Employers Need Wind Power Technicians 170
Hugh Pickens writes "NPR reports that Oklahoma is one state benefitting from the energy boom. With a wind power rush underway, companies are competing to secure the windiest spots, while breathing life into small towns. The problem is, each turbine requires regular maintenance during its 20-year lifespan, with a requirement of one turbine technician for every 10 turbines on the ground. So even with a job that can pay a good starting salary (for technicians with a GED or high school diploma who complete a four-week turbine maintenance training program), there aren't enough qualified technicians to do the work. 'It seems odd, with America's unemployment problem, to have a shortage of workers for a job that can pay in excess of $20 per hour. But being a turbine technician isn't easy,' says Logan Layden, adding that technicians typically have to climb 300 foot high towers to service the turbines. Oscar Briones is one of about a dozen students who recently finished a maintenance training program after leaving his job as a motorcycle mechanic and now has his pick of employers. 'So I was in the market to find something else to do, and this seemed pretty exciting. Being 300 feet in the air, that's pretty exciting in its self. So yeah, I'm a thrill seeker.'"
Dirty Jobs (Score:5, Interesting)
Mike Rowe did an episode of Wind Farm technician. Fascinating show. And proved that I'd hate to do it. It wasn't the climbing the ladder, or standing on top of it that was the problem. The nacelles are only just big enough to fit the generator and leave enough room for a midget to crawl around and do the servicing.
The big laugh in that episode was one of the techs telling a story of a snake in the nacelle. Apparently it had crawled in there during construction when the nacelle was on the ground and then rode it all the way to the top.
I can't find a link to the actual video, but it was Season 3 episode 31, "Wind Farm Technician".
Re:hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Because if you do that, nothing better will come along. The rate for the jobs that come along will start to align with the lower rates.
This is what caused the unions to form to begin with. Large, dangerous industry like mining and manufacturing, paid enough for people to survive but not enough for them to ever prosper. It was a form of "voluntary" indentured servitude.
If everyone got together and demanded better conditions or raises, they would get fired and replaced with the never-ending line of people desperate just to survive. Only by striking and creating a picket line to actually shut down business would any real change ever get made.
For a modern example, see the stories on Foxcon and China. We in the West gape in horror at the working conditions and pittance for wages. But compared to the other options -- subsistence farming, etc. -- it is fantastic. If a worker doesn't toe the line, they're fired and replaced with any one of the teeming masses desperate to escape the crushing poverty they now live in.
Yes, it can go too far. See the auto industry and the various stories about Teacher's unions where people clock in, then punch out for a 5 hour lunch, etc.
But the whole "take the cut for now because something better will come along" doesn't scale.
Re:hmm (Score:4, Interesting)
But the whole "take the cut for now because something better will come along" doesn't scale.
Exactly. Once an employer knows that they can hire someone from a cheaper pool, they will happily lay off the well-paid workers and hire form the cheap pool. And along the way strip benefits.
It doesn't go the other way, though - employers won't raise wages as long as there's any hope of hiring from the cheap pool. That's why middle class wages have been stagnant for 20 years, while the wealthiest have seen their income skyrocket.
So yes, if you're qualified, hold out for the higher paying job if you can.
Re:Sounds Good. (Score:5, Interesting)
Back when I climbed telephone poles for a living (and had the body that goes along with it), I regularly climbed towers for our amateur radio repeater network. Once you're in place and tied down, the work is actually fairly easy. But we had a lot of ground support (and ropes and pulleys) to do the heavy lifting. But the first time you go above 50 feet or so it gets a little unnerving.
Re:Oh please (Score:5, Interesting)
Agreed. $20 an hour is less then what trash collectors and janitors around here. $30 seems like it would be the starting point for this work.
Google around a bit and you'll find skilled ironworkers seem to average about $30. $20 is a bit too low for apprentices, there are some ultra low rate areas where $20 would be decent apprentice wage but "most areas" seem to pull just a little more, low twenties is about right.
Hmm. If I wanted to climb giant metal structures and get all sweaty, the free market wage for a generic iron worker is about $30/hr, or I could go in the green industry and starve my children on $20/hr. Golly I wonder which I would select?
Electricians get paid a little more than ironworkers, so entering the field in that direction doesn't work.
Its a very limited supply of workers... Not unskilled labor, takes years to figure out what you're doing. Its a young mans game (I'm too old, and I'm not that old...) and you need what by American standards is excellent physical fitness, and you need to not be a follower, because the followers all went to college and graduated with a diploma in multicultural studies, $100K in debt, and a coffee barrista job to pay it off, and you have to be at least median to above median smart to literally survive the job.
Re:Abandoned wind farms (Score:4, Interesting)
With the high number of abandoned wind farms I can't say I like the job security aspects of this. It might make a good summer job but I sure wouldn't plan a career around it.
Its also a capital intensive job. Back in the early 80s a cool blue collar "retraining" job was cable TV installer. The local vo-tech school had classes and graduated at least a hundred. Once all the hardline was strung up or buried, then.... From personal knowledge there are only about two dozen techs in that field in my area. What happened to the hundred or so other grads? Probably getting career advice to go into the (currently) lucrative windmill business. Endless bubble chasing, thats all the US has to offer anymore.
Retraining is a profitable industry all by itself. Much like the gold rush gold miners never made much money, but the general store types made fat stacks of cash, the place to make money in the windmill industry is in windmill industry training classes, not in windmills themselves.
Re:hmm (Score:1, Interesting)
Unemployment insurance pays better.
So once again socialists scuttle renewable energy along with every other beneficial aspect of capitalism.
Re:Oh please (Score:5, Interesting)
I was at an open day at a wind turbine. They had a small cage lift that could take two people at a time to the top, it took a long time, and there were a few people in the queue. As a joke I asked the operator "Can I climb up the ladder? it will be quicker!". Instead of saying "No, don't be stupid!" he handed me a harness and said "Of course! Go ahead...". Not being one to turn down a challenge I put the harness on, cliped in, and headed up the ladder. It was hard work, and I was not carrying any tools. It was also a bit scary.
I'd take that job. The climb to work is good excercise, and the view from the top is amazing.