Waubonsee Community College

Wind power, Peter Musgrove

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 306-319) and index

illustrationsmaps

index present

non fiction

Wind power

bibliography

456838712

Peter Musgrove

Climate change caused by burning fossil fuels and escalating fossil fuel prices make the further rapid development of renewable energy sources a global imperative. Energy provided by wind power, though no panacea, has the potential to make a substantial contribution to meeting electricity needs in many countries. This account of the history and future development of wind power technology offers a complete overview of this vital field. It provides a global historical assessment of wind power use, encapsulating sequential experimental changes, and concluding with narration of wind deployment, and an assessment of future options. Wind power is shown as compatible with large scale use: a clean, competitive and abundant energy source to help meet our future needs. Wind power has been used increasingly to generate electrricity sonce the early 1990s in Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere, and the global installed wind power capacity has been doubling every 3 to 4 years. It is now taming the transitions from being a minor contributor to becoming an important source of electricity. However, the level of understanding of what can be expected from wind systems in the future, and at what cost, is generally poor. This book describes the development of wind power technology from medieval times to the present. It looks forward to the important role that wind power is expected to play, a clean, competitive and abundant energy source, in helping to meet future energy needs

Wind Power and Our Energy Needs: an Overview. Traditional windmills -- Power and energy in the modern world -- Global warming and climate change -- Renewable energy sources -- Wind energy conversion -- Energy payback and wind energy costs -- Intermittency issues -- Wind or nuclear? -- Costs compared with conventional generation -- Wind power's growth and potentia. -- The First Windmills. Hero's toy windmill -- Early Persian drag-driven windmills -- Chinese-drag-driven windmills -- The European windmill -- How post mills work -- Origins and economics. -- Seven Centuries of Service. Post mills -- Diffusion through Europe -- Medieval milling capacity -- Controlling the mill -- Sail developments -- Milling the grain -- Design evolution -- Smock mills and tower mills -- Control refinements -- Power output from traditional windmills -- Land drainage and other applications -- The windmill's nineteenth-century peak -- Causes of decline -- Steam power -- White bread -- Roller mills -- The American multi-bladed windpump. -- Generating Electricity: the Experimental Years, 1887 to 1973. First wind-powered electricity generation -- Danish beginnings: Poul la Cour -- The inter-war years -- Small wind-electric systems -- Grandpa's Knob, Vermont: the first megawatt-plus machine -- Wartime shortages rekindle Danish interest -- Post-war energy concerns, and Denmark's Gedser mill -- French and German post-war programmes. -- The Evolution of the Modern Wind Turbine, 1973 to 1990. 1973 oil crisis -- American Federal Wind Power Program -- First generation machines, Mod-0 and Mod-1 -- Second- and third-generation machines, Mod-2 and Mod-5 -- The American-Swedish WTS-4 -- The Darrieus vertical-axis wind turbine -- European national wind power programmes -- Sweden -- Germany -- Denmark -- Different Danish way forward -- The Tvind machine -- Small grid-connected wind turbines -- The Californian wind boom -- The first wind farms -- Danish imports -- The market peaks -- Environmental concerns -- Design evolution -- Danish success factorsProgress and Economics in Europe, 1973 to 1990. Denmark -- Stall control or pitch control? -- Shut-down in high wind speeds -- Costs relative to the annual energy output -- Costs per unit energy output -- Cost comparisons -- The Netherlands and Germany. -- UK Progress, 1973 to 1990. Wind power: the least promising renewables option? -- The offshore wind potential -- Managing wind power's variability -- The Department of Energy wind programme -- The Orkney multi-megawatt wind turbine -- Offshore wind farm assessment -- Vertical-axis wind turbines -- Other UK wind turbine developments -- Lawson-Tancred -- Fair Isle -- Carmarthen Bay wind turbine test centre -- Howden -- Wind Energy Group -- Institutional barriers -- Privatisation and the Non-Fossil fuel Obligation (NFFO). -- Development and Deployment, 1990 to 2008. Global overview -- The 1990s, a decade of growth -- Offshore wind makes progress -- Danish overview -- Germany -- 1991: a feed-in tariff established -- Domestic manufacture -- From 2000: the Renewable Energy Law -- German overview -- Spain -- The 1994 feed-in tariff -- Spanish overview -- United Kingdom -- The disappointing 1990s -- Why NFFO failed -- The renewables obligation -- Offshore wind farms -- UK overview -- United States -- Low growth beginnings -- The Production Tax Credit (PTC) and "green power" -- Momentum builds -- US overview -- Canada, Netherlands and Japan -- India -- China. -- The Future: From Marginal to Mainstream. Low-carbon options for electricity generation -- Carbon capture and storage -- Nuclear power -- Renewables -- Wind power's progress -- Cost-of-energy comparisons -- Variability: keeping the lights on -- Wind power's global growth -- The power output from wind turbines -- The performance of traditional windmills -- Wind characteristics