The Story of Wind

Small scale windmills and turbines occupy an illustrious place in American history. They helped to power America’s expansion westward and played a vital role in the operation of the trans-American railroad, pumping water for the steam engines. Windmills were once big business in this country. In 1889 there were 77 windmill factories in the United States. From the middle of the 19th century to the middle of the twentieth century more than six million windmills and wind turbines were installed across America.

When electricity began to be understood, the windmill, a mechanical device used to grind grains and pump water, gave birth to a new technology, the wind turbine, that converts wind into electricity. With rural electrification programs of the 1930s and 1940s, windmills began disappearing from farms across the country. It wasn’t until the OPEC Oil Embargo of 1973, and federal and state tax incentives were created for renewable power sources, that wind power enjoyed a resurgence in the United States.

In the 1980s there were nearly 50 wind turbine manufacturers in America. Since then, the wind industry has undergone massive consolidation, resulting in less than a dozen domestic manufacturers in 1997. Roughly half of these deal exclusively with small-scale wind turbines. This consolidation followed the expiration of the tax incentives in the mid-1980s and the temporary easing of the energy crisis. However, once again, wind is on the rise. The growing crisis of climate change, peak oil, new technologies and new tax incentives make wind energy a viable, economical and essential source of electricity to power our world in the years ahead.