Perched nearly 300 feet above the New Mexico plains, secured to the top of a wind turbine by a simple safety harness, Terrill Stowe is in his element.
“In 14 years, I’ve never seen anyone fall. I hope today isn’t the first,” jokes the instructor technician, addressing AFP journalists who have just climbed the 260 rungs of the ladder leading to the roof.
Solitary Giant
This wind turbine overlooks the small town of Tucumcari in the southwestern United States. Like a lone giant, lost in the vastness along the famous Route 66.
Built in 2008, it’s one of the few functional wind turbines where apprentice American technicians can train in the maintenance of these machines.
Essential Tool for a Growing Industry
This is an essential tool, used by a local higher education institution to support a booming industry in the United States.
The amount of electricity that wind power can generate has more than doubled in ten years. The country has about 75,000 wind turbines, producing enough electricity to power 40 million American homes.
Maintenance is therefore becoming a crucial issue. But “there aren’t enough technicians compared to the number of wind farms,” explains Mr. Stowe.
Rigorous Training
The instructor trains 10 to 20 students per semester. First in a hangar on the ground with a replica generator and gearbox, before climbing to the engine room, housed in the heart of the giant tower’s three blades.
The job is not for the faint of heart, according to Mr. Stowe.
“I tell them if they have a fear of heights, they shouldn’t get into this,” he says. When there are gusts of wind, being at the top of a wind turbine is “like swaying on a boat, back and forth (…) 300 feet in the air.”
New Recruits
Among the recent recruits, Nathaniel Alexander and Kevin Blea have graduated and become instructors themselves.
“I’m for clean energy,” says Mr. Alexander, a Tucumcari local. But the 28-year-old mainly wanted to do “a man’s job” with a good salary.
The training lasts two years and costs between $6,000 and $10,000. It leads to jobs that pay $50,000 to $90,000, well above the average salary in the region.
Political Winds
While declining costs and improved wind technology are driving the sector’s growth, the industry has also received a major boost from Joe Biden, who has funded an ambitious green program.
Yet few are grateful to him in Tucumcari, a conservative rural region nestled on the edge of an otherwise largely Democratic New Mexico.
There has been “a kind of upward trend” in recent years, acknowledges Mr. Stowe.
“But in fact, when Trump was there, the upward trend was more pronounced than under Biden,” he believes.
Mr. Alexander, for his part, believes that the tax credits granted to wind power have “definitely helped” the industry, but admits he is “not very passionate” about the sector’s green reputation.
Conspiracy Theories and Safety
What interests him more is reading the “conspiracy theories about the amount of diesel needed to run” a wind turbine.
“It’s not true at all, I just find it quite funny,” he smiles.
Wind turbines are frequently struck by lightning, forcing technicians to climb up to repair them. But safety has changed dramatically in recent years.
Before his career as an instructor, Mr. Stowe sometimes crawled on a “layer of frozen ice” at the top of wind turbines shaken by winds at 90 mph.
“Back then, the weather didn’t matter,” he says nostalgically. Today, “if there’s the slightest uncertainty about the weather, they don’t climb.”
His other former student, Mr. Blea, remembers seeing one of his classmates “throw up in his helmet” because of the wind rocking the training wind turbine.
“It was pretty disgusting, frankly,” laughs the 27-year-old.
Breathtaking Views
But the dangers are quickly forgotten, according to Mr. Alexander, thanks to a career punctuated by “impressive” panoramas in the morning light.
“It’s a good way to wake up,” he concludes.