Big Oil wants to be Big Wind. Can fossil fuel companies be trusted?

Two turbines of the Block Island Wind Farm off the coast of Rhode Island. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

Danielle Jensen spent two years working on Mars — not the planet, the offshore oil rig.

Her job was to keep the crude flowing for Royal Dutch Shell. She operated the platform’s pumps and compressors, clocking two-week shifts with a mostly male crew.

Workdays were long, and walking around in a flame-retardant suit all summer in the Gulf of Mexico was brutal. But she felt good about providing energy to the world — modern society was built on fossil fuels, after all.

Times are changing, though, and Jensen wants to be part of the future. When Shell posted a job for planning an offshore wind farm off Massachusetts, she leapt at the opportunity. She now lives in Boston and works for Mayflower Wind, a joint venture of Shell and two European utilities.

“Once we get a few of these big projects installed and powering people’s homes, I think it’ll be unstoppable,” she says.

For the full story, including audio, please visit WBUR.org. This story is part of a series called “Power Shift: The promise of offshore wind” produced through a partnership between WBUR and E&E News, whose five daily publications cover energy and the environment.