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Latest Articles by Paul Gipe

Gregoire Cge Tudor Pic1

By

Paul Gipe

Another French War Time EV: CGE’s Tudor Electrique

From 1942-1944 during the Nazi occupation of France, the Compagnie Générale d’Électricité or CGE (no, it’s not that General Electric) built 200 two-door, two passenger cabriolets dubbed the Tudor Electrique. CGE’s Tudor Electrique was designed by famed auto engineer Jean-Albert Grégoire who was noted for his development of front-wheel drive. …

1942 Peugeot Vlv At Musée De L'aventure Peugeot. Wikimedia Photo By Charles.

By

Paul Gipe

More on French War Time EVs: Peugeot’s VLV

Earlier in 2024 I came across an obscure reference to the French fortified village of Cacassonne looking for wind turbines to charge their electric trucks just after WWII. (See Famous Fortified French Village Proposes a Wind Turbine to Power its EVs. . . in 1946!) More recently I came across …

In California, the Fort Independence Indian Community (Fort Independence Travel Plaza & Winnedumah Winns Casino, Indian Community of Paiute Indians) will receive over $15 million to create a sustainable EV charging hub along the US Route 395 corridor. This hub will not only support EV drivers traveling through the Eastern …

Screenshot 2024 09 10 111134

By

Paul Gipe

Kragten Design Wind Turbines Now Open Source

Adriaan Kragten contacted me that he’s retiring from his wind turbine design work and has made his designs publicly available. See his web site at Kragten Design Wind Turbines for links to his designs for micro battery charging wind turbines and for his supporting documentation. I came in touch with …

On paper the composite bearingless rotor seemed too good to be true: a wind turbine rotor that enabled the blades to change pitch without bearings in the hub. And the wind turbine would passively use aerodynamic forces to orient the rotor downwind of the tower. It was the height of simplicity and would be cheap to build. What could go wrong? The short answer: everything. Eventually the nearly 400 wind turbines using the concept in California during the Great California Wind Rush of the early to mid 1980s were scraped off the face of the earth for scrap. And therein lays a sprawling tale.

Other Articles

Offshore wind is currently broken. There is a despondent mood in the sector, and it looks like everybody is trying to get rid of their assets or reduce their exposure to the sector (see BP, Equinor, Shell, Vattenfall, Total, an even Ørsted, Corio or Bluefloat). And yet – they brought this on themselves, through a combination of hubris, ignorance, and reliance on lobbying rather than good business acumen.

Hydrogen Buses

By

Michael Barnard

How Many Hydrogen Transit Trial Failures Are Enough?

Let’s cast our minds back to the turn of the century, when everyone was worrying about the Millennium Bug, blowing their retirement investments on pets.com and partying like the world was ending with helium balloons and dry ice. In Vancouver and Chicago, the transit agencies had another lightweight molecule on their mind, hydrogen. Both trialed fuel cell buses with an early iteration of Ballard’s still-not-fit-for-prime-time technology inside, putting three buses each on the roads.

Accidents & Safety

I’ve been concerned about safely working with wind energy since 1976 when I nearly killed myself taking down a 1930s-era windcharger. While wind energy is an environmentally beneficial technology–and that’s the reason we need to use it–it can and has killed. Consequently, I’ve been tracking fatal accidents in wind energy since I wrote an obituary for a colleague, Terry Mehrkam, in 1981. For this reason, my books on wind energy have always included a section on safety.

Inquiry into death of man killed when he fell 100ft down wind turbine

By

Stv

Basilio Brazao, a 19-year-old Brazilian construction worker, was working inside the turbine at the Earlsburn wind farm near Fintry, Stirlingshire on May 22, 2007 when he fell.

RECharge: Diver dies at Riffgat wind project

By

Bernd Radowitz

A British diver has died during underwater construction work for the 108MW Riffgat wind park off the German island of Borkum, local police and utility EWE said.

Rtemagicc Deaths Data Base 2019 02 Jpg Jpg

A Summary of Fatal Accidents in Wind Energy

By

Paul Gipe

Update: The most current database for the number of fatal accidents in the wind industry. Below is a summary table from the spreadsheet. Note that there are four other tabs not reproduced here. . .

19 2 44 Gipe Wind Breath Of Life Or Kiss Of Death Analysis Of Wind Energy Fatalities Public Jpg

Wind Energy — The Breath of Life or the Kiss of Death: Contemporary Wind Mortality Rates

By

Paul Gipe

Update: The most current database for the number of fatal accidents in the wind industry. Below is a summary table from the spreadsheet. Note that there are four other tabs not reproduced here. . .

Rtemagicc Deaths Data Base 2019 01 Jpg Jpg

Wind Mortality Statistics Needs Updates

By

Paul Gipe

Note that the article below is out of date. See the most current database for the number of fatal accidents in the wind industry. Below is a summary table from the spreadsheet. Note that there are four other tabs not reproduced here.

Steen Aagaard’s Crippling Fall

By

Paul Gipe

“Two Hurt in Turbine Accident” blared the headline in the Bakersfield Californian on Saturday, 23 October, 1999.

Clear Gif

Tower Work and Do-it-Yourselfers

By

Paul Gipe

Any wind turbine and tower that cannot be safely lowered to the ground for servicing should have a fall arresting system for ascending, descending, and working atop the tower, a sturdy work platform, and safe, clearly identifiable anchorage points for attaching your lanyard. No one should climb a tower of any type unless they’ve received training in tower safety. . .

Lessons from the Death of Terry Mehrkam

By

Paul Go[e

I knew Terry Mehrkam. I wrote about him. I also wrote his obituary. I hope I never have to write another obituary about someone working on a wind turbine.

Vanessa Skarski’s Account of Her Father’s Death on a Small Wind Turbine

By

Paul Gipe

Robert Skarski died in 1993 while installing a small wind turbine at his Illinois home. He was killed when the tower he was on buckled and fell to the ground.

Thoughts on Doing It Yourself

By

Paul Gipe

  Adapted from the book Wind Power: Renewable Energy for Home, Farm, and Business. When I wrote my first book …

Tower Climbing Safety

Safety

In 2013 I pulled together some links to documents on safety relative to the wind industry. These topics went beyond simply tower climbing safety and safety at height and included work around rotating machinery and other common industrial hazards. Unfortunately, the industry has changed dramatically in the past decade. Most safety documents once freely available are now securely hidden by paywalls. Moreover, even the wind energy trade associations where these documents were once located have ceased to exist, merging with other renewable trade associations. Some of the British documents are still available and I’ve provide links to them. I found one public document on the off shore industry in the USA.

Europe

Great Britain

North America

USA

Contact the Clean Power Association.

Worker Health and Safety on Offshore Wind Farms, Transportation Research Board, 2012.

Canada

Contact the Canadian Renewable Energy Association.


Mortal Accident Summary

I no longer actively track deaths in the wind industry. However, I will update my data as it becomes available. Below is a presentation updating my statistics to 2020. Also below is a link to the original article. For a complete analysis see Chapter 17 in my most recent book Wind Energy for the Rest of Us.

19_2_44_gipe_wind_breath_of_life_or_kiss_of_death_analysis_of_wind_energy_fatalities_public-jpg

Note that the spreadsheet has six tabs. This is only the summary page and does not include all the data on the summary page.

My Deaths Database is publicly available. Simply ask for it.

History of Wind Power

Multilingual Lexicon By Paul Gipe

200 Term Multilingual Lexicon Posted to Wind-Works.org

By

Paul Gipe

I’ve uploaded a Multilingual Lexicon of more than 200 terms to a Google spreadsheet. The lexicon describes terms used in wind energy in six different languages: English, Dansk, Deutsch, Español, Français, and Italiano.

Smith Putnam Patent Drawings.

Glossary of Wind Energy Terminology

By

Paul Gipe

This 30,000 word glossary was written by Paul Gipe and Bill Canter in the late-1990s. I’ve added the glossary to my web site for both its historical content—many of the terms were in use during the 1980s and 1990s—and as a reference for the thousands of newcomers to the wind industry since it was first published.

Aeolusrace2008 1x1200x800

Wind-Powered Vehicles: Is this a Thing?

By

Paul Gipe

Yes it is. Back in 2022 I wrote two articles on solar and wind-powered EVs. The former I said held …

James Blyth University Of Strathclyde

The Scots engineer who pioneered the wind turbine

By

External Source

When James Blyth created what many believe was the world’s first wind turbine in 1887, villagers dismissed it as the “work of the devil”. The huge structure at Blyth’s family home in the Aberdeenshire village of Marykirk was built with four cloth sails and generated enough power to light 10 bulbs along with a small lathe. It is said that he offered to light the streets of the village with his electricity but the offer was shunned. Blyth’s vision of a future powered by wind only started to be realised many decades after his death

Flowind Altamont Pass004 1200x800

Explanation for FloWind Blade Failures by an Eyewitness

By

Paul Gipe

Because of my critical articles on Vertical-Axis Wind Turbines, Wind Harvest’s Kevin Wolf contacted me with background on what failed …

Niels Borre Article 1979 9th Of June, Jyllandsposten 1200x800

Niels Borre’s Checkered Past Landed in California’s Salinas Valley

By

Paul Gipe

I fell down another rabbit hole when Klaus Rockenbauer at Global-Windphotos posted images of a group of mystery wind turbines …

History of Wind Power in North America

History of Wind Power Internationally

Museums with Wind Exhibits

Museums often have extensive permanent collections and only display a small portion at any one time. Museums frequently change their exhibits and that is the case below. The museums noted here have all changed their exhibits since I last visited. Some have created “virtual” exhibits, and these I’ve noted.

North American Open-Air Museums

European Open-Air Museums

There’s nothing like walking among the operating windmills of Zaanse Schaans in the Zaan district of Noord Holland, or strolling among the vertically-jutting blade sculpture at the Folkecenter for Renewable Energy in Denmark to gain a sense of the importance of wind in European–and thus Western–culture. For the avid wind aficionado and the scholar alike, I strongly suggest putting one of the many open-air museums in Europe on your travel itinerary. Some we discovered by serendipity others we searched out. All were worth the effort.

Note that in most western European countries there are national “windmill” days where many of the historical windmills are open to the public. Many now include some modern wind turbines as well. Often the national windmill day is the second Saturday in May though this may vary by country. In Germany, Deutscher Mühlentag is held on Whit Monday or Pfingstmontag in German. In 2023 Whit Monday was 29 May.

  • Museum Park, Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin, Germany displays a historic stage mill, a mechanical farm windmill, and a micro wind turbine.
  • Schloss Sanssouci Berlin displays a reconstructed stage or gallery windmill that has served the palace (Schloss) since 1787. It was a mill on this site that served in the famous legend of the Miller of Sanssouci who challenged kingly power.
  • Windmill Blade Expo at the Folkecenter for Renewable Energy in Jutland, Denmark.
  • Showroom for historical Danish wind turbines at the Folkecenter for Renewable Energy in Jutland, Denmark–An extensive collection of wind turbine drive trains from the early days of Danish wind power.
  • Poul la Cour Museum–The museum is situated in the historical buildings where Poul la Cour, affectionately called the Danish Edison by Danes, conducted his research into wind energy and hydrogen storage. The site is the cradle of modern wind energy.
  • Energimuseet Vindkraft–The museums’ open-air exhibits include the original nacelle from the famed Gedser mill designed by Johannes Juul, an erect Riisager machine from the rebirth of Danish wind energy in the late 1970s-early 1980s, a cut-away wind turbine blade and more.
  • Frilandsmuseet–The Open Air Museum north of Copenhagen is one of the largest and oldest in the world. Spread across 86 acres of land the museum houses more than 50 farms, mills and houses from the period 1650-1950.
  • Museummolen Schermerhorn–Open air museum of the polder mill on the Schermer polder in Noord Holland (north of Amsterdam).
  • Germania (molen)–Platform grain grinding mill in the province of Groningen, the Netherlands. One of the more than 1,000 windmills in the Netherlands that are periodically open to the public.
  • Internationales Muhlenmuseum–in Gifhorn, Niedersachsen, Germany has 13 different windmills on display, including a Greek sail windmill.
  • World Heritage Site of Kinderdijk–The nineteen windmills of Kinderdijk illustrate the way the Dutch have used windmills to drain the polders that have made the Netherlands what it is today. Kinderdijk is most likely the world’s oldest wind farm and was in use into the 1950s.
  • De Vereniging Zaanse Molen–No tourist trip to the Netherlands is complete without a visit to Zaanse Schans and the working windmills of the Zaan district. The Society of Zaan Mills was founded in 1925, beginning with the restoration of the oil mill De Zoeker. Three years later, they opened the Mill Museum at Zaanse Schans. Now, nearly a century later, the Society possesses 12 industrial windmills, representing an important part of Dutch cultural heritage and to this day still define the Zaan skyline.
  • Museumdorf Cloppenburg is south of Oldenburg in Niedersachsen, Germany.
  • Nederlands Openluchtmuseum–Open Air Museum in Arnhem, Gelderland, the Netherlands.
  • Mola – het Provinciaal Molencentrum–East Flanders windmill museum in Belgium with four restored windmills.
  • Wind Energy Museum Norfolk Great Britain–The museum is closed in 2023. The collection depicts the evolution of polder drainage in what’s called the “Broads.” The technology for the mills and how to use them was imported from the Netherlands.
  • Deutsches Windkraftmuseum–Begun in 1997, the museum seeks to preserve some of the early electricity-generating wind turbines from the 1980s and 1990s in northern Germany. While the exhibits focus on German development of wind technology, the museum includes a Lagerwey, an early Dutch machine, early Danish wind turbines, and some American-made wind turbines as well, including a Kenetech drive train and a Bergey small wind turbine.
  • Allemolens.NL–Web site listing the location of every windmill in the Netherlands from the smallest mechanical wind pump to the giant polder draining windmills and to the multi-story stage windmills for grinding grain. They even include a few modern wind turbines as well. In Dutch.
  • Dutch Windmill and Watermill Database–Working historic windmills and watermills of the Netherlands with a searchable database and interactive map. The map identifies individual windmills and when they are open to visitors. The home page is in English, map data is in Dutch but understandable to English-speakers.
  • La route des moulins–Interactive map and list of windmills and watermills by region with a description of the specific mill in French. Includes a description of the Centre Molinologique.
  • Deutsche Gesellschaft für Mühlenkunde und Mühlenerhaltung–The German society for the preservation of wind and water mills. They too have an interactive map of the mills throughout the country. The map can be searched by town, village, or state. The detailed data includes the type of mill and its construction.

Other Open-Air Museums

  • Fred Turner Museum in Loeriesfontein, South Africa displays 27 water-pumping windmills.
  • Morawa District Historical Society and Museum–The small rural town of Morawa with its museum is approximately 400 kilometres north of the state capital Perth, in the northern wheatbelt of Western Australia. The Morawa Museum’s collection of Australian made and imported windmills consists of over 50 different models in various states of restoration.
  • Penong Windmill Museum–Penong, South Australia, includes the Comet, Australian-made, railroad water pumping windmill.
  • De Molen, Dutch Windmill–Foxton, New Zealand. De Molen is a full size 17th century replica Dutch windmill.
Utrc Pendulum Composite Bearingless Rotor

Failed Dream: the Bearingless Wind Turbine Rotor of the Late 1970s

By

Paul Gipe

On paper the composite bearingless rotor seemed too good to be true: a wind turbine rotor that enabled the blades to change pitch without bearings in the hub. And the wind turbine would passively use aerodynamic forces to orient the rotor downwind of the tower. It was the height of simplicity and would be cheap to build. What could go wrong? The short answer: everything. Eventually the nearly 400 wind turbines using the concept in California during the Great California Wind Rush of the early to mid 1980s were scraped off the face of the earth for scrap. And therein lays a sprawling tale.

Windtech Wind Ridge Tehachapi 1984 15 72x1200x800

UTRC, Windtech, Dynergy, & Composite Bearingless Rotor Timeline

By

Paul Gipe

For details on development of the Composite Bearingless Rotor and its derivatives see my accompanying article Failed Dream: the Bearingless …

Whitewater Wash San Gorgonio 06

NREL’s Wild West of Wind: a Glimpse of California’s Past

By

Paul Gipe

While interviewing Brian Smith about his early career during the Great California Wind Rush, he mentioned that NREL had done a retrospective on the history of the lab. Specifically, he suggested I take a look at the chapter titled the Wild West of Wind. Yee ha! Brian was right. He and Walt Musial have some great tales in that chapter. If you weren’t working in California’s wind industry then and you want a flavor of what it was like, take a look. The title is a pretty accurate summary of the times.

Kirkbymoor Dwt Helicopter

Photos of 1990s Windane Added to Site

By

Paul Gipe

While editing an article I stumbled across some photos of a Windane turbine on Pajeula Peak in the Tehachapi Pass. …

Turbine Blade With Man Sitting On It Likely Putnam

Wind power development: A historical review published

By

Paul Gipe

Another article on the history of wind turbine development has been published in the academic publication Wind Engineering, an imprint …

A Windmill Near Brighton By John Constable

Learning to love monsters: Windmills were once just machines on the land but now seem delightfully bucolic. Could wind turbines win us over too?

By

External Source

Yet perceptions of windmills have not been uniformly idyllic. Since they first appeared on the landscape of medieval Europe, windmills represented an imposition of the technological on the pastoral. They were, in the phrase of the wind energy author Paul Gipe, ‘machines in the garden’, straddling the boundary of the agrarian and mechanical.

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