THE WIND POWER BOOK

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Many Midwest farmers already had gasoline or kerosene generators to charge their batteries, and the addition of wind power helped reduce fuel costs and wear-and-tear on generators. Out of all of this backyard activity grew the pre-REA windcharger industry. Some half-million wind systems once existed in the United States alone, but it's not clear from historical records whether this number includes the water pumpers along with the wind chargers.

Farmers used wind-generated electricity to power a radio, one or two lights for reading, eventually an electric refrigerator or a wringer washing machine, and not much else. Electric irons for pressing clothes, electric shavers, and other gadgets built to run on direct current appeared, but most of these proved unrealistic uses for wind-generated electric power. In fact, they may have contributed to the demise of wind electricity when rural electrification began. Electric appliances performed much better on an REA line, which wasn't subject to dead batteries. "Let's go over to the Joneses, Pa. They got one of them new powerlines. Maybell says her refrigerator don't defrost no more!"

Rural electrification put numerous wind chargers out of business. In the Midwest you can drive for miles on an empty dirt road, following a long electric powerline to only one, or perhaps two, homes at the end of the road. Leave one road and follow the next. It's the same story. REA lines were installed and wind generators came down. Sears catalogs touted all the marvelous gadgets one could buy and plug into the newly installed powerline.

Electric stoves, hot curlers, electric air conditioners, two or more televisions ...these aren't very realistic loads to place on a wind-charged battery. However, wind power can contribute to the operation of these devices, especially if grid power is already doing part of the job. With such cogeneration (wind power used together with grid power), the more wind power available, the less grid power needed.

In another application, wind power can provide heat for warming our households, dairy-barn hot water, or just about anything else for which heat is used as long as the heat is not needed in a carefully controlled amount. This wind heating concept is called the wind furnace, and it's one of our most useful applications of wind power. Wind furnaces can use windgenerated electricity to produce the heat, or they can convert mechanical power into heat directly.

ENERGY BUDGETS

Wind machine design must begin with a realistic assessment of energy needs and available wind resources. When confronted by inexperienced people observing my wind machine, I'm asked most often, "Will it power my house?" Taking this question to its most outrageous extreme, I'm often tempted to reply, "Just how fast would you like your house to go?" But usually I just ask, "How much power do you need at your house?" Blank stares, mumbled confusion, sometimes ignorant silence follow. Then, "Well, will it power the average house?"

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