The most infamous use of wind power (and is still in existence) is on the Island of Crete. They use hundreds of sail rotor windmills to pump water for irrigation, drinking water, crops, and livestock.

3200 BC - Egyptians invented the sail to navigate the Nile River.

200 BC - Persians invented the windmill

400 AD - Persians developed the vertical axis windmill system used to pump water and grind grain

1219 AD - First drawings of a horizontal axis post mill found in Europe

1390 AD - The Dutch design the tower mill with separate floors for grinding the grain, removing chaff, storing the grain, then the bottom floor was living quarters for the wind smith and his family

13th Century AD - European windmills were also used to saw timber, shred tobacco, manufacture paper, press flaxseed for oil, and grind stone to make paint dye

14th Century AD - Dutch used windmills to drain the lower lying regions of the Netherlands, reclaiming their wetlands and converting them into farmland

15th Century AD - Technical innovations to the European windmill included the fantail behind the rotor to always keep the rotor facing the wind, air brakes, automatic adjusting slats on the blades instead of cloth, and blades with airfoil-shaped leadings edges that resembled modern aircraft wings

1850's - 1880's AD - Windmills were instrumental in the settlement of the American West, used to pump water from deep underground (over 6 million small windmills were erected in the U.S. over the next century)

1887 AD - First windmill/wind turbine built for the purpose of generating electricity by Professor James Blyth in Glasgow

1908 AD - 72 windmills provide electricity to a village in Denmark

1930's AD - Rear Admiral Richard Byrd brought a Jacob's wind generator to the Antarctic where it ran for 22 years without repairs

1980's AD - Wind farms are developed for large scale production in United States and Europe

Potential of Wind Power

• The US currently has the potential to produce 20% of America's electricity, which is the same amount currently being generated by nuclear power.
• This could be accomplished by installing wind turbines on less than 1% of US land. Of that 1%, only 5% would be occupied by wind equipment, leaving 95% of that land for crop or livestock.
• The 3 billion kWh of electricity produced by U.S. wind machines annually, displace the energy equivalent of 6.4 million barrels of oil and avoid 1.67 million tons of carbon, sulfur, and nitrogen oxide emissions that cause smog and acid rain.
• According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the world's winds could theoretically supply the equivalent of 5,800 quadrillion BTU's (quads) of energy each year -- more than 15 times the current world energy demand. **Note: A quad is equal to about 172 million barrels of oil or 45 million tons of coal.