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Port harbors windblades

Fri, 06/19/2009 - 7:32pm — Calen

Currently resting at the Port of Olympia is a shipment of windmill blades. They arrived on the Industrial Cape and the Industrial Eagle and have been here since early May. They'll probably remain for most of the summer, according to Jim Knight, the Port's Business Development Manager.

port building and windblades

The windblades are on a journey from Santos, Brazil to sites in Wyoming and Washington. The Wyoming shipment has already left the Port.

2 blades

The rest will be shipped to Vantage, near Ellensburg, as construction sites become ready for their installation. Knight said their customer is General Electric. If my internet research is correct, they’ll be part of the Vantage Wind Energy Project, under development by Invenergy Wind North America, LLC. When completed it will be capable of generating 103 megawatts, and Puget Sound Energy may buy power from the project.

perspective

The windblades are manufactured by Tecsis (Tecnologia e Sistemas Avançados) a 14-year-old Brazilian company out of São Paulo that engineers components for wind energy and industrial ventilation.

close up

How much revenue these shipments are bringing to the Port is unclear, but the Industrial Cape shipment generated about 1,900 longshore hours—that's direct employment for local dock workers.

It's unlikely that these wind projects are being funded even partially by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, said Knight. I didn’t attempt to find out for sure.

Regardless, I’m pleased that this kind of business is going through our Port.

crane background

If you want to see more photos of the windblades, go to my photostream.

Comments

Fri, 06/19/2009 - 7:41pm — Rob Richards

Awesome.

This was an awesome report, thank you so much. My little one and I were marveling at these giant blades during the last shipment, last month I think. It's fun to go down and watch them unload them from the ship.
Sun, 06/21/2009 - 11:30am — Calen

Cool, thanks. They really

Cool, thanks. They really are impressive-looking.
Sat, 06/20/2009 - 8:23am — Aoife

Interesting

That is interesting. Thanks for posting it. I saw one of those blades going down I-5 last summer. It was a very wide and long load. I wonder if they are all being shipped that way?
Tue, 06/23/2009 - 2:06pm — Calen

Thanks, Aoife.

I love your name! Shipping those on trucks must be a feat! One Port employee I talked to told me that they are shipped on an extendable semi that has a separate, rear pilot car, operated by remote. Very cool, if you like machines etc. BTW, I replied to this earlier but for some reason it didn't go through.
Sun, 06/21/2009 - 3:59pm — stevenl

Excellent Report, Calen

Great job! Those weird things made me wonder. I hope we see more of your reporting here.
Mon, 06/22/2009 - 10:44am — Calen

Thanks! Yeah, for second I

Thanks! Yeah, for second I thought they were airplane parts. They're huge and sort of unworldly.
Mon, 06/22/2009 - 10:27am — Guglielmo

Nice job

I'm generally a cynic about our Port. Good to see info (like the 1,900 hours of employment) to keep me thinking about it.
Mon, 06/22/2009 - 10:49am — Calen

Thanks!

I know what you mean about being cynical. For me, I know hardly anything about it--so it's hard to understand or imagine what part it plays in our community, besides the military shipments. When I did this post I was glad to find that the Port posts information about ships' arrivals, their cargo et cetera on their website: http://www.portolympia.com/marine

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