On this date in 1941 an ungainly wind turbine atop Vermont’s Grandpa’s Knob fed electricity into the lines of Central Vermont Public Service Company. This was the first time in North America that a wind turbine fed electricity into the grid. Until then wind turbines had been used solely to charge batteries at remote homesteads in Canada and the United States.
Guinness Book of Records is considering a new category–world’s longest running or oldest megawatt-scale wind turbine. The question was thrown at me by Britta Jensen, one of the operators of Tvindkraft in northwest Jutland. She wanted to know if they qualified.
Times change. People die. The rest forget. The past is lost and with it the knowledge we gained at so much cost.
Hermann Honnef and his dream of giant wind turbines powering Hitler’s Third Reich until the SS quashed his plans. Auf Deutsch. Rare photos of Honnef’s vision and key players in the Reich’s program for autarky.
Budding Youtube channel by Australian Rosemary Barnes dubbed Wind Engineering with Rosie.
Martyn Taylor has made a wonderful video about the development and preservation of the English windmill. Sales of the video will go to preservation efforts.
French historian Étienne Rogier examines in depth one of the great wind turbine development programs of the post WWII years. En francais.
Sex sells. Always has, always will. Sex has been used to sell beer, cars, and even wind energy–well, at least articles about wind energy.
The 1992 report on the project by the Centre de Recherche Energétiques et Municpales reads like so many of the others from the period. In short, the four-year project was a failure for a host of reasons that the report highlights.
Wind historian extraordinaire Etienne Rogier sent me a carte postale (post card) promoting a 1988 French postage stamp. The card depicts the postage stamp and an experimental Darrieus turbine.
2023 © Wind-Works by Paul Gipe