History of Wind Power

The history of wind power cannot be traced in detail. However, it is a fact that wind power has been in used for a long time now. In movies about pirates, you will see that the pirates used wind power to propel ships and sailboats.

Winds power has been used for around 5,500 years now, but there has been so little realization about it. In fact, it was only in the later ancient times that wind power has been used to provide power to machines.

The following are some of the facts that were traced when determining the history of wind power.
• Hammurabi, the Babylonian emperor, planned to use it in the 17th century BC for his irrigation project, which for the time seemed to be ambitious.
• One of the first uses for a simple windmill was to provide power to an organ during the 1st century AD.
• It was in 7th century, in Sistan, Afghanistan, when practical windmills were built. These were the first practical windmills that had a long vertical driveshaft and were designed as vertical-axel windmills. These are made with a dozen or so sails and were covered with reed matting or cloth. These windmills were designed to gather up water, and grind corn. These were used in sugarcane industries and grist-milling companies.
• In the beginning of 1180s, horizontal axel windmills were designed and used in Northwestern Europe. These were use to grind flour.
• It was the water-pumping windmills that allowed farmers and ranchers in North America to be able to have access to water all the time. It was in North America where there used to be a problem with access to water, which was a huge problem to farmers and ranchers. Windmills were used to pump water from wells to supply the steam locomotives with enough water.

Charles F. Bush is an American who is usually credited as the first person to have produced electricity with the use of a machine powered by wind. He first used it in the winter of 1887. In that same year, in the month of July, James Blyth was also already doing research and similar experiments. His experiments culminated in 1891 in a United Kingdom patent.

Blyth’s design was a 33 feet high wind turbine in cloth sails. His wind turbine was used to provide power to light the cottage by charging the accumulators that were developed by Camille Alphonse Faure. His cottage is the first house all over the world to have its electricity using wind power.

Blyth offered to the people of Marykirk the extra supply of electricity by lighting the main street. His offer was however turned down, as the product of his wind turbine, electricity, was then regarded as a “work of the devil”. However, this invention was not used as at that time, technology was seen as not economically viable.
• It was in the 1890s when Poul la Cour, a Dane, constructed a wind turbine that can generate electricity. This invention was later used to produce hydrogen.

As the history of wind power was being traced, it was discovered that the first modern turbines were designed and built in the early years of 1980s. Up to this time, more advanced designs are still being studied and developed.

Disadvantages of Wind Power

Wind power, as it has been in use for a long time now, is considered to be viable in producing energy. Also, wind power does not cause pollution and its benefits are indeed numerous, but there are also a lot of drawbacks.

The following are the disadvantages of wind power.
• Wind is very unpredictable. This also caused the belief that wind power is not reliable. This is one of the most crucial disadvantages of wind power. When there is a storm, the wind power can produce energy from zero to very strong. Thus, wind turbines are proven to be not able to produce a stable amount of electricity. There are times when there is no electricity, and there are times when the amount of electricity is at a dangerous level.
• The ideal locations for maintaining a wind farm can be very pricey.
• The noise produced by one wind turbine is still tolerable. However, wind farms that use a lot of these will produce a level of noise that is way beyond tolerable.
• The level of energy produced is another problem. The largest wind turbine can actually only provide electricity enough for 475 houses. This means that areas with larger populations will needs lots of big turbines. Also, since these turbines will occupy large areas, the consideration is these farms are somewhat negatively perceived as the locations targeted can actually be used for other residential or business locations.
• While wind power does not contribute to pollution, it has a negative effect to the environment. Birds are attracted to strong winds, thus there is a high possibility of having them, specifically the migrating birds, of getting killed. Also, having to build these structures in large areas, the landscape is affected. A lot of people do not also appreciate the view of large wind turbines. While some see wind mills to be quite attractive, it is undeniably true that large wind turbines are not pleasant to the eyes, especially that they destroy the natural landscapes of places.
• Wind power itself does not contribute to pollution. However, manufacturing the turbines produces some amount of pollution. The production of materials and the manufacture of parts still do cause pollution.

People also noticed that television reception is easily disturbed, especially in the areas surrounding the wind farms.

These disadvantages of wind power, even with the advantages these bring, limited the possibility of utilizing wind turbines at their optimum. These drawbacks have been the reasons why there has been slow improvement with wind power.

Now that new designs are being developed, these disadvantages are being considered. Nowadays that an alterative source of energy is important, it may seem that wind power is given less importance. The advantages of wind power are greatly realized. However, the disadvantages are not really easy to put aside. Researches are also still attempting to reduce these, if not get rid of these one by one.

Amazing Winds

Only used before to push sails and ships forward, wind power is now a source of energy also. Ages ago people either used wind to push ships forward to reach their desired destination or turned it into mechanical energy so they can use it to pump water or to grind grain. Babylonians back in the 17th century BC used wind to power their irrigation devices. Of course, the first windmills also made use of wind power to be able to supply water to farms and plant fields.

Nowadays, people have discovered that wind, amidst its already countless uses, can also be used as a source of electrical power. Wind power can be generated by using wind turbines. These wind turbines are rotating machines that produces mechanical energy by converting the kinetic energy of the wind. Now, selecting a good wind turbine site is essential in developing this wind power. Availability of transmission lines, value of energy to be produced, cost of land acquisition, land use considerations, and environmental impact of construction and operations are just some of the factors that one has to consider when setting up a wind turbine. Benefits like occurance of increased risk of aerodynamic modulation can be obtained from a good wind turbine set up as shown in the studies that have been done in the United Kingdom. Lower aerodynamic modulation often results in noise nuisance that can annoy people who live near the wind turbine site.

From capacities of only 20 to 30 kW, wind turbines these days are larger in size therefore making them more capable of producing greater wind power. These makes them efficient sources of energy for countries such as Germany, United States, Spain, India, China, Denmark and the Faeroe Islands, Italy, France, United Kingdom, Portugal, Canada, Netherlands, Japan, Austria, Greece, Australia, Ireland, and Sweden among others. With 73, 904 kW of total wind power, 65% of these can be accounted to Europe. These countries who use wind power to produce energy enjoy negligible fuel costs and relatively low maintenance costs.

As for its effects on the environment, generating wind power does not need fuel for continuing operation and gives no direct emissions from or which are related to electricity production. Moreover, it has no by-products like carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, mercury, particulates, or any other type of air pollution, making it a very environment-friendly way of generating energy. Although one negative effect of setting up these wind turbines that has been reported is its tendency to kill birds that fly or flock near the site’s area. But the number of dead birds can be considered negligible when compared to the number of number of people who die from other human activities such as traffic, hunting, power lines and high-rise buildings.

With only noise and a number of dead birds as its cons, electrical energy derived from wind power is definitely one safe way to produce electricity that we need to run our technology-powered lives.