Early Wind Technology
By Sonal Patel -- May 10, 2011[Editor Note: Wind energy is not a new technology as previous posts at MasterResource have discussed (listing at end below). This excerpt is from a longer article, “Changing Winds: The Evolving Wind Turbine,” published in the April 2011 issue of POWER. Ms. Patel is the senior writer with the monthly magazine.]
“The use of wind power is as old as history.”
– Erich Zimmermann, World Resources and Industries (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1951), p. 62.
From as early as 25–220 A.D., wind energy has been harnessed for practical purposes. The late nineteenth century began the era of large structures capturing wind to convert to electricity. This post describes early applications of this technology.
Blyth Turbine (1887)
The first wind turbine used to convert wind energy into power—unlike windmills, which are used to pump water or grind grain—was built by Professor James Blyth of Anderson’s College, Glasgow (now Strathclyde University) in 1887.…
Continue ReadingKen Glozer's New Book on Corn Ethanol (Hoover University Press)
By Ken Glozer -- May 9, 2011[Ken Glozer’s new book, Corn Ethanol: Who Pays, Who Benefits?, sponsored and published by Hoover University Press, will be released this month. Mr. Glozer is president of OMB Professionals, a Washington, D. C. based energy consulting firm. He was a senior executive service career professional with the White House Office of Management and Budget in the energy, environment, and agriculture area for 26 years.]
… Continue Reading“Clearly, reducing petroleum imports with the current ethanol policy is a costly ineffective policy. The nation and its taxpayers and consumers would be far better off if the federal government adopted a competitive market-reliance policy for ethanol and thereby avoided the very substantial costs that current ethanol policy has imposed on the nation’s consumers and taxpayers. The current corn ethanol policies should be phased out over a year or two.”
A Free Market Energy Vision (Part I: Worldview)
By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 6, 2011[Editor note: This is a revision of a previous post at MasterResource last year. Part II highlights a federal free-market energy bill created for discussion by the Institute for Energy Research. Part III examines the Cato Institute’s (Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren) federal energy priorities.]
Energy is the master resource. Without it, other resources could not be produced or consumed. Oil, gas, and coal could not be replenished without the energy to manufacture and power the requisite tools and machinery. Nor could there be wind turbines or solar panels, which are monuments to embedded (fossil-fuel) energy.
And just how important are fossil fuels relative to so-called renewable energies? Oil, gas, and coal generate the electricity needed to fill in for intermittent wind and solar power to ensure moment-to-moment reliability.…
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