We are in the process of updating our website, so a few features may not work properly yet. If you run into problems or have any questions, please email friends@millsarchive.org; we will get back to you during business hours.

Our donations feature will be unavailable while we do some upgrades, we apologise for the inconvenience this may cause

Publication:

Wind Energy Revolution: How the 1970s Energy Crisis Fostered Renewed Interest in Electric-Generating Technology

    Full details

    Authors & editors

    Gillis Snr, Chrisopher C [Author]

    Publisher Texas A&M UP
    Year of publication 2023
    Languages

    Medium Book
    Edition1
    ISBN9781648430626
    Topics

    Generation of Electricity > Windpower
    Energy & power > Wind power

    Tags

    USA

    Scope & contentPublisher:
    It may sound simple. Fashion a set of blades, attach them to a generator, set the machine on top of a tower, and let the wind do the work of creating electricity. Not so. Most of these attempts fail, even with the availability of the latest technologies. In Wind Energy Revolution, Christopher C. Gillis Sr. examines the efforts to develop “small” wind generators for use at homes, farms, and ranches following the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo.

    Wind machines were once featured prominently on farms and homesteads throughout the Midwest of the United States and Canada during the late 1910s through the early 1950s in areas that had no access to overhead electric-power transmission lines. As a result of rural America’s connection to the power grid, many of these pioneer wind-electric machines fell “victim” to electrical power lines. Interest in wind energy resurfaced in the early 1970s when energy shortages were created by the Arab Oil Embargo, the rise of environmentalism, and the move toward self-sufficient, off-the-grid living. Early wind-electric machines were dusted off and restored back into service, while several former manufacturers re-emerged, and entrepreneurs developed new designs.

    Political and societal interest in renewable energies―wind and solar―began to wane in the early 1980s and did not return until the late 1990s. Even so, the developments in the 1970s influenced how Americans subsequently viewed and used renewable power. Wind Energy Revolution is a first-of-its-kind comprehensive history for historians and anyone interested in wind as a viable renewable resource.

    Copies held

    Accession no. 230706

    • Shelf location: G200-GIL

    Pictures