Windmills and Windwheels

Abstract

The utilisation of wind energy is not a new technology but draws on the rediscovery of a long tradition of wind power technology. It is no longer possible now to tell from the remainders of historical ''wind power plants'' just how important a role wind power played in the past. The triumphal spread of the cheap coal and oil fuels and of easy energy distribution in the form of electricity was so complete that the losers, windmills and windwheels, could only survive in economic niches of little importance. Today, while energy production based on the burning of coal and oil or on the splitting of the uranium atom is meeting with increasing resistance, regardless of the various reasons, the re-emergence of wind power is an almost inevitable consequence.