Paper 3 (Final)

Wind. Pleasure? Power? Progress?

I.

As I sit on the floor of the airplane, I marvel at the thought of the Physics I am about use. A cloud is slowly moving past the open door in front of me. The air rushing into the airplane is cold and crisp. As I am adjusting the unfamiliar equipment, I see the ground about 13,000 feet below. My heart is keeping pace with the vibrating plane, as I prepare myself for the next step. A touch on the shoulder is the signal to go; with a deep breath I release myself from the plane and begin the descent through the forces that are pulling me toward the ground.

The pressure of the air passing around me is intense. From what I have been told, within ten seconds I am falling at my terminal velocity of 120 miles per hour (Ryan, 6-7). I fall for about a minute through the very force I am going to use to slow me down. When I fall to deployment altitude, I reach down and pull my cord. After about a five second delay my parachute opens and catches the air pressure moving past me; it feels like I am pulled to a complete stop. The only way I know I am still falling is by looking at the ground that is getting closer, albeit much more slowly. I reach up and grab the steering toggles to control the rest of my descent.

A few minutes later I am back on the ground, adrenaline pumping and blood racing in my veins. I take a moment to collect myself; as I do so I think about how great it is to live in a time when we can harness the air we breath, and use it for our pleasure and purposes. I then start to collect my parachute which is lying on the ground behind me. As I am rolling up the cords I begin to wonder what other uses we have for wind.

II.

The day is bright and sunny, and I am looking over my holdings for any problems that may be happening. As I walk across my land I see that my corn fields are healthy and green. I am proud of how I have made them grow from a single small field, to a series of larger fields that produce much more corn. I have worked hard on this farm, but now most of my work is done by my great wind mills.

My mills face the direction from which the strong winds blow from June through September. I have built them with vertical sails enclosed on two sides, so the wind is caught and channeled through the sails. I use my mills for two purposes. I have mills that pump water for my crops, and I have mills that grind the corn into meal (Woelfle 14). Both of these operations are very important to the function of my farm. Water is scarce during the dry seasons in my land, so I pump the water up from wells deep beneath the surface of the earth. By channeling the water to the different fields, I have been able to grow crops even in the hottest summers. I used to have my family spend days grinding the corn manually, and as the farm grew we had to spend even more time. The time and money I save from not having to grind the corn manually, and not have to pay others to grind it for me, is why I have been able to build this farm to what it is in my life time. All this progress is because of my windmills.

As I finish my rounds of my holdings, I come upon a cart loaded with meal on its way to the market. I stop the driver and open one of the bags of meal; I grab a handful and let it fall through my fingers back into the bag. With a smile I reseal the bag and let the driver leave. As I watch the driver go down the road, I wonder where that meal is going to end up.

III.

As I walk down the starboard side of my ship, eating this morning’s cornbread breakfast, I take delight in seeing everything in order. I am thinking about the cargo I have stowed below. We have a full load we are taking up the coast to trade in port. We’re on a tight schedule, but I believe we will be fine. Trade has been good these years, and it is only getting better.

I am captain of an ardent class ship called Nefertiti. This was originally made as a war vessel, also known as a heavy frigate. We have a three mast configuration, with seven sails. We are sea worthy and quick enough to be efficient. We were originally setup with 131 ft. long gun-decks, equipped  with twenty-six 24-pounders, twenty-six 18-pounders, and a dozen 9-pounder chase guns. We have been cut back to one gun-deck consisting thirty 24-pound guns and a few 9-pound chase guns. This has made more room for cargo and crew to run the ship better (Woodman 86-89).

When I reach the quarterdeck I take a look upward and see the sails full of the force that drives us. We are carried along by an invisible power that catches our sails and moves us at a steady pace. I am always impressed with how efficiently the wind can move this heavy ship. Unlike a horse or mule driven cart, the wind that carries us does not ever tire. We move onward day and night, always with wind in our sails. As I start back up the port side of the ship, I imagine other uses for this wind.

IV.

I reach the base of the wind turbine and look skyward. I am amazed at the sight that I see. The wind turbine stands over two hundred feet tall. Its blades are about thirty meters long each, and they are colored gray to match the clouds. They rotate ten to twenty-two times per minute. The tower the turbine sits on is tubular, and required a large crane and skilled operator to install it. I think that this site is beautiful, even though the neighboring communities don’t like the skyline with a turbine in it (Wikipedia).

As I start to climb the tower I am thinking about how big these turbines really are. I am working on a mid-sized one, but I have heard of some monster sized sites in Germany. One of these was made by the company Enercon, model number is the E-126. That turbine makes about 6MW of electricity, and has an overall height of 198 meters. That’s twice as large as the one I am climbing now. Its blades have a diameter of 126 meters. The next largest site is also in Germany, and is made by REpower. It has an overall height of 183 meters and blade diameter of 126, and it delivers up to 5MW of electricity (Wikipedia). Amazing!

Once at the top of the tower I stop and look at the surrounding countryside from this height. It is really quite beautiful, and this brings another thought to me. There are wind turbines being built all over the world. Anywhere there is wind they are popping up like flowers in well tended gardens. While Germany and the United States are the current leaders in wind produced energy, they are not alone. Spain, India, China, Belgium, Brazil, Japan, Poland, Australia, and Canada are also on the list (Associated Content). According to Wikipedia, we have turbines close to the north and south poles that are powering research sites in those locations (Wikipedia)

Now that I am performing some of the routine maintenance on the turbine in my care, I can’t help but wonder what the future holds for the wind industry. There has been talk that the government would like to satisfy 20% of America’s energy needs, with wind energy by 2030. Although the 2008 turbine installations are making 8,358 MW of electricity, we still have a long way to go to reach that goal (U.S. DOE 1-3).

As I finish with my maintenance, and start my climb down, I think how glad I am to already be in this growing field. By reaching for the goal of 20% of our energy being wind energy, we are going to create about 500,000 jobs by 2030. In 2008 alone, 55 facilities became involved with wind related technologies, and the American Wind Energy Association reported that this field already has about 85,000 jobs. Currently $17 billion was brought into the U.S. Economy by the expansions in wind facilities and technology (U.S. DOE 1-3).

These facts make me smile, knowing that the field in which I’ve chosen to work is going to be around for a long time. It also makes me happy that not just some of us, but the whole world is catching on and trying to make the earth a better, cleaner place.

Works Cited

• Ryan, Pat. Sky Surfing. Mankato, Minnesota: Capstone Press 1998
• Woelfle, Gretchen. The wind at work. Chicago, Illinois: Chicago Review Press
• Woodman, Richard. The History Of The Ship. New York: Conway Maritime Press
• “Wind Energy Statistics.” Associated Content. February 10, 2009. May 2, 2009 <http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1443491/wind_power_statistics.html?cat=15>
• “Wind Turbine” Wikipedia April 30, 2009. May 2, 2009 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_turbines
• Wind Power Today. U.S. Department of Energy, 2009 <http://www1.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro/pdfs/44889.pdf>

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