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As a female executive, I need to say it. I have a bone to pick with how corporate America pays and promotes women in the United States. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. Most of us have seen the depressing stats about how women are paid in the United States and the (lack of) leadership positions they hold. But, just as a refresher, I decided to look up some of those stats again.

  • March 24, 2021, was Equal Pay Day in the United States. That means that for an average woman in America to have made what my male counterparts made in 2020, I needed to work until March 24, 2021.
  • The female to male earnings ratio in 2019 (the most recent year for which we have those statistics) was 82.3%. (I must admit I was even more depressed with myself when I realized I was somewhat pleasantly surprised by this number).
  • During the first quarter of 2021, 41 Fortune 500 companies were led by women. That’s just 8.2%, but an improvement from 2019 when there were 33 and 2018 when there were 24.

It’s important to note that these statistics are even more abysmal for women of color.

Corporate America: we need to do much, much, much better. But I guess the better question is, who within corporate America needs to do better?

One theory about who needs to do better – one that I have heard too many times to count – is that the women need to do better. I cannot tell you the number of times I have had conversations with men or women about pay parity and the other person tells me, “women just need to negotiate better, Katie. That pay gap wouldn’t exist if women negotiated for their salary more effectively.”

There are a lot of problems with telling women they need to “negotiate better” to solve this problem. To start, it is victim shaming, offensive, and insulting. It points the finger in the entirely wrong direction. A negotiation for a salary is one where the employer has far more data than the prospect. How many places have you worked where you knew what all your counterparts made? How are you supposed to negotiate for equal pay when you don’t know you aren’t being paid equally? If I, as a woman, have always been paid less than my male counterparts, how would I even know that? And at my next job, even though I make more and am doing better than I was, how do I know if I am still making less than my male counterparts?

Another theory is that corporate America is to blame. And that means all of us. All of us who are executives, managers, and hirers are the problem. But if we are the problem, we are also the solution. So we all need to step up. I would suggest by starting with the following:

  • Review your salaries now. Ensure you are paying women what you are paying men in the same or similar roles.
  • Review your executive team, your board, and those holding management positions. Are they held equally by men and women? If not, ask yourself why that is the case. Don’t let “there are no good women out there” be your excuse. You don’t break glass ceilings and tear down this divide unless you give women a chance and are the ones to elevate them. Think outside of the box. Have you worked with a brilliant female engineer, scientist, lawyer, accountant, etc. in your area of business? I bet she would be a great addition to your leadership team. Be the one to elevate her.
  • Look at your parental leave and family leave policies. Are you treating men and women equally? If you aren’t, think about the message you are sending about your expectations of employees. And if you don’t have a parental leave policy or family leave policy, think about the message that sends to women with families about how serious you are about enabling them to enter and stay in the workforce.
  • Don’t stop there. Make a commitment to make your company the solution, which we have done at One Energy and will continue to do.

But what not to do? Don’t tell me, or any woman, to simply “negotiate better.” This is a cop-out. And it will get us no further along in fixing the abysmal statistics I outlined above. It will not get us to a place where women and men are valued and rewarded equally for their work in this country. Women don’t need to negotiate better. Corporate America needs to do better.

Katie Treadway is the Head of Regulatory Affairs at One Energy.

Learn more about Katie and the One Energy team.

Today’s Wind View is brought to you by one of our technicians, Justin!

He snapped this photo from his cell phone while he was working on a wind turbine at the project located down the street from the One Energy headquarters. This picture shows seven of the eight turbines at the North Findlay Wind Campus – which power local manufacturing plants in Findlay, Ohio.

Justin is a great technician and all, but we’re wondering if a career move to photography may be in order! 

 

May 10, 2021 – Wind Study | Question 19

Wind Study | Yaw and Energy Efficiency

Ever wonder how wind turbines keep up with changing wind flows?

Our wind turbines rotate, or “yaw,” to face directly into the wind and capture it more effectively. A turbine’s yaw is an axis of rotation that changes the direction the turbine is facing.

This week’s homework asks you to calculate how much energy a yaw consumes, the energy output of the turbine after the yaw, how much energy the turbine would have produced if it didn’t yaw, and the difference between the two scenarios.   

🔗 Download the questions here

And YAW better come back on Friday to check the answer! Ya hear?

You can also find and share this assignment on Facebook and Twitter!

May 07, 2021 – Wind Study | Answer 18

Wind Study | Potential Energy and Gravity

Were you able to figure out what wind turbines have to do with gravitational potential energy? It may surprise you to find that there was more than one way to arrive at the correct answers for this week’s Wind Study.

Monday’s Wind Study homework questions asked you to calculate the gravitational potential energy of a wind turbine technician, as well as the turbine tower itself!

🔗 Download the answers here and come back Monday for the next math and science problem!

You can also find and share this assignment on Facebook and Twitter!

S&P’s Energy Markets Specialist, Janet McGurty, details Marathon’s Q1 earnings call. In the article, Janet highlights Marathon’s announcement to once again partner with One Energy for a Wind for Industry project at its Dickinson, ND facility, as it aims to “balance its traditional oil refining business as it moves forward to increase its renewable fuel operations in order to lower its carbon footprint.” 

This week’s Wind View features a photo taken from high above the North Findlay Wind Campus (NFWC).

Captured via drone, four of the now eight turbines located at the NFWC (as well as two turbines in the distance, part of a neighboring Wind for Industry project) can be seen. These wind turbines directly power nearby factories, decarbonizing operations and providing 20 years of electricity rate control.

This photo also provides an aerial view of One Energy’s component yard, stocked with wind turbine blades and a variety of components such as generators and nacelles.

For their second Wind for Industry project at one of their facilities, Marathon Petroleum Corporation (MPC) signed an agreement with One Energy for five 2.3 MW wind turbines to be installed at their Dickinson, ND location. Read MPC’s announcement, which declared the project will “help further decrease its carbon emissions profile” by generating more than 40 million annual kWh of energy for the facility and offsetting ~45% of the plant’s electricity needs – at a fixed rate for the next 20 years. 

May 03, 2021 – Wind Study | Question 18

Wind Study | Potential Energy and Gravity

The technician in the photo below has HUGE potential… potential energy that is!

We know that One Energy’s wind turbines convert wind energy into electrical energy – but what do they have to do with gravitational potential energy? Find out in today’s Wind Study!

This week’s homework asks you to calculate the potential energy of a One Energy technician standing on top of a wind turbine tower, carrying all their tools and safety equipment.

Then, use the same mathematic equation to determine the gravitational potential energy of the turbine tower itself!

🔗 Download the questions here and don’t forget to come back on Friday to check the answer!

You can also find and share this assignment on Facebook and Twitter!

You’ve probably noticed that wind turbines typically have three blades – have you ever wondered why?

There isn’t one single reason that utility-scale wind turbines have three blades – rather, it’s a culmination of many factors. Think of a three-bladed turbine as being the best of each world, when it comes to:

  1. Cost
  2. Efficiency
  3. Aesthetics

When determining the number of blades for a wind turbine design, there are two main factors to consider: cost and blade structure.

A design with more than three blades, for example, does mean there is a marginal increase in the turbine’s efficiency – but manufacturing and transporting the additional blade(s) costs more money. Adding more blades also means each bade must be thinner, and thus less stiff. This makes it more difficult to keep the blades straight, therefore making them less effective from a structural perspective.

For a design with less than three blades, there are two options: one blade and two blades. One-blade turbines are hard to get started and are very unbalanced, even with a counterweight.

Two-blade turbines, on the other hand, are arguably as good as (if not better than) a three-blade design, depending on the application. Having two blades (rather than three) means you’ll save the cost of one blade; however, the two remaining blades must be larger in size, which erodes some of this cost advantage.

In addition, when a two-blade turbine turns to face the wind, the rotational forces change significantly as the blades rotate (kind of like when a figure skater is spinning, they can bring their arms in to spin faster or out to spin slower). This changing force makes the two-blade turbine unstable when turning into the wind. Three blades increase this stability due to the balanced shape, no matter the blade orientation or rotation speed.

What’s more, two-blade turbines don’t rotate as smoothly as their three-blade counterparts (in fact it can look a little bouncy!) making them less visually appealing.


         

There you have it – the main reasons three-blade turbines are more common: cost, efficiency, and aesthetics!

For today’s Science Short, we’re conducting one of our favorite demonstrations at One Energy: the pop can experiment!

We use this experiment to illustrate something called atmospheric pressure, also known as air pressure.

In this episode, Nate demonstrates the effects of temperature on molecules and air pressure – using a few household items:

a soda can

a bowl of ice water

♨️ a hot plate

and plenty of safety gear!

Watch to see what happens to the can – and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more educational videos!