Photo from Mass Maritime Academy
BUZZARDS BAY – The Massachusetts Maritime Academy is training cadets to enter the rapidly-expanding wind energy industry.
The Maritime Center for Responsible Energy is celebrating its fifth anniversary this year. Captain Michael Burns, the executive director, says the program has been highly-rated, won numerous awards, and it is expanding.
“We kind of like to say that we’ve been training people to work offshore for over 130 years, so we’re happy to apply that experience to this new industry. At the end of the day, it is another offshore operation, with tremendous benefits to the local economy,” says Burns. “Certainly, there are some risks involved with that, and the training that we provide helps those workers going offshore to be safe while they’re out there.”
In addition to cadets, the Maritime Center for Responsible Energy is also for the benefit of those who have already entered the offshore wind workforce.
Captain Ashok Pandey, who is involved with the MMA’s “Experiential Learning” study-abroad program, says an upcoming virtual session will tackle this topic.
“Working with stakeholders, the challenges that are being faced as we try to achieve the goal of clean energy coming in through wind power,” he says.
Last summer, Pandey led cadets on a trip to the Netherlands to check out the operations of Maersk, the second-largest container shipping company in the world. Pandey says they learned that the business is developing a green energy future.
“Maersk is going into building ships that would use methanol for powering their ships. In fact, the first of the methanol vessels has already been launched, and basically, they are looking at a series of methanol-powered container vessels in the next four or five years.”
You can listen to the full interviews with Capt. Burns and Pandey by clicking on the media players above.
By Jim McCabe, CapeCod.com NewsCenter
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