E+Block+-+Wind

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= = =THE HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF WIND TURBINES AND HARNESSING OF WIND ENERGY:=

**I.** ** 1000 B.C. - 1300 A.D. **
The earliest known use for wind power is the sail boat, which had an important impact on the future development of windmills that mimicked this design. The first windmills were developed for the tasks of grain-grinding and water-pumping. The earliest-known design is the vertical axis system developed in Persia about 500-900 A.D. The first documented design is also of an old Persian windmill, this one with vertical sails made of reeds and woods that were attached with horizontal struts. Similar vertical-axis windmills were also used in China, which is often said to be their birthplace, though the earliest documentation of a Chinese windmill was in 1219 A.D., significantly later than the first recorded Persian design. Windmills were also used for water pumping machines on the island of Crete to supply water for crops and livestock.

** II . 1300 - 1875 A.D. **
The first windmills to appear in western Europe were of the horizontal-axis configuration. These supposedly had higher structural efficiency. The first illustrations of a horizontal-axis windmill, dating back to 1270 A.D., shows a four-bladed mill mounted on a central post. They used wooden cog-and-ring gears to translate the motion of horizontal motion to vertical movement to turn a grindstone. A substantial improvement of the European mills was their designers’ usage of sails that generated aerodynamic lift. This increased rotor efficiency and helped effectively generate more power with the same strength of wind. The process of perfecting the wind sail took 500 years, and by the time the process was complete, windmill sails had all the major features recognized today in modern windmills, which are crucial to the performance of wind turbine blades.

** III. LARGE SCALE GENERATION OF ELECTRICITY **
The first use of a large windmill to generate electricity was a system built in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1888 by Charles F. Brush. It was the first windmill to include a step-up gearbox in order to turn a direct generator at the required operational speed and, subsequently, generate energy. But despite its success in operating for 20 years, the Brush windmill demonstrated the limitations of the low-speed rotor for electricity production, as it produced only 12 kilowatts. In 1891, the Dane Poul La Cour developed a higher speed rotor, making the mills quite practical for electricity generation. By the end of World War I, the 25 kilowatt electrical output La Cours had spread throughout Denmark, but the cheaper and larger fossil-fuel plants soon put these mills out of business.

IV**.** EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENT
==== European developments continued well after World War II, while the United States used wind energy primarily with interconnection to the electric power grid. In Denmark, the 200 kW Gedser Mill wind turbine operated successfully until the 1960s, when the plummeting fossil-fuel prices once again turned energy production into a competitive venture and put it out of business. ==== ==== The development of modern vertical-axis rotors was begun in France by G.J.M Darrieus in the 1920s. Of the rotos Darrieus designed, the most important is a rotor comprising slender, curved blades attached to the top and bottom of a rotating tube. Major development work with this concept began again in the 1960s, when two Canadian researches looking to reinvent the wind turbine brought it to light. The United States worked with the Darrieus concepts at Sandia National Laboratories here in New Mexico following the 1973 oil embargo. ====

=CURRENT TECHNOLOGY AND USAGE:= == = = The above map, entitled Wind Power in New Mexico, depicts the number of wind plants as compared to power plants of other kinds in New Mexico. Sorted by megawatts produced, the larger the dot, the more power being captured and exported by that particular plant. =SCIENCE BEHIND WIND ENERGY:= media type="youtube" key="tsZITSeQFR0" height="315" width="560" =BENEFITS OF WIND ENERGY:= Wind energy is clean energy. Electricity generated by wind turbines do not pollute the air, which means a lot for us; Less smog, less acid rain and fewer greenhouse gas emissions. Wind energy can help to reduce costs that deal with pollution and health care problems related to pollution. Power plants, as it is, are the greatest cause of pollution in the United States, emitting millions of tons of sulfur dioxide, nitrus oxides and carbon dioxide each year. Many people believe that these pollutants are the cause of our current global warming situation. Running a single wind turbine can displace 2,000 tons of carbon dioxide in one year, which is the same as planting one square mile of forest. Wind energy is also the least expensive of all renewable energy sources. The fuel, being wind, is free and will never run out. Wind energy can provide a stable price for energy that won’t be an up and down roller coaster. Today's wind farms can generate electricity for less than 5 cents per kilowatt hour in many parts of the U.S. The cost is expected to continue to drop as the technology improves and people begin to accept wind energy as a more prominent resource. Wind energy has been the world’s fastest growing renewable energy source for more than a decade, with an average annual growth rate of over 20%. With more than 25,170 MW of wind energy capacity installed in the U.S. today, wind power can generate enough to power more than 7 million average U.S. households, which is only a small fraction of its potential. According to the American Wind Energy Association, wind energy in the United States could provide more than twice the electricity generated in the U.S. today through other sources combined.Wind energy is also completely local, and benefits the local economies. Wind projects also pay significant property taxes and state taxes each year and create local jobs. Wind energy is also in no way affected by international conflicts or embargoes, making it immune to supply problems or price shocks. Wind energy is reliable and efficient. Unlike other power plants, wind energy systems require minimal maintenance and have low operating expenses. Wind turbines are very reliable and are available to generate electricity 99% of the time, which is on par with the other energy sources today. =DRAWBACKS OF WIND ENERGY:= ==== The wind does not always blow everywhere all the time. There will be times when the wind does not blow, and there will be times when the wind will blow at super high speeds. Sometimes the windmills will produce no electricity at all, and sometimes it will produce lots of electricity. ==== ==== There are also a lot of people who don’t want to embrace the idea of wind energy. Some people want the open country to remain just that; open country. People feel that they won’t be able to enjoy the natural landscape if there are large wind turbines on it. Many people see wind turbines as ugly, and unpleasant to look at. Wind turbines are also pretty noisy. Each wind turbine can be just as loud as a car traveling at 70 miles per hour. In order to provide enough energy, there has to be large wind farms. The largest single turbine available today can only provide enough energy for about 500 homes when it is running on full capacity. It would take many, many more to provide energy to somewhere as big as Albuquerque. ====

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Foster, R., & NMSU. (n.d.). New Mexico, Land of Windchantment « The Wind Coalition. //The Wind Coalition//. Retrieved December 14, 2012, from http://windcoalition.org/new-mexico-land-of-windchantment/

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