PRST STD U.S. POSTAGE PAID OMAHA, NE PERMIT NO. 36
Volume IV, Issue 7
JULY 2009
Statewide average wind speeds between 12 and 19 mph provide energy potential by Emma Struve
Capturing the wind’s energy has nearly come full circle in rural Iowa. According to the Iowa Energy Center’s “A History of Wind Energy,” in the late 1800s, nearly 80 U.S. companies manufactured windmills, primarily used to pump water for livestock, and the machines comprised a major American export product. About 40 years later, small two and three bladed electricity-generating turbines were installed at hundreds of thousands of rural, midwestern homesteads to charge batteries or run small appliances and lights. While the first recorded use of wind turbines occurred more than a thousands years ago in the Middle East, technological innovation of the devices slowed to a crawl with the invention and increasingly common use of steam and later diesel engines, and the creation of a reliable, widespread electrical grid.
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