To a casual observer of public discourse here in 2024 it seem extremely odd that the issue of replacing coal fired power stations with wind turbines is a matter of controversy, whether in America or Europe it’s an issue which causes some sparks to fly. The Atlantic has a recent article with a set of pictures from a gentler time in which the industrious nature of Nebraskan farmers in the 1890s receives praise as they create a wide variety of home-made wind turbines.
Farmers have always been the best hardware hackers, using what they have at hand to solve their problems and create the things they need. Perhaps out image of agricultural wind power is one of commercially produced wind pumps, but these are the generation of home-made devices which preceded that. Some of them look conventional to modern eyes, but others such as the horizontal “Jumbo” turbines have little equivalent today.
It’s easy to forget with so many energy sources at our disposal, that in the past the locality affected the choice of motive power. The Netherlands doesn’t have windmills because they are pretty, but because hundreds of years ago they lacked handy coal mines or convenient heads of water. Similarly out in the Nebraskan prairies they had plenty of wind, and never the folk to pass up on an opportunity, they made the best of it. And we’re very glad over a century later, that someone took the time to record their work.
If you’re hungry for more old-style wind power, we’ve got you covered, meanwhile 19th century America was no stranger to clever ways to use power.
Thanks [Hugh Brown] for the tip.
So much text, but no information, only put downs.
Why not have a serious discussion about power production and include the very down sides? Rather than just insult people… Just saying…
The juxtaposition of this paean of wind power with the one about the $30k audio snake oil is just deliciously ironic, no?
I don’t think this article does the linked article justice. There are some really cool and interesting examples of hacked together win powered devices in the linked article. And the article should have talked about that.
Instead, we get some quick remark as if wind energy usage in 1900 was innovative (oldest still standing windmill in the Netherlands is from 1400), and we get some remarks about renewable energy.
So, ignore the article, click the link, and you’ll be much happier.
I personally like the “Elmer Jasperson’s mill”, with the rotating half circle panels. It really shows that they just build with what they had at hand.
These Dutch windmills were built around 1750 to pump groundwater into the canal:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/KinderdijkMolens02.jpg
And this one, from 1790, to grind grain into flour:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/p/AF1QipOLF-bxHJiVWPgVf2SegIGogHz40_EVprnUZ0MD=s680-w680-h510
It was built on a stronghold, part of the ramparts, to defend the city.
Some of these mills are still operational. tourist can buy flour produced by a windmill.
How about the ones reported on last week:
https://hackaday.com/2024/11/07/help-wanted-keep-the-worlds-oldest-windmills-turning/
1000 years old and still running.
Somehow Hackaday also forgot that windmills in the Netherlands pre-date steam engines (coal) by several hundred years.
The picture shown in the Hackaday article is also one of the worst designs shown on that website. It uses a lot of materials just to block some wind, and without contributing to useful work.
“The panels at either end of the box were designed to be raised or lowered to regulate the wind. “
persia invented wind mills, with some ancient traditional ones still operating.
It is good to note this kind of technology, that can be built with found materials, as having to do a hard re boot of civilisation is a non zero possibility.
As pointed out (apple hate,et all), our current society is doom scrolling, its way into oblivion, so even some rickety wind mill, at least ,umm, “scrolls” itself,grinds some grain, brew some beer, watch the thing turn, not so bad eh!
They were mentioned just last week on Hackaday:
https://hackaday.com/2024/11/07/help-wanted-keep-the-worlds-oldest-windmills-turning/
1000 years old and still running.
Those photos are great and also look like they were made by the same dudes that made all those hilarious contraptions in a sad attempt to fly. You know like the one with a dozen wings and they guy on a bike, then the whole thing breaks.
.
Only the windmills presumably worked and didn’t cause (too much) fatality.
They just stole the wings from the dead people’s failed flying contraptions and put them to good use.
I wonder if windmills caused cancer back then… or if people who didn’t have windmills thought the people who did were communists because they weren’t burning fossil fuels.
They would have to kill faster than tobacco, badly preserved foods, and bad whisky and the only fossil fuels were coal and peat – if you lived in the right places. And I suppose peat could be considered as green as burning wood.
Or if the ones with windmills virtue-signaled about it, knowing their windmills were made with child-labor in third-world countries, and will never produce as much energy in their (short) lifetimes to offset the amount used in their construction. Oh, wait, those are only modern windmills.
Entirely strawman, annoying and in bad faith
And in 1888 Charles Brush built a “wind dynamo” on his property in Cleveland Ohio.
https://www.cleveland.com/metro/2011/08/charles_brush_used_wind_power.html
In the 1920’s the home windmill generator and DC (36 or 48V?) appliances were on a fast growth path but the Rural Electrification Act killed the young industry.
Almost every country had windmills for grinding grain, which is a job that can be done when it happens to be windy since the grain can wait in the bag for a few days. Same thing for sawing timber – you cut the boards when the saw turns, and your customers can only wait if it doesn’t. It’s an industry that has long lead times anyways since the cut timber has to sit in storage and dry for months before it can be used anyways.
However, if you have a river, you can build a water mill that runs just from the flow of the river: there’s still energy available, just not at high power densities. For things like the textile industries, this was the preferred mode of operation, since you can run the factory continuously.
In the Netherlands wind power got a real start when they started using it to pump water and drain land on a massive scale – because again, it doesn’t matter if it’s slow and unpredictable as long as you keep pumping for years and years.