Surname 1

John Ostiguy

Fahad Khan

Heating systems

12-08-18

History of Wind Turbine

It is important to note that people have always used the wind to propel their boats for a

relatively long time. By 5000 BC wind was already in place to power various ships along the

Nile. A few years later saw the Emperor of Babylon on the forefront when it comes to running

his palace irrigation system using the wind turbine (Jha). By 600 BC, the Persians came in

strongly to use wind power not only to drive rudimentary services but also to grind valuable

grain. At this time, these are a group of people who had begun appreciating the value of wind

power. One must be cognizant of the fact that the first windmills to be discovered date back to

500 AD. In this case, these windmills were first used for decorative purposes in China and Asia

at large instead of being used as renewable sources of energy. On the other hand, Europeans

were becoming aggressively building mills to help in moving water and working grain. A good

example of one of the earliest mills is found in Weedley and is dated back to 1185. By the end of

the 14th century, the Dutch were already using the windmills for big projects such as complete

drainage of the Rhine delta. This served as a testimony and urge that man has when it comes to

manipulating the world around him. Over the next few years, windmills became popular to a

point where they were being used for drawing water or farming purposes. By the start of the

19th-century investors and scientists started to look at wind power from a totally different angle.

At this point, focus started to shift towards wind power as a source of electricity.
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Interestingly, the impetus of that was closer to home. Two remarkable and hardworking

professionals joined hands together in 1887 in their quest to come up with the first renewable

wind turbine. Professor James Blyth, a Scottish engineer came up with several wind sales with

the aim of powering lights in his cottage. His success saw him power a number of houses, a

move that was shut down on claims that it was the work of the devil. As much as Blyth was

aggressive with his work, the idea of developing a wind turbine for electricity did not cross his

mind. On the other hand, Americans had successfully come up with a 50t wingspan that could

power lights. This was overtaken by turbines that had the capacity to supply cheaper electricity.

It is important to note that Denmark owed most of the development and enhancement of wind

turbines to Poul la Cour, a scientist who had a lot of vision. Interestingly, Denmark could boast

of up to 2,000 windmills with the capacity of over 30 MW of power. This is an interesting

development that extended to the 20th century while other nations were still putting in a lot of

focus on fossil fuels to meet their energy demands. The turning point of wind turbines came clear

when governments were forced to look for alternative sources of energy after a huge fuel crisis

that came in the ’70s. Renewable sources of energy became popular in the United States and

most European countries. Currently, there is a lot of effort that has been put in place to make

wind turbine more efficient and environmentally friendly.

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Work Cited

Jha, A. R. Wind Turbine Technology. 1st ed. Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press, 2011. Print.