Allen, Joel, Phil and Rosemary discuss the renewable energy landscape in Australia, maintenance challenges at the Hywind floating wind farm, and whether U.S. universities can provide value researching offshore wind designs versus leaving it to industry. Plus--Rosemary will be at Everything Electric Australia! Use code EEROSIE for 20% off your ticket!

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Allen Hall: All right, Rosemary, you got some important news for the world to hear. You're going to be at... 

Rosemary Barnes: Everything Electric Australia, which is in Sydney from February 9th to 11th. And I'm presenting four sessions on the Friday, and then I'll be hanging out there on the Saturday as well to go around.

They've got every single electric car that is available or will be soon available in Australia. Plus everything, associated with electrification of the home and everything like that. So yeah, it was a really big, cool event last year, and it's set to be much bigger and much cooler this year.

And listeners can get a 20 percent discount off tickets if they use my code, which is EEROSIE, so that's E for elephant. For those of you that have trouble understanding my Australian vowels, but I guess it will be Australians who want to use the code, so not that big a deal. That's EEROSIE.

Allen Hall: And how many people are going to attend this event, Rosemary, roughly? 

Rosemary Barnes: I'm pretty sure it was like 10 last year, and I'm told that it's much bigger this year. 

Allen Hall: Wow. So you better get your tickets now. If you want to attend that event, you better get on it right away. And use Rosemary's code, EEROSIE we get a 20 percent discount.

That's fantastic.

Denmark has a new king as queen. Margrethe II has abdicated after 52 years on the throne. King Frederick the 10th, formally took over recently in a ceremony at the palace, which Joel and I were at not long ago. Margrethe is the first Danish monarch to voluntarily give up the throne in nearly 900 years.

And Joel and I were standing next to Frederick recently at the Copenhagen Wind Europe event a couple of months ago. So we were close to royalty. 

Joel Saxum: We didn't even know it either. These guys were pushing us away a little bit. What's going on with these guys? Looked like a bunch of dudes from a Mission Impossible movie.

And then we looked behind him and there he was. Now King Frederick the 10th. At the time he was the royal, what is it, Crown Prince? Was it Crown Prince Frederick? 

Allen Hall: So Frederick is married to, now Queen, Mary, who is from Australia. And Rosemary, I think she's actually from sort of Tasmania, slash Australia. And I was just wondering if there's a connection here.

Is she like a second cousin to you, or is there some sort of in, insight we could have into the monarchy in Denmark? Are we gonna have A new wind turbine facility in Australia. 

Rosemary Barnes: You've really gone for the soft spot for any Tasmanian because that is the joke that in Tasmania, everyone is related to each other in possibly not the nicest way and people don't mean it as a compliment when they say that.

Yeah, so it is highly possible to be honest. It's highly possible that we're you're related somehow. But not that I know of. And in fact, when I lived in Denmark, I never was introduced to princess, then princess Mary, which I thought was ridiculous.