Talk:History of wind power

George W. Bush

perhaps a mention of George W. Bush Jr.'s renewable energy initiative as Texas governor? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.73.208.153 (talk • contribs)

If you can cite a reliable source, feel free to add it to the article. Perhaps a better option would be to add it to Wind power in Texas; I'll see what I can do. We can search the Web for: George W. Bush renewable energy initiative Texas governor, which finds a few possible sources for this information. Incidentally, George W. Bush does not have a Jr. after his name because his father's name is George Herbert Walker Bush. --Teratornis (talk) 17:04, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

NASA's "extraordinarily successful government research and development activity"

This part seems debated on other sites. From what I gather on the web, the MOD-5b installed in Hawaii never produced close to projections - none of the projects did. Government stopped funding these wind efforts do to the lack of economic results. There was also a disaster in engineering involving the lack of a teetering hub on earlier models. A more careful analysis needs to be done here ARUenergy (talk) 20:18, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I've read about problems in the program too, with perhaps the most telling criticism being that the program failed in its stated goal of getting any of its designs into mass production by the aerospace companies it paid to build the prototypes. None of the NASA/DOE MOD-series machines led directly to commercial production, nor did they manage to leapfrog the slower incremental improvement of commercial wind turbines, which started with physically smaller machines and gradually scaled up. However, there may have been some useful industrial spinoffs; see Wind power in Ohio#cite_note-viterna_method-6. I wouldn't disparage the program for having its funding cut, because the Reagan and Bush Sr. Administrations were famously hostile to the renewable energy programs started by Jimmy Carter. Reagan symbolically removed Carter's solar panels from the White House roof, scaled back renewable energy research across the board, and wanted to abolish the DOE altogether. One might argue that the MOD program was "extraordinarily successful" just to have survived as long as it did in a hostile political environment, when the prices of oil and gas were declining to historic lows, thoughts of peak oil were nearly unimaginable, and Climate change denial was virtually mainstream in the U.S. --Teratornis (talk) 02:44, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I have some sources in Wind power in Ohio#NASA Lewis MOD series that someone could borrow to improve History of wind power. Also check out commons:File:Wind generator comparison.svg. --Teratornis (talk) 02:50, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Photo of ship Chance

The caption states that the windmill was a wind generator for producing electricity. The design of the sails is totally wrong for this to be true. It is much more likely that the windmill was used to work the bilge pumps. Any objections to changing the caption? Mjroots (talk) 08:55, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Note to all

When starting an article about History of <foo>, try to come up with a lead section that is not entirely This article is about the history of <foo>.. The surprise is pretty much given away by the title of the page. Anyone who is bright enough to benefit by reading this tripe has already figured it out without the help of this brilliant prose. --Wtshymanski (talk) 05:41, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

US centrism

I see somebody added the following section under 21st century

Year-by-year

2001:Enron, owner of Enron Wind Power Services (wind turbine manufacturing and wind farm operation), goes bankrupt in one of the biggest and most complex bankruptcy cases in U.S. history. General Electric buys the wind power department. (see: Enron scandal)

2006: US$10,000 home unit can generate 80% of a typical home's needs

2007: Shawn Frayne wins the 2007 Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award for the Windbelt, a non-turbine wind power generator that claims to produce power at 1/10 the price per watt as turbines.

2008: Rock Port, Missouri to becomes the first city in the United States to receive 100 percent of its power from wind in a project developed by Wind Capital Group.

I hate to have to tell you this but there is a whole world outside of the US and yes, some of us are even advanced enough to use wind powered electricity generation. I have removed the section from the article but am preserving it here in case anyone wants to use some of the information. However, in its present form it has no place in this article unless it is expanded into a year by year acount of what happened across the world. Richerman (talk) 22:08, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

References

Terminology - Horizontal v Vertical

This has been discussed at talk:windmill, but I'd appreciate a view from users of this page on whether the same convention should prevail here:

As far as "traditional" windmills are concerned, the major English language sources (Wailes, Hills, Farries, etc)seem to be generally agreed that what is described in the article as a "vertical-axis windmill" is a "horizontal windmill", and that a "horizontal-axis windmill" is (less commonly, but only as it's the usual type the sources are most familiar with and therefore "windmill" suffices) is a "vertical windmill", in both cases taking the nomenclature from the plane of rotation of the sails. This preference dates back at least to Abraham Rees's "Cyclopaedia" of 1816 where the two types are shown side by side- http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/results.asp?image=10319643&itemw=4&itemf=0001&itemstep=1&itemx=2 (the one on the left is titled "common vertical windmill", that on the right "Captain Hooper's Horizontal Windmill").

This is also consistent with the terminology used for water mills, in which a "horizontal mill" is the earlier / more primitive type with a water wheel turning in a horizontal plane.

A preference based on "axiality" seems to be an introduction by modern engineers in relation to wind turbines, where it conforms to modern turbine (whatever the power source) terminology.

Any thoughts, in regard to this article's use of vertical axis and horizontal axis, and whether these should be changed (given that the use here is largely in the historical sections)? Ghughesarch (talk) 22:20, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles should follow what the world calls these things instead of making up terminology based on analogies and historical examples. --Wtshymanski (talk) 23:37, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure from that whether your view is that we should follow what "the world" calls them in terms of every major published work on the history of wind power, or whether (as your edit summary says) we should call them what one current firm of modern wind turbine manufacturers calls them, especially as the article is about the history of wind power, not just modern wind turbines? Ghughesarch (talk) 23:51, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

In the spirit of being bold, I've made the changes that need to be made in order to make the article conform to others on Wikipedia. It certainly reads more easily now. Ghughesarch (talk) 23:56, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

User harryzilber has now threatened me with a block for those changes, which he construes as vandalism. I suggest they are no such thing Ghughesarch (talk) 01:00, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

I find the terminology "vertical/horizontal" to be ambiguous and confusing - it should be clear whether this refers to the rotor plane or the axis. The 'vandalism'-sticker should be reserved only to obvious malevolent edits, not debate issues such as this. Unfortunately, there has been many detrimental edits to wind turbine articles, and it makes us all careless and trigger happy. TGCP (talk) 01:40, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

The words "horizontal" and "vertical" refer to the plane in which the sails rotate. Most European windmills are thus vertical mills. If this needs to be explained by means of a footnote, then one should be provided. Mjroots (talk) 05:21, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

19th Century clarification

The following two sentences appear: "Across the Atlantic, in Cleveland, Ohio a larger and heavily engineered machine was designed and constructed in 1887-1888 by Charles F. Brush,[11] this was built by his engineering company at his home and operated from 1886 until 1900.[12]" Which source is to be believed? The one saying the windmill was built in 1887 or the one stating it was operating in 1886? Or maybe if this Brush guy made a time machine, which would be cool, too. What are your opinions? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.165.215.134 (talk) 19:34, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

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