The Weather Notebook: The History of Wind Power

The History of Wind Power
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Dave Thurlow, Host

Hi, I'm Dave Thurlow for The Weather Notebook. More and more people these days are using wind to generate electricity. From individual homeowners to entire communities, people are seeing the benefit of this renewable source of energy. But this is not the first time wind energy has been in wide use.

Wind Generator
NOAA Photo Collection

CC: It's amazing, when I discovered the history of this.

Chris Carter, a renewable energy connoisseur from Saxapahaw, North Carolina, recently told me of an earlier rise - and decline - of wind generated electricity here in the US:

CC: Of course, electricity was not widely used until, beginning at the turn of the century and then the radio was developed. And one of the first things people wanted on a farm was a light and radio. Well, the radio manufacturers had a hard time selling radios without power. And people were hauling batteries into town on the weekend and bringing them back...you'd have two batteries, one you left in town and you'd switch it out at the hardware store. So the radio manufacturers sold wind generators with the radios and they would charge your little battery. And you'd run your light and your radio. And there were a million American households running on wind power in the 1920's and 30's.

DT: A million.

CC: A million households on wind power.

But the power companies saw decentralized power as a threat. So, they started what was called the Rural Electrification Project:

CC: They brought power to the countryside, the got the government to pay for it and before they hooked up your house, you were required to destroy your wind generator. You had to tip your tower over. They shot the generators in the coils with guns. They literally assassinated the wind industry.

But they didn't kill the idea. We'll have more about wind energy all this week on The Weather Notebook. Thanks to Subaru and the National Science Foundation.