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Wind Turbines

The first known windmills were built in the Second Century B.C. in Persia. A windmill is any sort of wind-powered structure that powers a machine. The machines typically powered by windmills are typically water pumps or mills. Wind turbines were born late in the Nineteenth Century, and are defined as any wind-powered device which is used to create and store electricity.

The first true wind turbines were created in the 1930’s in the USSR and the Eastern USA. They employed a modern horizontal-axis design which is still most common today. These 100 KW per year turbines roughly had about a 32% annual average which is not so very different from the output of modern turbines.

The necessarily cyclopean scale of wind turbines makes them impractical for use in the private sector unless you own vast tracts of open land at your disposable. But on a larger scale, they have proved an important energy source which is quite environmentally friendly. It seems likely that they have an earned a place in the future of sustainable energy.

 

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