Prairie Fans
by Jon Burch Photography
Title
Prairie Fans
Artist
Jon Burch Photography
Medium
Photograph - Digital Capture/faa Watermark Will Not Be On Your Finished Photograph.
Description
A wind turbine converts kinetic energy from the wind into mechanical energy in a process known as wind power. If the mechanical energy is used to produce electricity, the device may be called a wind turbine or wind power plant. If the mechanical energy is used to drive machinery, such as for grinding grain or pumping water, the device is called a windmill or wind pump. Similarly, it may be referred to as a wind charger when used for charging batteries.
The result of over a millennium of windmill development and modern engineering, today's wind turbines are manufactured in a wide range of vertical and horizontal axis types. The smallest turbines are used for applications such as battery charging or auxiliary power on boats; while large grid-connected arrays of turbines are becoming an increasingly important source of wind power-produced commercial electricity.
Windmills were used in Persia, present-day Iran, as early as 200 B.C. The wind wheel of Heron of Alexandria marks one of the first known instances of wind powering a machine in history. However, the first known practical windmills were built in Sistan, an Eastern province of Iran, from the 7th century. These "Panemone" were vertical axle windmills, which had long vertical drive shafts with rectangular blades. Made of six to twelve sails covered in reed matting or cloth material, these windmills were used to grind grain or draw up water, and were used in the grist milling and sugarcane industries.
Windmills first appeared in Europe during the middle ages. The first historical records of their use in England date to the 11th or 12th centuries and there are reports of German crusaders taking their windmill-making skills to Syria around 1190. By the 14th century, Dutch windmills were in use to drain areas of the Rhine delta.
The first electricity-generating wind turbine was a battery charging machine installed in July 1887 by Scottish academic James Blyth to light his holiday home in Marykirk, Scotland. Some months later American inventor Charles F. Brush built the first automatically operated wind turbine for electricity production in Cleveland, Ohio. Although Blyth's turbine was considered uneconomical in the United Kingdom, electricity generation by wind turbines was more cost effective in countries with widely scattered populations.
This image was made along I-70 in Kansas between Russell and Salina. These machines are part of a large wind farm stretching approximately 15 miles along both sides of the highway.
Image copyright 2016 Jon Burch Photography.
Uploaded
December 30th, 2016
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