Blowing in the Wind

From Tokyo, Japan and Auckland, New Zealand, this is Down to Business English, with your hosts Git Montreau and Samantha Vega.

Gracious Samantha. A miserable, cold, windy day.

My skip. You don't sound like your usual chipper self, is the weather getting you down over there in Tokyo?

I'm afraid it has got the best of me today. You know, winter in Tokyo is relatively mild, but on days like today, it's hard not to complain. Getting away from the cold and wind is one of the main reasons I left Canada.

Well, Canadian cold and Tokyo Cold are completely different animals.

They are. But I've lived in Japan long enough that I've lost my tolerance for the cold. It's not even the temperature really. It's more to do with the wind. I can't stand cold windy days.

won't like to hear this then. The weather here in New Zealand has been fantastic. It's twenty two right now, so it's actually quite a cool day. But during the week past week it's been smoking hot and literally smoking hot. It gets the sun is very hot here at times.

Wow. How about the wind? Are you having many windy days?

No, not to speak of. You seem to be a bit fixated on wind. What's up with that?

Oh, you caught that, did you?

Huh? I'm right.

Yes, you are. I suppose it's because today's report is about the wind power or wind energy industry.

As in those huge wind turbines?

Yes, as in those huge turbines. Recent developments in the sector are really shaking things up, and wind power is on the verge of taking a bigger role in the energy sector.

Is that a fact? That's quite interesting actually because there is a brand new wind farm that's just opened in the area where I live in New Zealand, and there actually are quite a few wind farms around the country. I've always been under the impression that wind energy was not that effective, though. Some people even claim it's not a clean source of energy at all.

It does have its critics, but fundamentally, wind power is a viable alternative energy source. And there's a bit of an arms race brewing between some pretty big energy companies trying to corner the market.

Entree.

Great. So let's do it. Let's get D2B down to business with wind power. What is the history behind this industry? Is wind power as environmentally friendly as it claims? And why is the competition to produce wind power heating up?

When someone mentions wind power or wind energy, which is more appropriate power or energy?

Oh both are fine. Okay.

When someone mentions wind power, I imagine picturesque windmills dotting the countryside of the Netherlands. But I'm guessing that the industry has very little or nothing to do with that image.

Well, those Dutch windmills are a good example of how wind was historically harnessed. But no, they have little to do with the modern wind power sector.

And what can you tell us about the modern wind power industry?

He's young, very young. The early nineteen seventies, specifically nineteen seventy three, is regarded as the real starting point. Do you remember what was going on in nineteen seventy three? Hm.

Hmm. I don't want to date myself, but isn't that around the time of the oil crisis when OPEC nations cut off oil to Western nations?

Very good. The price of oil rose over 300% and dramatically showed why being dependent on oil was not such a good thing.

So, a natural response was to search for alternative sources of power.

And that is what happened. Pioneering wind companies set up wind turbines across Denmark.

Oh, that's pretty close to the Netherlands.

It's in the same neck of the woods, yes. And it turns out that Denmark is home to some of the best wind turbine engineers in the world. And it's the birthplace to a lot of the technology that goes into operating them.

I did not know that. I will have to add that to my What Denmark is famous for list.

You have a what Denmark is famous for list?

Of course. Kind of a hobby of mine. Keep it a list of what different countries are famous for.

That's fantastic. So what else is Denmark well known for?

Well, I'd have to refer to my list, but off the top of my head, it's famous for Lego, Hans Christian Andersen, and having a very cool language.

Okay, no argument from me there.

The Rasmussen brothers who developed Google Maps. They are from Denmark.

Wow, that is a piece of trivia I did not know.

Good, you learned something new today. Now, tell me about the wind energy slash power industry.

Oh yes. Where was I? Denmark.

In the late seventies.

Right. Well, a little later in the 80s, wind farms started sprouting up in the US, mainly in California. And then India got involved in electric generation from wind. Gradually it spread to Spain and Germany, and today wind power is used in at least half of the countries across the globe.

You didn't mention China on that list, but I have to believe it's used there.

I was saving the best for last. China is, in fact, the world's number one producer of wind power, which is quite the accomplishment, seeing as how they didn't really get into the game until 2005 or so.

Just exactly how big is this industry? I mean, what percentage of the global energy market does wind power account for?

In terms of electrical generation, wind accounted for 4.7% of global production in 2019. Now, that might not sound very substantial or very high, but it is also the fastest growing energy market. Capital investment in wind power is growing at a faster rate than conventional energy technology.

By conventional you mean oil, gas, and coal.

Yes, the dirty three.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't wind power get a lot of flack for not being as clean an energy source as it purports? Outgoing President Donald Trump famously claimed wind turbines actually are very dirty sources of energy and the noise they make can cause cancer.

That man will say anything. The fact is, those assertions are two of the many fallacies about wind power that are demonstrably false.

How so?

There is absolutely no evidence that wind turbines or the sound they produce cause illness in people. And environmental studies clearly show that the amount of CO two emissions created by constructing and maintaining wind turbines is quickly offset within the first nine months of the turbine going into operation.

Okay, that clears that up. But I've also heard that wind turbine farms are bird killers, that the number of birds and bats killed by flying into these huge structures is surprisingly high.

Another fallacy. According to one study, the number of birds killed per gigawatt hour of electricity produced is much higher for fossil fuels than wind turbines. By a lot. Five point one eight birds are killed per gigawatt hour for fossil fuels and zero point two seven for wind power.

Does studies like that, going around counting dead birds.

And to add to that, bird deaths are only an issue for land based or onshore wind farms. They aren't an issue for offshore wind farms at sea.

So that fallacy is now sorted. It sounds like wind energy is the ultimate source of clean energy.

Hmm, I'm afraid not. Like anything else, there are legitimate concerns. A recent Harvard study took a close look at the environmental impact wind turbines have on the climate.

I thought you said that their CO two emissions were not an issue.

And that is accurate. However, on a large scale, wind farms could lead to increasing surface temperatures.

That is a little counterintuitive.

No, it is. But this study, which was done in twenty eighteen, found that in order to meet one hundred percent of the US's energy demands. Wind farms would have to take up to twenty times more landmass than currently believed.

Why is that?

Because the more turbines you put up, the more they impact the natural wind motion in the area.

Hmm.

In what ways?

Their turning motion does two things. One, they decrease the power density of the natural wind in the area.

Ah, in effect, they are weakening the very power that they're trying to harvest.

Exactly.

So the more wind turbines you put up, the less energy you can generate.

And the less energy you generate, the more turbines you need to put up.

Hm a classic example of diminishing return. What's the other impact?

The other impact is what I've already mentioned, rising surface temperature.

Yeah, I don't quite understand that.

With so many turbines in operation, they disturb the natural wind currents near the ground, which under normal circumstances cool the surface.

Okay, that makes sense.

The study predicts that over a hundred years, daytime surface temperatures could rise zero point two four degrees Celsius. And nighttime temperatures could rise as much as one point five degrees Celsius.

Even though that's based on some type of model which might not be accurate, it is a substantial increase.

It's actually more of a temperature increase than if we kept using fossil fuels for those one hundred years.

Then wouldn't a solution be to construct more powerful wind turbines that would reduce the number of turbines necessary? And what about putting them offshore rather than on land? Would that have a less harmful impact on the climate?

Yes and yes. Samantha, your Danish engineering jeans are coming out.

Yeah.

Very funny. But it just seems practical.

And that is precisely where the industry is headed. General Electric Renewable, a subsidiary of GE, has just brought into operation the world's most powerful wind turbine. The Halliday X thirteen. And it is a massive leap forward in wind turbine generation.

That sounds promising. What does X13 stand for?

It can produce thirteen megawatt hours.

I have no idea what that means.

Honestly speaking, neither do I. But seeing as how China's most powerful wind turbine in operation is ten megawatts. This one is more powerful than the

Ah, by three megawatts. I see that.

Yes, and it is physically huge. It stands two hundred and sixty meters tall, and the diameter of its blades is two hundred and twenty meters.

Yeah.

Like I said, it's huge.

And how many of these monsters are out there generating electricity?

At this stage it has only recently been approved by regulatory bodies. Mass production starts this fall at factories in France.

So GE has reached agreements with wind farm operators?

In principle, yes. Orsted, a Danish company which operates wind farms in Denmark and the US, has agreed to purchase 90 turbines. And another two hundred and seventy are headed for the Dogger Bank Wind Farms in the North Sea off the coast of the UK.

And what would these sales amounts be worth? I imagine they're pretty handsome.

If the deals reach fruition, they could be worth as much as thirteen billion dollars, according to some analysts.

fifteen billion for thirteen megawatts. Is that a coincidence? There are a lot of threes in there.

I don't think so. But seeing as how the Halliday X thirteen is thirty percent more powerful than anything else out there in the commercial market, GE Renewables competitors are sitting up and taking notice.

Competitors being

Their biggest competitors are Siemens Gamasa and Vestas, and both have been in the wind power business for much longer than GE Renewable.

That should give them a bit of an advantage.

It sure does. Unlike GE, they have experience installing and maintaining wind farms offshore, which is not exactly a piece of cake. Both Siemens and Vestis have announced plans to introduce larger wind turbines.

So it's not exactly smooth sailing for G E.

No, they have hurdles in front of them.

Well, before we blow away all of our listeners with information overload, I think it's time for us to get D2V, down to vocabulary.

Down to business English audio scripts are a great learning tool. Be sure to visit the D2B website and download your free audio script of today's podcast. Down to businessenglish dot com that's WWW dot down to businessenglish dot com.

I want to make our listeners aware of another. What is it?

What's that?

It's an online learning solution by the name of All Ears English, based out of the United States.

All ears English. That's catchy. I take it that they are focused on listening comprehension practice.

It's not just a listening focus. Their motto is connection, not perfection. And they are a team of four professional language teachers and they offer online courses and have three different podcasts. One for general fluency. Another that is focused on preparing for the IELTS test, and a third podcast about business English.

Ah, they are our competition.

I suppose so. But Lindsay McMahon, the founder of All Ears English, recently had me on their podcast talking about three ways to do self-study as a business English student. The interview was a lot of fun, and they were kind enough to plug down to business English. So I wanted to say thank you and encourage our listeners to check them out. I will put a link to my interview on our website if anybody wants to listen to it and check out AEE. Or you can just visit their site at allearsenglish.com.

Definitely worth having a look into. I will.

Great. Okay, let's get on with D2V Samantha. What is our first word?

Our first word today is the verb to fixate on something. When you fixate on something, you think about it too much or you can't stop thinking about it.

In today's report, Samantha noticed that I seemed to be fixated on wind. I was complaining about the cold wind in Tokyo and was asking her about the wind situation in New Zealand.

In other words, he seemed to be thinking about wind aloft. Can you give us another example using fixated skip?

One concept of time management Balance your tasks throughout your workday. It's important not to fixate on one task for too long, as the others will never get done.

Very true. Very difficult to do, but very true.

Next on the vocabulary list is the verb to sprout up. This verb refers to a plant growing from a seed buried in the ground, breaking the surface, and first appearing above ground.

But idiomatically, it just means to appear somewhere very suddenly.

That's right. And it also implies many things are suddenly appearing everywhere. In the story, I reported that wind farms started sprouting up in the US, then India, and then Europe, and then all over the place.

Meaning that these wind farms started appearing everywhere in a relatively short period of time.

Can you give us an example in a business situation, Samantha? Sure.

I don't know if you've noticed or not, but ever since this COVID pandemic has set in around the world, with so many people losing their jobs, a lot of new online businesses and independent stores have been sprouting up. People trying to replace lost income by selling things from home.

Very good example. I personally know at least four, maybe five friends back in Canada who have started operating online stores over the past year.

Great idea, but I imagine there's a lot of competition.

For sure. What's our next work?

Let's talk about the idiomatic expression to get flack.

Oh, I love this expression.

It is kind of cool. You need to understand what FLAC is, though. That's F-L-A-K. Skip, have you ever watched? World War Two movie? Sure.

I'm a big war movie buyer.

Then you must have seen bomber airplanes flying over enemy cities. Sure. To defend themselves from the bombers, the soldiers in the city would shoot thousands. tens and thousands of anti-aircraft shells into the air.

Right. The bombers had to fly through black metal shells exploding around them. Very dangerous. Yes.

And those shells were called flowers.

So getting flak is similar to being under attack.

Yes. When you say you got flak for something, you were saying that you are getting a lot of criticism for something that you did or something that you said. In the story, I commented that wind power gets a lot of flat for not being a clean source of energy.

In other words, it receives a lot of criticisms for not being more eco-friendly.

Can you give us a business example, Skip? Yeah.

Twitter and Amazon are getting a lot of flack these days. Twitter for permanently banning Donald Trump and Amazon for removing the right-wing social network site Parlor.

Aw, that is a big story. They are getting a lot of flack, especially from conservatives criticizing them from preventing free speech. We should do a report on that story.

I'm pretty sure we will in the very near future. Good.

What's next on our list?

Our next and final word on D2V today is the noun assertion. An assertion is a strong statement. When you make an assertion, you are confident that what you are saying is true, even if you don't have any proof or evidence. In the story, I describe Donald Trump's claims about wind turbines as assertions. In other words, he stated them, he believed them, and it didn't matter to him at least, if they were true or not.

Donald Trump asserted many things in his four years as president. Can you give us another example?

Well, I try to keep my political feelings to myself on this show as much as possible and remain neutral. But it is my assertion that we have not heard the last of Donald Trump.

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That was an interesting report. I have a completely new perspective on wind power now. I'm all for transitioning away from fossil fuels to alternative energy. I just didn't think wind power was up to the task.

That is good to hear, Samantha. I know you're a bit fixated on the environment.

Hang on, don't give me any flack about that. I don't think I am more fixated on the environment than a responsible person should be. It is a very important issue after. I always thought you were all for fighting climate change.

I am.

It is my assertion.

Away from oil to renewable energy will involve at least generation as it will take that long to develop the necessary infrastructure.

I'm glad to hear that you were on board. But I think it will happen a lot faster than that. The transition has already begun. Just look at all the alarm. Vehicles that are sprouting up on the roads everywhere.

I guess that is true. Perhaps you are right. In any case, thanks for speaking with me today about it.

My pleasure.

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Thanks for listening everyone. See you next time.

Take care.

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