’s just not gonna work. And what’s happening at Shell is one of those pieces, and we’re [00:23:00] learning so much more. And as we, uh, evolve in the technology and become smarter about the molecules we use and how we use them, uh, this is gonna have a big impact. And I know, Yolanda, you’ve been up to– Well, you’ve been to a couple of wind farms recently. Do you s- see– still see huge grease problems that I usually see when I’m on site? Matthew Stead: Mm-hmm. Yolanda Padron: I didn’t think that was an issue that was gonna go away anytime soon. But it’s good to know that, that there’s something being done about it that’s more revolutionary than just paying someone to clean the turbine every once in a while. Allen Hall: And the contaminants that get into the greases are a huge problem, particularly where there’s any sort of sand, dust that climbs in. So keeping those joints clear and those rolling surfaces clear is a major effort. And knowing when to relubricate. And, and Matthew, you guys see pitch bearings and all kinds of problems up on blades that are lubricated that have run out of their lifetime early. It does seem like the first thing you see on particularly pitch bearings [00:24:00] is grease on the side of the turbine from them. Matthew Stead: Yeah. I think that’s– uh, there’s even a special code that the, the visual drone inspection companies have. They’ve got codes for, um, grease and so, yeah, exactly, that’s an early flag. But also dust. You know, sometimes dust from the inserts and from the bolts. Yeah. So it’s, yeah, interesting topic. Allen Hall: Well, I, I think it’s one of the key pieces to keeping the turbines running. And I know if you travel a lot around wind turbines, the, the grease is the thing that the technicians always talk about, and there’s so many different tools to go out and look at these things. But lubrication, we gotta get to it. And, and Shell, and SKF, and a number of others are, are working at it to make, hopefully, our lives a little bit easier. So if you wanna go check out this article by Shell, go visit peswind.com and download a copy today. That wraps up another episode of the Uptime Wind Energy podcast. If today’s discussion sparked any questions or ideas, we’d love to hear from you. Reach out to us on [00:25:00] LinkedIn, and don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. So for Yolanda, and Matthew, and an absent Rosie, I’m Allen Hall, and we’ll see you here next week on the Uptime Wind Energy podcast.
The gWo returns as Mitch Hontzias and Dimitri Korolis take you through the week of wrestling they watched! From the first SmackDown of the Sami Zayn era, WWE Night of Champions, Oba Femi tossing his title opportunity for a chance to walk through Hell (in a Cell), and AEW building Will Ospreay up for Wembley, the Greeks let you know what's what as only they can! For more on all our programming, visit www.celebratewrestling.com
On the Build Your Success podcast, host Brian Brogen interviews Andy Benedetto, business representative for Millwrights Local 1121, which covers Millwrights across the six New England states and is part of the North Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters.Andy explains millwrights as industrial mechanics whoinstall, maintain, move, rig, and precisely align rotating equipment in power generation and general industry, including conveyors at airports and distribution centers. He details mobilizing for the Vineyard Wind offshore project with GE Vernova, including unique offshore challenges like helicopter travel, shipboard living, extreme heights, mixed crews, limited connectivity, and extensive added training (GWO, advanced rescue, HUET). To ensure success, the Local surveyed and vetted members forreadiness and professionalism, achieving 100% retention over about 2.5–3 years, while managing delays through standby pay. Andy shares lessons on planning, collaboration, and how union training can reduce cost and time, and provides contact channels on LinkedIn, Facebook, and at their website listed below.Guest LinkedIn: Andy Benedetto |LinkedInGuest Website: Local 1121Millwrights – Precisely Aligning New EnglandCarpenters Building aBetter Future - NASRCCHost Email:brianb@buildcs.net Host LinkedIn: Brian Brogen, PMP
The gWo are coming in raw and unedited this week as producer Dadi is in transit and… well… I guess you'll just have to listen to find out what's up! Guaranteed to be part of the discussion is the hot streak that AEW is on, Clash in Italy for WWE and more! This episode has currently not been produced or edited in any way… listener discretion is probably advised….
The gWo are back after a week off, as we get ready for AEW's Double or Nothing PPV! Plus, the guys look at the shocking return of Brock Lesnar, The Bucks of Jericho and more! Plus, a look into tonight's WWE Saturday Night's Main Event, trying to figure out the Moxley/Ospreay relationship, El Grande Americano and more!
Mitch Hontzias and Dimitri Korolis are back to take the gWo faithful through the week of wrestling as only they can! This week, the guys give their thoughts on the 4 part Netflix docuseries, "Hulk Hogan: Real American". Offering the perspective of a couple guys who like many, grew up as Hulkamaniacs, hear their thoughts on the show. The guys also talk about AEW and their current run of storylines, the post-WrestleMania shakedown, the new stars in WWE and more! For more on our shows, visit celebratewrestling.com
It's a week after WrestleMania, and the gWo have a lot to say about it! What worked, what didn't, and what are we in for this new WWE year? Also, thoughts on Darby Allin as AEW Champion, Street Fighter v. Mortal Kombat movies, the latest WWE releases and more! Plus, it's a 3 person booth this week with a guest co-host! For more on our shows, visit celebratewrestling.com
Mitch and Dimitri do what they do, and after a week off have a LOT to say about the week in wrestling! From new AEW Champion Darby Allin to WrestleMania this weekend, the gWo are back in full form to give you the goods! Have some laughs before 'Mania begins, in between both nights, or whenever you like! Thanks for listening. For more on our shows, visit celebratewrestling.com
This week, Dimitri and Mitch give their thoughts after an action-packed first half of the week - going back to recapping the heinous attack on Cody Rhodes by Randy Orton, to the insanity of AEW's Revolution! WWE had to follow up with something big on Raw, and what they brought was a hot start - but was it enough to impress your favourite Greek dads? Plus, which title do the guys think needs to GO AWAY forever in WWE? The answer may (or may not) surprise you! It's a quick shot of laughs from the gWo! Enjoy!
With the WWE debut of Danhausen, Mitch Hontzias lets us know whether or not he's going to stick to his guns and NOT watch wrestling for a month! If that's the case, how will they do the show?! Like life... the gWo finds a way. Hear Mitch and Dimitri talk all about the week in wrestling from Elimination Chamber to Smackdown, where a NEW WWE Champion has been crowned, and much more! For more on our shows, visit celebratewrestling.com
Chris Cieslak, CEO of BladeBug, joins the show to discuss how their walking robot is making ultrasonic blade inspections faster and more accessible. They cover new horizontal scanning capabilities for lay down yards, blade root inspections for bushing defects, and plans to expand into North America in 2026. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter 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 YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining Light on Wind. Energy’s brightest innovators. This is the Progress Powering Tomorrow. Allen Hall: Chris, welcome back to the show. Chris Cieslak: It’s great to be back. Thank you very much for having me on again. Allen Hall: It’s great to see you in person, and a lot has been happening at Blade Bugs since the last time I saw Blade Bug in person. Yeah, the robot. It looks a lot different and it has really new capabilities. Chris Cieslak: So we’ve continued to develop our ultrasonic, non-destructive testing capabilities of the blade bug robot. Um, but what we’ve now added to its capabilities is to do horizontal blade scans as well. So we’re able to do blades that are in lay down yards or blades that have come down for inspections as well as up tower. So we can do up tower, down tower inspections. We’re trying to capture. I guess the opportunity to inspect blades after transportation when they get delivered to site, to look [00:01:00] for any transport damage or anything that might have been missed in the factory inspections. And then we can do subsequent installation inspections as well to make sure there’s no mishandling damage on those blades. So yeah, we’ve been just refining what we can do with the NDT side of things and improving its capabilities Joel Saxum: was that need driven from like market response and people say, Hey, we need, we need. We like the blade blood product. We like what you’re doing, but we need it here. Or do you guys just say like, Hey, this is the next, this is the next thing we can do. Why not? Chris Cieslak: It was very much market response. We had a lot of inquiries this year from, um, OEMs, blade manufacturers across the board with issues within their blades that need to be inspected on the ground, up the tap, any which way they can. There there was no, um, rhyme or reason, which was better, but the fact that he wanted to improve the ability of it horizontally has led the. Sort of modifications that you’ve seen and now we’re doing like down tower, right? Blade scans. Yeah. A really fast breed. So Joel Saxum: I think the, the important thing there is too is that because of the way the robot is built [00:02:00] now, when you see NDT in a factory, it’s this robot rolls along this perfectly flat concrete floor and it does this and it does that. But the way the robot is built, if a blade is sitting in a chair trailing edge up, or if it’s flap wise, any which way the robot can adapt to, right? And the idea is. We, we looked at it today and kind of the new cage and the new things you have around it with all the different encoders and for the heads and everything is you can collect data however is needed. If it’s rasterized, if there’s a vector, if there’s a line, if we go down a bond line, if we need to scan a two foot wide path down the middle of the top of the spa cap, we can do all those different things and all kinds of orientations. That’s a fantastic capability. Chris Cieslak: Yeah, absolutely. And it, that’s again for the market needs. So we are able to scan maybe a meter wide in one sort of cord wise. Pass of that probe whilst walking in the span-wise direction. So we’re able to do that raster scan at various spacing. So if you’ve got a defect that you wanna find that maximum 20 mil, we’ll just have a 20 mil step [00:03:00] size between each scan. If you’ve got a bigger tolerance, we can have 50 mil, a hundred mil it, it’s so tuneable and it removes any of the variability that you get from a human to human operator doing that scanning. And this is all about. Repeatable, consistent high quality data that you can then use to make real informed decisions about the state of those blades and act upon it. So this is not about, um, an alternative to humans. It’s just a better, it’s just an evolution of how humans do it. We can just do it really quick and it’s probably, we, we say it’s like six times faster than a human, but actually we’re 10 times faster. We don’t need to do any of the mapping out of the blade, but it’s all encoded all that data. We know where the robot is as we walk. That’s all captured. And then you end up with really. Consistent data. It doesn’t matter who’s operating a robot, the robot will have those settings preset and you just walk down the blade, get that data, and then our subject matter experts, they’re offline, you know, they are in their offices, warm, cozy offices, reviewing data from multiple sources of robots. And it’s about, you know, improving that [00:04:00] efficiency of getting that report out to the customer and letting ’em know what’s wrong with their blades, actually, Allen Hall: because that’s always been the drawback of, with NDT. Is that I think the engineers have always wanted to go do it. There’s been crush core transportation damage, which is sometimes hard to see. You can maybe see a little bit of a wobble on the blade service, but you’re not sure what’s underneath. Bond line’s always an issue for engineering, but the cost to take a person, fly them out to look at a spot on a blade is really expensive, especially someone who is qualified. Yeah, so the, the difference now with play bug is you can have the technology to do the scan. Much faster and do a lot of blades, which is what the de market demand is right now to do a lot of blades simultaneously and get the same level of data by the review, by the same expert just sitting somewhere else. Chris Cieslak: Absolutely. Joel Saxum: I think that the quality of data is a, it’s something to touch on here because when you send someone out to the field, it’s like if, if, if I go, if I go to the wall here and you go to the wall here and we both take a paintbrush, we paint a little bit [00:05:00] different, you’re probably gonna be better. You’re gonna be able to reach higher spots than I can. Allen Hall: This is true. Joel Saxum: That’s true. It’s the same thing with like an NDT process. Now you’re taking the variability of the technician out of it as well. So the data quality collection at the source, that’s what played bug ducts. Allen Hall: Yeah, Joel Saxum: that’s the robotic processes. That is making sure that if I scan this, whatever it may be, LM 48.7 and I do another one and another one and another one, I’m gonna get a consistent set of quality data and then it’s goes to analysis. We can make real decisions off. Allen Hall: Well, I, I think in today’s world now, especially with transportation damage and warranties, that they’re trying to pick up a lot of things at two years in that they could have picked up free installation. Yeah. Or lifting of the blades. That world is changing very rapidly. I think a lot of operators are getting smarter about this, but they haven’t thought about where do we go find the tool. Speaker: Yeah. Allen Hall: And, and I know Joel knows that, Hey, it, it’s Chris at Blade Bug. You need to call him and get to the technology. But I think for a lot of [00:06:00] operators around the world, they haven’t thought about the cost They’re paying the warranty costs, they’re paying the insurance costs they’re paying because they don’t have the set of data. And it’s not tremendously expensive to go do. But now the capability is here. What is the market saying? Is it, is it coming back to you now and saying, okay, let’s go. We gotta, we gotta mobilize. We need 10 of these blade bugs out here to go, go take a scan. Where, where, where are we at today? Chris Cieslak: We’ve hads. Validation this year that this is needed. And it’s a case of we just need to be around for when they come back round for that because the, the issues that we’re looking for, you know, it solves the problem of these new big 80 a hundred meter plus blades that have issues, which shouldn’t. Frankly exist like process manufacturer issues, but they are there. They need to be investigated. If you’re an asset only, you wanna know that. Do I have a blade that’s likely to fail compared to one which is, which is okay? And sort of focus on that and not essentially remove any uncertainty or worry that you have about your assets. ’cause you can see other [00:07:00] turbine blades falling. Um, so we are trying to solve that problem. But at the same time, end of warranty claims, if you’re gonna be taken over these blades and doing the maintenance yourself, you wanna know that what you are being given. It hasn’t gotten any nasties lurking inside that’s gonna bite you. Joel Saxum: Yeah. Chris Cieslak: Very expensively in a few years down the line. And so you wanna be able to, you know, tick a box, go, actually these are fine. Well actually these are problems. I, you need to give me some money so I can perform remedial work on these blades. And then you end of life, you know, how hard have they lived? Can you do an assessment to go, actually you can sweat these assets for longer. So we, we kind of see ourselves being, you know, useful right now for the new blades, but actually throughout the value chain of a life of a blade. People need to start seeing that NDT ultrasonic being one of them. We are working on other forms of NDT as well, but there are ways of using it to just really remove a lot of uncertainty and potential risk for that. You’re gonna end up paying through the, you know, through the, the roof wall because you’ve underestimated something or you’ve missed something, which you could have captured with a, with a quick inspection. Joel Saxum: To [00:08:00] me, NDT has been floating around there, but it just hasn’t been as accessible or easy. The knowledge hasn’t been there about it, but the what it can do for an operator. In de-risking their fleet is amazing. They just need to understand it and know it. But you guys with the robotic technology to me, are bringing NDT to the masses Chris Cieslak: Yeah. Joel Saxum: In a way that hasn’t been able to be done, done before Chris Cieslak: that. And that that’s, we, we are trying to really just be able to roll it out at a way that you’re not limited to those limited experts in the composite NDT world. So we wanna work with them, with the C-N-C-C-I-C NDTs of this world because they are the expertise in composite. So being able to interpret those, those scams. Is not a quick thing to become proficient at. So we are like, okay, let’s work with these people, but let’s give them the best quality data, consistent data that we possibly can and let’s remove those barriers of those limited people so we can roll it out to the masses. Yeah, and we are that sort of next level of information where it isn’t just seen as like a nice to have, it’s like an essential to have, but just how [00:09:00] we see it now. It’s not NDT is no longer like, it’s the last thing that we would look at. It should be just part of the drones. It should inspection, be part of the internal crawlers regimes. Yeah, it’s just part of it. ’cause there isn’t one type of inspection that ticks all the boxes. There isn’t silver bullet of NDT. And so it’s just making sure that you use the right system for the right inspection type. And so it’s complementary to drones, it’s complimentary to the internal drones, uh, crawlers. It’s just the next level to give you certainty. Remove any, you know, if you see something indicated on a a on a photograph. That doesn’t tell you the true picture of what’s going on with the structure. So this is really about, okay, I’ve got an indication of something there. Let’s find out what that really is. And then with that information you can go, right, I know a repair schedule is gonna take this long. The downtime of that turbine’s gonna be this long and you can plan it in. ’cause everyone’s already got limited budgets, which I think why NDT hasn’t taken off as it should have done because nobody’s got money for more inspections. Right. Even though there is a money saving to be had long term, everyone is fighting [00:10:00] fires and you know, they’ve really got a limited inspection budget. Drone prices or drone inspections have come down. It’s sort, sort of rise to the bottom. But with that next value add to really add certainty to what you’re trying to inspect without, you know, you go to do a day repair and it ends up being three months or something like, well Allen Hall: that’s the lightning, Joel Saxum: right? Allen Hall: Yeah. Lightning is the, the one case where every time you start to scarf. The exterior of the blade, you’re not sure how deep that’s going and how expensive it is. Yeah, and it always amazes me when we talk to a customer and they’re started like, well, you know, it’s gonna be a foot wide scarf, and now we’re into 10 meters and now we’re on the inside. Yeah. And the outside. Why did you not do an NDT? It seems like money well spent Yeah. To do, especially if you have a, a quantity of them. And I think the quantity is a key now because in the US there’s 75,000 turbines worldwide, several hundred thousand turbines. The number of turbines is there. The number of problems is there. It makes more financial sense today than ever because drone [00:11:00]information has come down on cost. And the internal rovers though expensive has also come down on cost. NDT has also come down where it’s now available to the masses. Yeah. But it has been such a mental barrier. That barrier has to go away. If we’re going going to keep blades in operation for 25, 30 years, I Joel Saxum: mean, we’re seeing no Allen Hall: way you can do it Joel Saxum: otherwise. We’re seeing serial defects. But the only way that you can inspect and or control them is with NDT now. Allen Hall: Sure. Joel Saxum: And if we would’ve been on this years ago, we wouldn’t have so many, what is our term? Blade liberations liberating Chris Cieslak: blades. Joel Saxum: Right, right. Allen Hall: What about blade route? Can the robot get around the blade route and see for the bushings and the insert issues? Chris Cieslak: Yeah, so the robot can, we can walk circumferentially around that blade route and we can look for issues which are affecting thousands of blades. Especially in North America. Yeah. Allen Hall: Oh yeah. Chris Cieslak: So that is an area that is. You know, we are lucky that we’ve got, um, a warehouse full of blade samples or route down to tip, and we were able to sort of calibrate, verify, prove everything in our facility to [00:12:00] then take out to the field because that is just, you know, NDT of bushings is great, whether it’s ultrasonic or whether we’re using like CMS, uh, type systems as well. But we can really just say, okay, this is the area where the problem is. This needs to be resolved. And then, you know, we go to some of the companies that can resolve those issues with it. And this is really about played by being part of a group of technologies working together to give overall solutions Allen Hall: because the robot’s not that big. It could be taken up tower relatively easily, put on the root of the blade, told to walk around it. You gotta scan now, you know. It’s a lot easier than trying to put a technician on ropes out there for sure. Chris Cieslak: Yeah. Allen Hall: And the speed up it. Joel Saxum: So let’s talk about execution then for a second. When that goes to the field from you, someone says, Chris needs some help, what does it look like? How does it work? Chris Cieslak: Once we get a call out, um, we’ll do a site assessment. We’ve got all our rams, everything in place. You know, we’ve been on turbines. We know the process of getting out there. We’re all GWO qualified and go to site and do their work. Um, for us, we can [00:13:00] turn up on site, unload the van, the robot is on a blade in less than an hour. Ready to inspect? Yep. Typically half an hour. You know, if we’ve been on that same turbine a number of times, it’s somewhere just like clockwork. You know, muscle memory comes in, you’ve got all those processes down, um, and then it’s just scanning. Our robot operator just presses a button and we just watch it perform scans. And as I said, you know, we are not necessarily the NDT experts. We obviously are very mindful of NDT and know what scans look like. But if there’s any issues, we have a styling, we dial in remote to our supplement expert, they can actually remotely take control, change the settings, parameters. Allen Hall: Wow. Chris Cieslak: And so they’re virtually present and that’s one of the beauties, you know, you don’t need to have people on site. You can have our general, um, robot techs to do the work, but you still have that comfort of knowing that the data is being overlooked if need be by those experts. Joel Saxum: The next level, um, commercial evolution would be being able to lease the kit to someone and or have ISPs do it for [00:14:00] you guys kinda globally, or what is the thought Chris Cieslak: there? Absolutely. So. Yeah, so we to, to really roll this out, we just wanna have people operate in the robots as if it’s like a drone. So drone inspection companies are a classic company that we see perfectly aligned with. You’ve got the sky specs of this world, you know, you’ve got drone operator, they do a scan, they can find something, put the robot up there and get that next level of information always straight away and feed that into their systems to give that insight into that customer. Um, you know, be it an OEM who’s got a small service team, they can all be trained up. You’ve got general turbine technicians. They’ve all got G We working at height. That’s all you need to operate the bay by road, but you don’t need to have the RAA level qualified people, which are in short supply anyway. Let them do the jobs that we are not gonna solve. They can do the big repairs we are taking away, you know, another problem for them, but giving them insights that make their job easier and more successful by removing any of those surprises when they’re gonna do that work. Allen Hall: So what’s the plans for 2026 then? Chris Cieslak: 2026 for us is to pick up where 2025 should have ended. [00:15:00] So we were, we were meant to be in the States. Yeah. On some projects that got postponed until 26. So it’s really, for us North America is, um, what we’re really, as you said, there’s seven, 5,000 turbines there, but there’s also a lot of, um, turbines with known issues that we can help determine which blades are affected. And that involves blades on the ground, that involves blades, uh, that are flying. So. For us, we wanna get out to the states as soon as possible, so we’re working with some of the OEMs and, and essentially some of the asset owners. Allen Hall: Chris, it’s so great to meet you in person and talk about the latest that’s happening. Thank you. With Blade Bug, if people need to get ahold of you or Blade Bug, how do they do that? Chris Cieslak: I, I would say LinkedIn is probably the best place to find myself and also Blade Bug and contact us, um, through that. Allen Hall: Alright, great. Thanks Chris for joining us and we will see you at the next. So hopefully in America, come to America sometime. We’d love to see you there. Chris Cieslak: Thank you very [00:16:00] much.
Dimitri Korolis and Mitch Hontzias are back with the most entertaining wrestling week in review show! This week, the gWo assemble to talk all things in the week of wrestling including the good and not-so-goods of WWE Raw, AEW Dynamite, WWE Smackdown and more! Plus, they give their thoughts on the shakedown from AEW's Grand Slam: Australia. Finally, the Alternate Scenario asks WHAT'S IN THE BOX?!?, Barry Horowitz in the Hall of Fame, It's always a blast with your favourite Greek dads on the Alternate Commentary Table! For more on our shows, visit celebratewrestling.com
The gWo return with another hilarious look back at the week of pro wrestling based on whatever they watched this week! Agree, disagree, but most of all, kick back and have a great time with your two favourite wrestling buddies! For more on our shows, visit celebratewrestling.com
The gWo are set for the Royal Rumble, and they tell us why it's one of their favourite events of the year. The guys also note some people who are NOT in action, who MAY be appearing, and talk more about their picks! Plus, Mitch and Dimitri look at what could be AJ Styles' last week (and possibly FINAL week) as a WWE Superstar. A look back at Saturday Night's Main Event, Monday Night Raw, AEW and more! It's almost time for the Royal Rumble, so enjoy your pre-game show now or after! It's worth the download! For more on our shows, visit celebratewrestling.com
The Greeks are back! Mitch Hontzias and Dimitri Korolis return with the rest of the gWo to have fun talking about the latest week in wrestling, New Year events and more! On this show, find out what the guys thought about the WWE/Stranger Things Raw episode, new faces emerging, and AEW's latest moves. From Mercedes Mone's continued "downfall" to Mitch checking out Tanahashi's retirement in New Japan, the guys cover a LOT of territory! NOTE: This week's episode was recorded prior to WWE Smackdown in Germany, so you KNOW the guys will have things to say about Drew McIntyre's big win next week!
We’re kicking off a two-part series ranking the 30 largest public companies in Canada based purely on business quality. In Part 2, we tackle the last 15 names (and 2 bonus names) covering everything from banks and pipelines to precious metals—sharing our perspective on which business models stand the test of time and which ones carry more hidden risk. Tickers of stocks discussed: SHOP.TO, FNV.TO, NA.TO, DOL.TO, RY.TO, BN.TO, TRI.TO, WPM.TO, GIB.A.TO, CP.TO, ATD.TO, L.TO, IFC.TO, ENB.TO, BMO.TO, AEM.TO, CNQ.TO, CNR.TO, MFC.TO, TRP.TO, GWO.TO, CLS.TO, FFH.TO, SU.TO, IMO.TO, SLF.TO, ABX.TO, CM.TO, TD.TO, K.TO Watch the full video on Our New Youtube Channel! Check out our portfolio by going to Jointci.com Our Website Canadian Investor Podcast Network Twitter: @cdn_investing Simon’s twitter: @Fiat_Iceberg Braden’s twitter: @BradoCapital Dan’s Twitter: @stocktrades_ca Want to learn more about Real Estate Investing? Check out the Canadian Real Estate Investor Podcast! Apple Podcast - The Canadian Real Estate Investor Spotify - The Canadian Real Estate Investor Web player - The Canadian Real Estate Investor Asset Allocation ETFs | BMO Global Asset Management Sign up for Fiscal.ai for free to get easy access to global stock coverage and powerful AI investing tools. Register for EQ Bank, the seamless digital banking experience with better rates and no nonsense.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Gdyby przenieść się w czasie na teren Polski powiedzmy ok. 7000 lat temu, moglibyśmy tu spotkać przedstawicieli dwóch różnych społeczności ludzkich: wędrownych łowców-zbieraczy i osiadłych rolników. Ci pierwsi byli ogólnie lepszego zdrowia (szczątki łowców-zbieraczy są wyższe, a szczątki osiadłych rolników noszą ślady próchnicy). Po co więc prowadzić osiadły tryb życia? Np. po to by móc mieć więcej dzieci. Wędrowne kobiety karmiły piersią dłużej, dziecko było przy matce nawet do 4 lat. W osiadłej społeczności mogła za to rodzić w zasadzie co roku. O najstarszych ludziach zamieszkujących Polskę, ich zwyczajach i sposobie życia opowiada w tym odcinku prof. Iwona Sobkowiak-Tabaka z Wydziału Archeologii Uniwersytetu Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu.* * *Słuchasz nas regularnie? Zajrzyj na https://patronite.pl/radionaukoweNasze wydawnictwo: https://wydawnictworn.pl/ * * *Pierwsze społeczności neolitycznych rolników pojawiły się na terenie współczesnej Polski około 7350 lat temu. Pozostałości najstarszej w Polsce osady neolitycznej znajdują się w Gwoźdźcu w województwie małopolskim. Zamieszkiwali ją przedstawiciele kultury ceramiki wstęgowej rytej i wygląda na to, że dobrze wiedzieli, co robią: ślady neolitycznych osad znajdujemy w Polsce w różnych miejscach, gdzie występują żyzne gleby.Dużo mitów narosło wokół różnic w odżywianiu się tych dwóch społeczności. Trendy odżywiania się „jak nasi przodkowie” odwołują się do łowców-zbieraczy, ale są niedokładne. – To nigdy nie było tak, że oni wyłącznie bazowali na mięsie zwierząt – wskazuje archeolożka. Łowcy-zbieracze spożywali też dużo owoców, ryby, orzechy. Rolnicy jedli dużo więcej węglowodanów (stąd próchnica!), ale też dużo więcej produktów wysokobiałkowych pochodzenia zwierzęcego: mięso, sery, produkty mleczne.Zachowały się również ślady brutalnych zachowań wśród dawnych mieszkańców tutejszych ziem. – Społeczności neolityczne wcale nie były takimi społecznościami pokojowymi – opowiada prof. Sobkowiak-Tabaka. Mamy dużo stanowisk archeologicznych ze szczątkami osób, które zmarły w gwałtowny sposób. Niektóre (np. w jaskini Ofnet w Niemczech) zawierają szczątki łowców-zbieraczy – badania wskazują, że zabitych gwałtownie przez neolitycznych rolników.W odcinku rozmawiamy o wielu wspaniałych stanowiskach archeologicznych z okresu neolitu, które można w Polsce zwiedzić (na przykład Krzemionki Opatowskie, kopalnia krzemienia sprzed 5500 lat), o zachowanych pozostałościach (jak długie na 130 metrów grobowce, przeznaczone dla jednej osoby!) i o tym, jak mogły wyglądać relacje między rolnikami a łowcami-zbieraczami i skąd naukowcy mogą to wiedzieć. Odcinek powstał podczas XVI podróży Radia Naukowego do Poznania. Podróże są możliwe dzięki wspierającej nas społeczności Patronek i Patronów.
This week, the gWo bring you some more thoughts after AEW's Full Gear PPV, and give you their insight into their picks for tonight's WWE Survivor Series: War Games! Also, listen for which WWE Hall of Famer they think could turn HEEL tonight, and the fellas debut a new segment where YOU can help correct them, with a "Mike Check!" For more on our shows, visit celebratewrestling.com
The gWo are back as Mitch Hontzias and Dimitri Korolis give you a hilarious look back at the week in wrestling where there was actually quite a lot of good coming off of all major TV shows. From Raw in Boston with John Cena to new Women's Tag Champs, to AEW's latest Blood and Guts, and even a new TNA champion, the guys talk about all of it. Plus, a special guest joins for The Alternate Scenario! Find out more about our shows at celebratewrestling.com
This week, the Greeks are back with their take on the week in wrestling! Mitch and Dimitri have some fun with names, backstage photos, and a lot more in another hilarious offering from the gWo!
This week, the gWo are getting ahead of WWE's latest Saturday Night's Main Event - the first to NOT air on conventional broadcast television, rather Peacock in the US and YouTube internationally! Plus, the guys look at some of the storylines leading up to the show, including Raw's apparent miss on LA Knight NOT being in the title picture against Punk and Uso, Tiffany Stratton's struggles against Jade Cargill and more! Plus, the guys reminisce on the Dungeon Wrestling tapings in Calgary and a lot more! For more on our shows, celebratewrestling.com
The gWo are back to give their take on the week in TV, and followers on the Celebrate Wrestling Facebook page are now designing their own merch? Stay tuned for details on the upcoming "Free Dimitri" rallies in your city... or you know... just have some fun listening to these guys talk about wrestling!
This week, Mitch Hontzias and Dimitri Korolis celebrate the 6th year of AEW Dynamite - including a moment from the show they remember fondly. Also, the guys do what they do... talk about wrestling, goof off, and give you an entertaining hour of gWo goodness!
It's time for another weekly look back at the wrestling world from the gWo! Join Mitch Hontzias and Dimitri Korolis for the most entertaining wrestling recap show, by a couple of dudes who are holding nothing back! What worked? What didn't? Plus, The Alternate Scenario takes us through some of their picks for John Cena's last match, and find out why AEW is being compared to an Old School Greek Diner Menu!
Join Mitch Hontzias and Dimitri Korolis for another fun look back at the week in wrestling, and what a week it was! From WWE's Clash in Paris to this past Friday's "surprise" return of AJ Lee, the gWo have you covered! Also this week: - We're getting the best John Cena ever - Where's Buddy? - Nikki Bella - why? - Who was better? Chicago's crowd or Paris'? - AEW doing more at 2300 Arena and more!
This week, the gWo are reunited as Dimitri is back from Greece, and Mitch... is Mitch! The day before WWE's Clash in Paris, they give you their picks, but there is a LOT more to talk about! Sit back for a hilarious look back in the week of pro wrestling as only these guys can bring it! - Sami Zayn is your NEW US Champion - Thoughts on Karrion/Killer Kross - AEW's residency in the 2300 Arena (ECW Arena) - World Champion Picks - A new way to spell Y-E-A-T - Shirts shrinking in the dryer and more!
This week, gWo's Mitch Hontzias is back, and this time, it's the return of South Carolina George to help host the show! Together, the guys take on some of the past week in wrestling, including: - Their thoughts on WWE SummerSlam 2025 - A look at WWE UnReal - Monday Night Raw - Becky Lynch is a beast - AEW will always be second - The Alternate Scenario and more! Tomorrow, don't miss a special presentation of McGuire on Wrestling, as WWE Superstar, KARRION KROSS will be on the show!
This week, it's episode 100 for Mitch and Dimitri! Their episode will also be featuring on the radio this week in place of McGuire on Wrestling in some markets, but that show returns later this week as well! Join the gWo as they share their feelings after the passing of Hulk Hogan, as well as take a look at the upcoming two-night WWE SummerSlam card!
Your weekly TV review from the hilarious mouths, and sometimes minds behind the gWo is back for another run! After the insanely busy weekend in pro wrestling last week, the guys give their thoughts on who won the weekend, and what stood out! Also, the guys talk about: - The Follow-up from WWE and AEW to their big weekends - Their favourite matches coming out of all the shows - The Alternate Scenario including: - Will Ospreay and Bryan Danielson Karaoke - Wrestling on the ESPYs - "The WRESTLYs" and much more! Thank you for checking out The A-C-T! Join us every week for FREE podcasts including:McGuire on Wrestling - Sundays featuring news, interviews, weekly analysis from The Wrestling Observer's Dave Meltzer and others. Legends and Champions with Andy Evans - The perfect throwback show with a UK perspective, often joined by Stefan Bennett and others. To hear these shows and more for FREE, just subscribe wherever you're hearing this now, or visit www.celebratewrestling.com
Your weekly TV review from the hilarious mouths, and sometimes minds behind the gWo is back for another run! This week, Dimitri Korolis and Mitch Hontzias give THEIR picks for AEW ALL IN: Texas, WWE SNME, WWE Evolution and more as this show was recorded BEFORE the broadcasts! This week includes: - The guys give their picks for the busiest wrestling weekend in recent memory! - Why WWE should be bothered about how they handled Evolution - The Alternate Scenario and more! Thank you for checking out The A-C-T! Join us every week for FREE podcasts including:McGuire on Wrestling - Sundays featuring news, interviews, weekly analysis from The Wrestling Observer's Dave Meltzer and others. Legends and Champions with Andy Evans - The perfect throwback show with a UK perspective, often joined by Stefan Bennett and others. To hear these shows and more for FREE, just subscribe wherever you're hearing this now, or visit www.celebratewrestling.com
Your weekly TV review from the hilarious mouths, and sometimes minds behind the gWo is back for another run! This week, Dimitri Korolis and Mitch Hontzias take you through the week of TV as AEW inches closer to All In: Texas, and WWE has a 3 PLE weekend! This week includes: - Has Rhea Ripley become... boring? - Mercedes Mone - why aren't all her belts on the line... or are they? - The novel concept of a Texas Death Match... in Texas. - The Alternate Scenario and more! Thank you for checking out The A-C-T! Join us every week for FREE podcasts including:McGuire on Wrestling - Sundays featuring news, interviews, weekly analysis from The Wrestling Observer's Dave Meltzer and others. Legends and Champions with Andy Evans - The perfect throwback show with a UK perspective, often joined by Stefan Bennett and others. To hear these shows and more for FREE, just subscribe wherever you're hearing this now, or visit www.celebratewrestling.com
Your weekly TV review from the hilarious mouths, and sometimes minds behind the gWo is back for another run! This week, Dimitri Korolis and Mitch Hontzias take you through the week of TV leading up to today's WWE Night of Champions (already in progress at posting). This week includes: - Noticeable pivots on WWE's Raw and Smackdown, including CM Punk's "throwback" promo on SD. - AEW is on fire leading up to All In: Texas - A new "Golden Greek"? - The Alternate Scenario: Worst factions - and much more! Thank you for checking out The A-C-T! Join us every week for FREE podcasts including:McGuire on Wrestling - Sundays featuring news, interviews, weekly analysis from The Wrestling Observer's Dave Meltzer and others. Legends and Champions with Andy Evans - The perfect throwback show with a UK perspective, often joined by Stefan Bennett and others. To hear these shows and more for FREE, just subscribe wherever you're hearing this now, or visit www.celebratewrestling.com
John Cena drops a Pipe-Bomb, Bill Goldberg is the Father's Day gift the Greeks didn't ask for, and AEW does Mexico right! Take a break with Mitch and Dimitri as they go through the week of televised pro-wrestling, with their favourite and not-so favourite moments of the WWE and AEW offerings. Also, Wooden Spoons return, as does the Alternative Scenario and more! It's always a blast chatting wrestling with the gWo! Thank you for checking out The A-C-T! Join us every week for FREE podcasts including:McGuire on Wrestling - Sundays featuring news, interviews, weekly analysis from The Wrestling Observer's Dave Meltzer and others. Legends and Champions with Andy Evans - The perfect throwback show with a UK perspective, often joined by Stefan Bennett and others. To hear these shows and more for FREE, just subscribe wherever you're hearing this now, or visit www.celebratewrestling.com
This week, Mitch Hontzias and Dimitri Korolis play the numbers game in more ways than one. While we can't guarantee their fact-checking (for legal reasons anyway), join the gWo for a look at all things wrestling including the fallout from WWE's Money in the Bank, the buildup to "Timeless" Toni Storm and Mercedes Mone at AEW All In: Texas, the return of Ron Killings and much more! Plus, in the Alternate Scenario, the guys offer TKO some cash saving tips for the future! Thank you for checking out The A-C-T! Join us every week for FREE podcasts including:McGuire on Wrestling - Sundays featuring news, interviews, weekly analysis from The Wrestling Observer's Dave Meltzer and others. Legends and Champions with Andy Evans - The perfect throwback show with a UK perspective, often joined by Stefan Bennett and others. To hear these shows and more for FREE, just subscribe wherever you're hearing this now, or visit www.celebratewrestling.com
The most entertaining pod in pro wrestling tv reviews is back for another week, as Dimitri Korolis and Mitch Hontzias come to you with another edition of The Alternate Commentary Table! This week, did the gWo unknowingly cause R-Truth's release from WWE? Also, as WWE's Money in the Bank takes place tonight, the guys give their picks going into the PLE. A new feature, "Quick Tags" sees the guys take on some instant questions. They also look at the jump in interest in NXT, Okada v. Omega, MJF with The Hurt Syndicate and more! Thank you for checking out The A-C-T! Join us every week for FREE podcasts including:McGuire on Wrestling - Sundays featuring news, interviews, weekly analysis from The Wrestling Observer's Dave Meltzer and others. Legends and Champions with Andy Evans - The perfect throwback show with a UK perspective, often joined by Stefan Bennett and others. To hear these shows and more for FREE, just subscribe wherever you're hearing this now, or visit www.celebratewrestling.com
It's time to jump back into the kitchen... or studio... and join Dimitri Korolis and Mitch Hontzias for the most entertaining Pro Wrestling TV recap show on the internet! This week, the guys dive into: - Roxanne Perez prying her way into the Judgment Day - Money in the Bank - A preview of tonight's May 2025 Saturday Night's Main Event - AEW's promo-heavy Dynamite - MJF in The Hurt Syndicate - Becky Lynch v. Jamie Hayter - A closer look at AEW's Double or Nothing card tomorrow night - The Greek of the Week, The Alternate Scenario and more! GWO shirts are on sale NOW at www.celebratewrestling.com! HOWEVER - get $5 off, a free Celebrate Wrestling sticker, and discounted shipping by ordering DIRECTLY at mcguireshow@yahoo.com! (Offer extended to June 15th, 2025)
The gWo are back, and Mitch and Dimitri pull no punches in this loaded episode! A week removed from WWE Backlash, where do they stand on the matches of the night? They'll make their picks, as well as give their thoughts on Randy Orton vs. John Cena in 2025. Then, the boys are off to AEW Dynamite, wondering if we will ever see the actual AEW Championship again, and much more. Finally, the Alternate Scenario goes EXTREME, and the guys even get serious for a minute about MONEY - and how much it costs to go to wrestling events as well as UFC in Montreal! Limited supplies are available for shipping TODAY of the gWo and Celebrate Wrestling shirts. For more information, follow Celebrate Wrestling on Facebook, or head to www.celebratewrestling.com
The Moose on The Loose helps Canadians to invest with more conviction so they can enjoy their retirement. Today we are taking a look at how to build a portfolio with 4%+ yield: T. CTC.A. PEP CNQ, EPD, CVX, ENB or TRP CM, GWO, SLF, TD LIF CRT, VICI, O, GRT BEP, BIP, EMA (or CPX) more risky: MG, GIS, MO, TGT, ARE Get your Investment roadmap: https://dividendstocksrock.com/roadmap Download the Rockstar list here: https://moosemarkets.com/rockstars Join the Retirement Loop waitlist here: https://www.retirementloop.ca Why I prefer low yield vs high yield: https://moosemarkets.com/income
This week, Mike McGuire is back with the team to talk all about some of the stories from the industry side of pro wrestling. Following news of some 17 WWE talents and several office members being cut, The Wrestling Observer's Dave Meltzer joins in to go over some of the names and how things could pan out for them in their next steps. Also, AEW seems to be diving deeper into less complex, more compelling storylines as of late. Is there a hunger for more of this type of content, or do the matches still matter most for Tony Khan's company. Plus, Celebrate Wrestling's Joe Aguinaldo joins the show as he and Mike talk about how we as fans take releases personally, and together also preview the upcoming Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling "Northern Rising" event, taking place at the former Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto! Exciting news about Celebrate Wrestling and gWo t-shirts! Pre-orders continue now, but if you order before May 10, they will ship THAT WEEK! Find out how you can also get a discount on the Celebrate Wrestling Facebook Page (https://www.facebook.com/groups/celebratewrestling) Find out more about our shows at www.celebratewrestling.com Thanks for listening!
Is "The Trifecta of Terror" a thing in WWE? If so... BLECCH! Join Mitch Hontzias and Dimitri Korolis for their weekly take on whatever pro wrestling they watched this week on TV including AEW Dynamite, WWE Monday Night Raw, and all points in between. Also, is there a barber shop window in the future for the gWo? Hear what happens when Mitch and Dimitri pick who would win in different matches between THEMSELVES! Other takes include the return of Becky Lynch, The ELITE need to bring in a new member, should we forget about Samoa Joe and Jon Moxley(?), and whether or not MJF should be a part of The Hurt Syndicate! gWo shirts will be SHIPPING EARLY IF ORDERED NOW! Deadline is May 10th, 2025 for early shipping, but pre-orders continue at www.celebratewrestling.com SAVE $5 and get a free sticker with your order if you order through our special offer on the Celebrate Wrestling Facebook page!
The dust has settled on WrestleMania 41, and Mitch Hontzias with Dimitri Korolis walk us through the week after on WWE and AEW Television. Was the Raw after Wrestlemania worthy of the lore that comes with the show? Did the results meet the expectations of the gWo? Was The Rock RIGHT to interview so shortly after the show and explain his absence? Thank you for supporting our shows! To find out how you can get a limited release gWo T-Shirt, join the Celebrate Wrestling Facebook page for a special offer of $5 off!
Happy WrestleMania weekend! If you've got a wee bit of time before the show starts, or even in between days, Mitch and Dimitri have some fun "what ifs" for you to ponder. Also - did AEW have the best WrestleMania go-home shows with Dynamite and Collision? Plus, the alternate scenario and more! A reminder, for a limited time, gWo shirts are BACK for pre-order! Find out how on the Celebrate Wrestling Facebook page!
The Moose on The Loose helps Canadians to invest with more conviction so they can enjoy their retirement. 5 easy steps to clean your portfolio: https://moosemarkets.com/webinar Download the Rockstar list here: https://moosemarkets.com/rockstars Join the Retirement Loop waitlist here: https://www.retirementloop.ca Why I prefer low yield vs high yield: https://moosemarkets.com/income Companies mentioned in this episode: WCN.TO, MRU.TO, EMP.A.TO, L.TO, DOL.TO, ATD.TO, CP.TO, CNR.TO, H.TO, FTS.TO, TMX.TO, SLF.TO, GWO.TO, MFC.TO, FNV.TO.
As WrestleMania creeps forward, Dimitri Korolis and Mitch Hontzias are back to go through the week of television and do they got something to say! First, they delve into the awkwardness between Tiffany Stratton and Charlotte Flair, and whether or not the match will make up for the cringe. Also, the gWo give their thoughts on the overall WrestleMania build, whether or not Jey Uso deserves better placing in the card, and much more. Plus, they look at this past week's AEW Dynamite, including the $400,000 8-Man tag, Megan Bayne, post-show press conferences and everything else All Elite. Then, it's time for the "Wooden Spoons of the Week", the Alternate Scenario and lots of laughs! gWo T-Shirts are now available for a special discount on the Celebrate Wrestling Facebook page for a limited time!
Mitch and Dimitri are back with a late-night edition of the ACT, giving you their take on the past week in wrestling! As the WrestleMania build continues, an interesting battle emerges among the gWo - as to who could be more DISAPPOINTED with a WrestleMania main eventer? Plus, you'll get their thoughts on everything from Raw, Smackdown, Dynamite and beyond! For more on our shows, visit www.celebratewrestling.com
Sijè jodia, yon fwa ankò, vini de yon oditè podcast la, yon GWO oditè cho a: Moumoune!Pandan ti mesye yo ak Jefferson te rele Moumoune pou swetel bòn fèt, li te tou propoze pou yo pale de “Pitit deyò / Kout pitit.”Sijè a pi konplèks ke sa nou te ka panse. Li gen anpil fasèt ak anpil fason ou ka apwoche yo.Panèl la fè yon bèl job pou mete yo nan diferan senario yo epi tire nan eksperyans pèsonèl yo pou fè analiz la.Evidaman apwòch yo sibjektif men gen anpil leson ki ka tire.Enjoy epi mèsi Moumoune; BÒN FÈT ankò!
Jon Moxley damn near dies, John Cena gives us a tongue-lashing, and we're here for ALL of it! Join Mitch Hontzias and Dimitri Korolis, the least-serious serious wrestling fans for a recap of some of the craziest stories coming out of pro wrestling TV this week! From AEW's build to Dynasty to WWE's growing rivalry between Cody Rhodes and John Cena, the gWo are back with their entertaining look at what everybody's talking about!