Wind to Methanol – Greenwashing or Genius?

"Scaling wind energy ...and automating operations" are important, and those are two things Future Positive Capital wants to see happen after its $9M investment in Aerones. There's more to the explanation worth discussing, so Allen, Rosemary and Joel dive in. They also take a deep dive into the Wind-to-Methanol fray, where there's a lot of discord, and a lot of (grant and investment) money at stake. A flammable liquid that has traditionally been used to make other chemicals like formaldehyde and acetic acid, Methanol is becoming the green darling of the maritime industry. But is it a carbon-neutral fuel? The Uptime crew looks at the issue from several angles, does the math, and tries to work it out. Also, GE has three new names (and one unhappy union) - so what changes might we see? Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!  Uptime 123 Full Allen Hall: Hey, all welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. We have three items on the docket. Rosemary talked a lot, and so we had to just condense everything and, but it's very good. in fact, we got very, she was in a very combative mode today. I, I have to say so she was ready to go - all fired up. First topic is Aerones in Latvia getting 9 million in funding and we, we try look at that funding to what the future marketplace is, and we think there's huge upsides for them. Rosemary Barnes: And then I get on my high horse a little bit about waste to fuel. And to what extent that can be called green, or maybe, maybe it's more towards greenwashing. Joel Saxum: So GE renamed themselves, GE Vernova on the energy side, so renewables in their rest of their energy portfolio. Joel Saxum: And we're. Put on our marketing hats. And talk about that for a little while. Allen Hall: Stay tuned. It's a good episode, everybody we'll be back right after the music. Allen Hall: Well funding news this week, guys, Aerones up in, Latvia received $9 million in investment funding. And I, I bring this up because usually these investment pieces don't make a lot of news, but the company that one of the companies that invested in, Aerones decided to write up a really detailed loan articles, why they invested in a company in Latvia. Allen Hall: And it was,