![]() That’s when you joined the master’s program in the University of New Hampshire’s ocean engineering department. That led me to explore graduate school opportunities, so I could make sure my work was contributing to my environmentalist values. I worked at every style of generating facility, and you can really see the environmental impact of different types of energy technologies. That sounds like an incredible experience. I saw this incredible perspective of what humans could accomplish in a short period of time to upgrade and repair these facilities. ![]() I traveled all over the country working at major power plant outages where there could be dozens or hundreds of U.S. ![]() This experience launched my career and interest in large-scale power generation service and repair. That mechanical energy is then used to drive generators that produce electrical energy at power plants. Steam turbines are used to convert thermal energy-supplied by fossil fuels, geothermal energy, and more-to mechanical energy. When I was an undergraduate student, I got an opportunity to intern at an energy company where I helped manufacture steam turbines. How did you end up pursuing a career in energy? I believe that every species has equal rights to this world they’re not here just for humanity’s benefit. That gave me a firm connection to natural ecosystems. I also grew up fly fishing for native brook trout on the local streams in upstate New York where I grew up. That’s where I got my first interactions with the ocean and wild systems. Pretty much every summer as a kid, I went on vacations to Cape Cod in Massachusetts. But you’ve also said you’re an environmentalist at heart. So, you set off on that engineering path. O’Byrne shared how being a serious child led him to pursue a career in engineering, why he sees tidal energy as an ideal renewable energy source, and what engineering challenge he hopes to tackle next. “Being very aware of our climate needs and how grave a danger society is in,” O’Byrne said. As a water power intern at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), O’Byrne constructs and studies tidal energy technologies, which are still relatively new but could help the country achieve its clean energy goals. Now, he’s still doing the work, but he gets to do it from the comfort of his New England home. ![]() “Looking back, I miss the work, but it takes a toll.” “She barely even recognized me,” he said. After a 100-day stretch of working back-to-back outages in Virginia and North Carolina, he came home to his long-term girlfriend (now his wife). Another time, he worked at a plant in the middle of the Nevada desert in a town with a rickety amusement park, glorious sunsets, and a Greek restaurant to die for.īut the job could be grueling, too. One time, he helped load a 100,000-pound rotor onto a truck at midnight in pelting rain. He has visited and repaired generators in almost every kind of power plant, from coal-fired behemoths to pumped storage hydropower facilities, like the one in the Massachusetts mountain, and even waste-powered plants. After graduating college with an engineering degree, he joined what he calls a “collective beehive”-a swarm of workers who travel across the country to repair power plants and restore electricity when an outage occurs.
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