With humanity’s truly heavy need for fossil fuels, like petroleum, coal, and natural gas, scientists and engineers are on the lookout for new energy sources. One alternative to carbon-based fuels is renewable energy.

Eco-friendly power sources include wind and water power generation. Actually wind energy, the central focus here, has an exciting history of development and research.

The Persians exploited the earliest known wind powered machines around 500 to 900 A.D. Essentially, they made the first known wind mills that helped pumping water and grinding grain, though no archaeologists have found designs for their machines.

Some claim that China utilized windmills over 2,000 years in the past, but the earliest record of the Chinese’s use of the windmills is dated back to the early thirteenth century. The Chinese too made use of the windmills for pumping water and grinding grain.

For the next five to six centuries, Western Europe went on to improve the windmill. First, we see a swap from the former Persian and Mediterranean vertical shaft to a horizontal one, increasing the machine’s power.

Other innovations included blades with a sail, enhancing the aerodynamic lift, and the correct placement of the camber, blade spar, and centre of balance, also optimizing the sail’s power. Despite the higher abundance of steam-generated electricity, the use of windmills radically plummeted.

Into the nineteenth century, the U.S. finalized the windmill model, as the Americans still basically used them for pumping water. However, in 1887 Professor James Blyth from Scotland built the first electricity-generating wind turbine. Charles F. Bush of Ohio created the first American version in 1888, and Poul la Cour of Denmark built the first one in continental Europe in the 1890′s.

In 1931, the Russians built the first important utility-scale wind turbine with a nominal capacity of 100 KW. In 1941, the Americans followed their lead with the Smith-Putnam wind turbine, which boasted a nominal capacity of 1.25 megawatts.

Though development on wind power continued after World War Ii, it was not until the 1970′s that wind energy received serious attention as petroleum shortages scared the modern world. Today, scientists and engineers continue to develop wind power as a clean alternative option to fossil fuel energy.

Barnhart Crane & Rigging Company has been providing services to the wind power market for decades. Learn more about their crane service and machinery moving .