GE Vernova CEO Appraises Nuclear Power Prospects, Offshore Wind Business

 Scott Strazik sees nuclear power adding ‘gigawatts upon gigawatts,’ adding that offshore wind needs to sort out its business model

 

By 

Walden Siew

Sept. 25, 2024

 

Scott Strazik discusses the progress being made on fighting climate change, including the future of wind, gas and solar technology, how his company is modernizing the power grid and geopolitical factors that could affect the renewables industry.

 

The nuclear power industry is set to add “gigawatts upon gigawatts” of capacity heading into the 2030s, while offshore wind in the U.S. sorts out its business model, according to GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik.

Strazik leads General Electric’s spinoff of its power and wind business, which started trading as a stand-alone company in April. The energy company has emerged at a crossroads for the nuclear energy industry as companies contend with managing aging reactors while exploring newer reactor technologies—along with alternative energy sources such as onshore and offshore wind energy. 

INBOX147665f6fa556f6a759f3fd573282b521e9

GE Vernova Chief Executive Scott Strazik speaking at the Journal House during Climate Week NYC Tuesday. 

 

Strazik joined the Journal House in New York on Tuesday during Climate Week NYC to discuss renewable energy and the future of the power grid. The conversation focused on the future of various energy sectors, including nuclear power and onshore and offshore wind, as well as recent reported layoffs at GE Vernova, the nation’s largest wind turbine manufacturer.

Following are edited excerpts from his conversation with Ken Brown, The Wall Street Journal’s bureau chief of climate and financial enterprise.

The promise of nuclear power

WSJ: So nuclear is interesting, because we’ve heard about it all the time. The question is, is it going to come too late?

Strazik: I do think in the early 2030s this will start to scale. We’re going to be adding gigawatts upon gigawatts of nuclear capacity every year. So it’s going to take this decade to really validate the technology, get a few of the first projects cut into COD, or commercial operation date. And I’m highly confident in the 2030s this is going to be a very material part of the equation for us.

The offshore wind industry

WSJ: So where is your offshore wind business?

Strazik: I’d start by just taking a step back and saying, when we look at the energy transition over the long term, we see an important role for offshore wind, much like we talked about SMR, or small modular reactors, playing a role in the next decade. Much like carbon capture, offshore wind is important for the world. That said, as you outlined, we had a tough summer in offshore wind. 

We had a [wind turbine] blade event in the Atlantic that was caused by a deviation, a manufacturing deviation, at one of our factories that led to an escape, and that has led to a very thoughtful, thorough summer for us to ultimately restart our operations on the other side of that event that took place in the first half of July. We learned a lot from it to this point, but what we’ve been talking about with offshore wind is that it’s a nascent industry where we need to be thorough and not rushed, and that’s really how we’ve gone about this summer.

 

Strazik: For context, I’ve had responsibility for offshore wind for, I guess, two and a half years now, and we had a $7 billion backlog two and a half years ago. Today, we have about a $3 billion backlog with two projects. So over the last two and a half years, we haven’t been adding to this business. That’s partly because the industry is sick. 

The economics haven’t really worked for anyone in the value chain of offshore wind, whether it be my customers or the wind OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] by any means. That said, we believe offshore wind matters to the world and want to play our part, but we need to continue to execute on what we have, which is a backlog that’s going to take us a period of time to complete, and we need the economics for the industry to reset and reset what best illustrates the risk and reward for what are very complex operations out at sea but providing a solution that’s very important for the world simultaneously. So we’re going to keep working on offshore wind every day. We’ve got a lot to do, and the industry has a lot to do for it to thrive.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

New York --- What's keeping the lights on --- Grid Brief March 27

Image
  What’s Keeping the Lights On? March 27 , 2024   (Here is a graph – courtesy of Grid Brief -- showing the electric generation power source mix for New York State from  Mar 19  through  Mar 26 )   Natural gas, hydro, and nuclear kept the Empire State running.  That holds true for week after week after week. Hydro performed well last week. Nuclear was steady as always. Both of these sources are CO2 free, of course. Wind contributed something on Thursday and Friday of last week, with another little bump late Monday. Solar (yellow line) – essentially nothing.
Read more

What The Media Won’t Tell You About The Energy Transition

Image
  What The Media Won’t Tell You About The Energy Transition The hype, and the reality, about the energy transition in 10 charts   MAY 07, 2024   Cooling towers at India’s Mahatma Gandhi Super Thermal Power Project, a 1,320 MW coal-fired power plant in Haryana . Over the past few days, I’ve searched the NewsBank archive for uses of “energy transition.” One of the earliest uses of that now-ubiquitous phrase occurred in the  Christian Science Monitor  in 1981. In a dispatch from Nairobi, a reporter named Richard Critchfield explained that some “4,000 delegates from 154 countries” were gathering in the Kenyan capital for a two-week United Nations conference on new and renewable sources of energy. “The purpose of the conference,” Critchfield explained, was to “promote better understanding of the global energy transition from oil to such new sources as geothermal, solar, wind, ocean, and hydropower or energy from biomass, fuelwood, charcoal, peat, draught animals, oil shale, and tar sands.”
Read more

There Once Was a Blade From Nantucket -- Doomberg

Image
  Aug 04, 2024 ∙  “There is no such thing as accident; it is fate misnamed.” – Napoleon Bonaparte The 1930s were distinctly warm years in many parts of the world, including the Atlantic basin. Although hurricanes were not yet named and tracked to the extent they are today, meteorologists tell us that the decade saw an unusually high number of powerful storms. Among them are the Category 5 Freeport Hurricane of 1932 and the Great New England Hurricane of 1938. The latter raced up the Atlantic Coast, ultimately crashing ashore on Long Island, New York, and then again in Connecticut. The  regional damage  was profound: “ Wind, fire, floodwaters, and tidal surges all caused damage in New England. In New London, Connecticut, the tidal surge drove the five-masted school ship Marsala into a warehouse complex along the docks, setting off a short circuit and fire which consumed a quarter-mile area of the business district – the worst calamity in New London since Benedict Arnold burned the city
Read more