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Show Windmills Going Up To Supply Power For Countries Lacking Natural Fuel ' Windmills are going up again in various pa,rts of the world, but not the classical friendly-looking friendly-looking Dutch type with which we are all familiar from our childhood story books. The new mills are designed to capture the power from the wind and to translate it into electrical energy for use i n modern homes and industry. They are an expression of the fact that many countries cannot afford to import fuel in the form of coal and oil and that wind power may, in many cases, cas-es, prove an admirable substitute substi-tute for or addition to, other forms of power. This research is also a helpful indication of what lies ahead, for the experts have given many warnings that reserves of coal and oil are being be-ing used up rapidly. Britain is an example of what can be done. The British have set up a Wind Power Research Station in the Orkney Islands, where it. is proposed to erect a 100 kwt. generator which will be tied in with the electricity supply servicing the islands, it is estimated that the western coastal districts of Britain are among the windiest in the world, and experts say that only a few hunded feet above the ground, millions of horse power in the form of wind cross the coasts on a windy day. A report issued two years ago by the British Electrical and Allied Industries Research Association gave a tentative estimate es-timate that between 3.75 and 7.5 million kw, hours of elec-ticity elec-ticity might be generated yearly in Great Britain by wind power. pow-er. This would be equivalent to a saving of from two to four million tons of coal. In these terms, wind power is of distinct economic importance. impor-tance. Its supply is free and inexhaustible. in-exhaustible. The British expert, E. W. Golding, points out that there are, however, two main disadvantages which must be met if it is to be used economically econom-ically for electricity supply: the low energy content per unit of volume of air, and its uncertain availability at any particular time. The first disadvantage is likely like-ly to result in relatively high costs for storage facilities which will perserve the energy for use during non-windy neriods. It is Mr. Golding's opinion that storage stor-age should be ruled out in large scale operations, and that wind power should be used as and when it is available. The wind must therefore be erected on very windy sites in close proximity prox-imity to local networks of electricity elec-tricity supply. |