the major part of electric power needs in the future, it will be necessary to combine it with adequate storage facilities. Of these the electrolytic generation of hydrogen for use in a hydrogen economy appears to be the most hopeful, going beyond electric power needs to supply mobile fuels as well.

Simultaneously with the production of giant wind turbines, the further development of fuel cells should be actively pursued to make possible economic reconversion of the hydrogen to electric power. Magnetohydrodynamics and hydrogen-fired steam plants are less attractive possibilities. If wind power is to be used as just one of several inputs to a large electric grid its variability can be treated, as is the undependability of other components that must be down part of the time for repairs by redundency of generating capacity. Recent experience with nuclear power has demonstrated a capacity factor of about 55%, and it is hoped but doubtful that this can be substantially improved. Even at the sites with favorable winds that be selected, it is expected that the capacity factor for wind power will be only around 35%, including occasional repairs that interfere little because they are of relatively small units. As long as wind turbines are part of a system fed largely by oil and coal burning plants as is the case now with nuclear reactors, they can be used while they operate to permit reducing the power drain from those plants and saving fuel.

THE NSF-ERDA PROGRAM

While we criticize the national wind power program for not undertaking immediately the construction of full-scale demonstration wind turbines, or at least one of them, in the forthright manner displayed by private enterprise 35 years ago, it must be acknowledged that something potentially useful is being done, involving an expenditure of about half a million dollars in fiscal year 1974 and twice that in FY 1975. The National Science Foundation, in addition to supporting some smaller efforts and paper studies has devoted most of its support to the wind power development program of the NASA-Lewis Research Center for space research near Cleveland, a government laboratory with facilities conveniently available for a program stretched out over some years. The main activity of this program so far has been to design and build a 100 kilowatt experimental wind machine, of a size and design not very different from several that have gone before elsewhere. With this it is intended to gather data on the basis of which to build a sequence of larger machines, perhaps culminating in about 1980 in a "wind farm" with a total output of some 10 megawatts.

Some idea of the scope of the program may be learned from the ERDA budget proposal for FY 1976, which reads in part:'

7

"The specific five-year objectives of the Wind Energy Conversion subprogram are: (1) operate and evaluate MWe scale multiunit wind energy systems; (2) operate and evaluate MWe scale second generation advanced systems in a user environment; (3) complete the design of a 100 MWe system; (4) complete the assessment of a future offshore hydrogen producing system; (5) operate and evaluate a series of systems in a farm environment; and (6) utilize operational data obtained on 100 KWe scale systems for application to future MWe scale systems.

"Program objectives include design and development of subsystems for future systems; test and evaluation of several innovative and experimental types of wind energy concepts; and development of extensive operational data in user environments (on 100 KWe scale system) for use in second generation design studies."

Some of the alternative concepts being explored may have advantages such as high starting torque, but also disadvantages such as greater vulnerability to storms. One of the interesting alternatives has many blades under tension like the spokes of a bicycle wheel, driving a general with a belt around the rim, and may be advantageous in small sizes for domestic use. It seems unlikely at present that any of these concepts will displace the high-speed rotor with two or three blades that has already been demonstrated on close to full-scale at Grandpa's Knob. The technical advantages of the high-speed design is that, with a tip speed about six times wind velocity, it effectively covers a large projected area, extracting as much kinetic energy from the wind as possible, without covering that large area with metal and exposing it to a storm. Thus

Footnotes at end of article.

56-516 O 75 Pt. 1C - 37

there is no need to await other developments before going ahead with construction of full-scale high-speed demonstration turbines rapidly as a prelude to large-scale utilization of wind power.

The ERDA program does not propose constructing these, as outlined in items (1) and (2), but not as rapidly as possibly as though there were no hurry. Tentative expectations are that the construction of an approximately 1-MW machine might be completed in late 1977 to be followed by four approximately 2-MW machines in about 1980. The phrase "in a user environment" implies that these may be four rather similar machines operated by four utility companies, as will be the case, it appears, with several 100-kilowatt-scale machines following completion of the test model now being built. A more forthright program would contract now for the prompt design and construction of the four 2-MW scale units with emphasis on a variety of options rather than on the user environment. Valuable diversification of experience would be provided by building two units on land, one rather low and one very tall, and two floating offshore units, one with a single rotor and one with two or three. The present program contemplates no offshore experience at all, neglecting for several years what may turn out to be the most favorable environment and the one that is in most need of vigorous exploration because there has been no past experience with it.

FULL-SCALE DEMONSTRATION UNITS NEEDED NOW

However, in the present power crunch and with further decisions on further decisions on nuclear power pending, there is a rush. Actual experience with the construction of large-scale units should be accumulated at the same time that techniques are being perfected on a small scale that may improve later generations of large machines.

The Smith-Putnam accomplishment does provide operating experience with a large machine, but being in the musty past it does not convey the force of conviction or the detailed information that actual construction and operation of such a machine in present circumstances would have. There would be nothing so effective as seeing a variety of giant wind machines operate and studying their costs to convince a utility company to buy wind power or Congress to subsidize a large program, even if the machine wetre not the best possible and there should thus remain room for improvement in the next model.

The decision whether and how to exploit wind power in a big way and a reliable estimate of its future economics cannot reasonably be made until after its feasibility has been demonstrated by the construction and operation of at least one full-scale wind-electric generators machine of a size suitable for deployment in large numbers. The immediate need, then, is an extra appropriation of something of the order of twenty million dollars over the next two or three years, with perhaps five to eight million available in the first year, and the decision to start now building a few full-scale prototype wind machines that will supply the information soon on which to base a decision to go into quantity production.

The success of the S. Morgan Smith Company in completing its large wind turbine in the short span of two years was possible partly because the company benefited by the early cooperation of an able early enthusiast for wind power. Palmer C. Putnam. If the funding agency in ERDA accepts proposals from companies or large laboratories that are new to wind power and mainly seeking lucrative contracts, it seems unlikely that such prompt success can be expected. To get prompt results now, it seems desirable for each project again to achieve effective cooperation between one of the present-day wind power enthusiasts and an organization with adequate engineering staff and construction and subcontracting capabilities. A good approach would be for the funding agency to seek and favor, for design and construction of large demonstration units, proposals involving this sort of cooperation.

There are quite a few technical men, mostly engineers at universities, devoted to the development of wind power from whose ranks appropriate initiative and consultant talent could be found. They include Allison and Hughes and Bergery in Oklahoma, Wendenick in Alaska. Nelson and McClure in Texas and Heronemus in Massachusetts. The funds required to provide such an opportunity for some of these men, and others who catch their enthusiasm, to contribute to the rapid development of wind power would be small indeed compared with other energy expenditures, a few tens of millions of dollars at most.

When the funding agency in recent years has received a proposed from one of these enthusiasts for the construction of a full-scale unit, the proposal may have

been turned down partly out of reluctance to make a large commitment to one proposal when there are so many but perhaps partly also because of questioning the credibility of the proposer as an advocate of large-scale wind power. This aspect of credibility should no longer be questioned, for the credibility of largescale wind power has been established by the Smith-Putnam experience and their subsequent studies based on that experience, as reported in Putnam's book.1 In particular, their cost estimates based on their experience and translated into 1975 dollars are apt to be as reliable as any until similar experience will have been obtained with the construction of full-scale units. Those estimates seem to establish that electric power produced by large wind turbines is economically very attractive and distinctly competitive as a supplement to other sources in this era of high fuel costs and nuclear cost overruns.

WIND POWER AS A STIMULANT TO INDUSTRY

Once the decision is made through a combination of government and private efforts to go ahead with a large wind power program, a rather substantial industry would evolve to build large wind machines and associated equipment. A very rough idea of the size of the industry may be obtained by considering the amount of material involved, mainly metal and epoxy materials. The preproduction wind turbine designed by Smith-Putnam after their Grandpa's Knob experi ence but never built was to weigh 350 tons. It was rated at 1.5 megawatts which with allowance for wind variability is equivalent to about 1⁄2 MW steady power. This means 700 tons per megawatt. By way of comparison, the automotive industry puts out about 10 cars per year at a bit over 2 tons per car, using about 2+10 ̊ tons of material per year. A wind power system made of this much material would then produce 30,000 MW. The U.S. electric power consumption at about 2 KW per capita, is about 400,000 MW. If the size of a heavy industry is roughly proportional to the material it uses, these figures mean that wind-power industry one-tenth as large as the automotive industry would in ten years build a wind power system supplying about 8% of the present electric consumption in the United States. (The wind power industry would probably be somewhat more productive than in this rough estimate because a wind turbine with its support structure is on the average a less refined piece of machinery than an automobile.) The degree to which wind power thus deployed may be considered an option competing with the nuclear option and perhaps even largely replacing its further expansion depends mainly on how rapidly such an industry could be built up. Neither option is capable of meeting the special needs of the next decade brought about by the oil situation. Some combination of conservation and increased (and hopefully improved) use of coal will apparently be required for that.

With conservation in prospect and the accompanying unemployment of men and facilities having various industrial skills and capabilities, it should be possible to build up a wind machine industry rapidly, and beneficially to society, by not too drastic conversion of skills and facilities. Workers left unemployed by a slack automotive industry and the trend to smaller cars don't want to collect garbage but would be happy to have jobs much like their former ones making the gears and generators and spars and blades and shafting of big wind machines rather than big cars. This possibility of reconversion fits in well with the needs of the times.

In recent years the building of superhighways, for example, has been seen in political circles as an opportunity to stimulate industry and provide employment. Now the need to build up a new source of power to replace dwindling oil and gas supplies should similarly be viewed as a source of employment and industrial activity. It would seem socially irresponsible to waste the opportunity by meeting the need with compact, high-technology nuclear plants when low-technology and labor-intensive wind-electric systems could meet the need, perhaps more economically, and provide considerably more employment in large-scale construction. Some people resist the idea of wind power because it would be so much work to construct those huge structures but from the point of view of relieving unemployment this is one of its advantages.

CHOICE OF SITES FOR WIND POWER

When it comes to the planning for a system of many large wind machines a site should be chosen where the winds are as strong and steady as possible. The power available to a wind machine of a given size is proportional, to the third

Footnotes at end of article.

power of the wind speed, so it pays to go to a site where winds are strong. It appears that there will usually be a system economy in very large units in strong winds, despite the probability that such "large economy size" machines will have cut-in speeds, the lowest wind speed for satisfactory operation, perhaps as high as 15 miles per hour against 8 for smaller machines. It is therefore important to gain experience as soon as possible with a full-size multi-megawatt machine at a windy site suitable for later installation of thousands of similar large machines. Experience with smaller machines at less favorable sites can be no substitute. Three types of geographic locations are suitable for installation of large-scale wind power systems; mountain tops, level country, and at sea. Mountain tops can be chosen for exploiting favorable wind conditions without the use of very high towers, as indeed was done in the Vermont experiment. The most easily accessible mountain tops are seen by enough people that there may be the objection of "vistual pollution". The western great plains have favorable winds particularly at rather high altitudes and could be the site of many large wind generators widely spaced in sparsely populated regions where they need not interfere appreciably with present land use, either grazing or agriculture.

Mooring of large wind machines at sea has some distinct advantages: the location may be chosen for favorable winds; they are seen essentially only by the few remaining commercial fishermen with whose work they would not interfere, riding on the mooring makes the wind turbines face into the wind and a floating structure that can lean with a high wind is more easily designed to survive a storm.

The Smith-Putnam studies of wind distributions above mountain tops led them to the conclusion that it does not pay to use very high towers there, about 150 feet being optimum. On flat land or at sea this is a controversial question. W. T. Heronemus calculates that it would pay to go to heights of several hundred feet above the great plains and with multi-turbine units off shore to take advantage of the stronger winds aloft and the velocity-cubed law. A recent report submitted to ERDA is said to find low towers and single-turbine units most economical on land. Rapid development of wind power is so urgent that it would seem best very soon to contract for the design and deployment of four full-scale demonstration machines, a low and a high one on the western plains and a low single turbine unit and a higher three turbine unit off shore.

ONE PROPOSED SYSTEM: OFFSHORE WIND POWER

Because the very promising sea environment is quite different from the land environment where there is already the Smith-Putnam experience, it is particularly important that new authorization and funding should be provided for the construction of at least one full-size unit and its deployment in a favorable location at sea as soon as possible, without awaiting refinements from further R&D. For supplying electricity and its products to the Northeast, the most favorable winds are over Georges Banks, off the New England coast. The ultimate system contemplated in that area will consist of something like ten thousand floating six-megawatt wind machines and associated submerged units for generating hydrogen, storing it under the pressure of the deep ocean just over the continental shelf, and delivery of both hydrogen and electricity ashore. The adjacent continental shelf area to the south of Long Island and all along the middle Atlantic Coast as far south as Hatteras could support equally productive similarly large installations. What is needed immediately for the sake of experience is the construction of at least one multi-megawatt wind machine to be deployed ten miles off Cape Cod and a cable to shore.

If a concept proposed by Heronemus is adopted, this would be a six-megawatt floating unit consisting of three two-megawatt wind turbogenerators with epoxy blades supported about 300 feet above the surface of an aluminum frame above reinforced concrete hull and ballast spheres, as shown in the figures.

To give some idea of costs, Heronemus in 1972 made a carefully studied estimate for a specific offshore wind power system consisting of 13.600 floating wind machines of six megawatts each clustered about 82 submerged hydrogen-generating stations connected by pipelines to a pressurizing station feeding into a deepwater storage facility and all connected by pipeline to fuel-cell stations ashore." The total installed generating capacity would be 82.000 megawatts and the estimated total cost $22 million in 1972 dollars or $26 billion in 1975 dollars.

If we take the capacity factor, the average delivered power as compared with rated capacity, as 35% for wind and rather generously 60% (rather than 50 or 55%) for nuclear, the installed generating capacity of wind power must be 60/35 or 1.7 times as great as the equivalent nuclear capacity. 82,000 megawatts of wind power in the offshore system are thus roughly equivalent to about 48,000 megawatts of nuclear generating capacity or 44 of the large 1100 megawatt nuclear power station. The $26 billion estimate for the complete wind power system thus amounts to about six hundred million 1975 dollars for the wind equivalent of a large nuclear plant or about $550 per nuclear installed kilowatt. Present quotations for nuclear plants are running considerably higher than that figure, and if due allowance were made for government-supplied facilities they would perhaps be close to twice that high. This margin by nearly a factor two makes wind power including storage facilities thus deployed seem competitive with nuclear even if the Heronemus estimate, though carefully made, might be very optimistic as it is considered to be by the ERDA funding agency.

CONCLUSION-ALTERNATIVE OR SUPPLEMENT?

There is no question but that wind power can contribute substantially to national power needs in this century. It now appears that we are waking up to our need for alternative energy sources enough that wind power will contribute substantially within 15 years even at the slow pace of the present program, thus at least relieving the need for as many nuclear power plants as are being planned and diversifying our energy sources. Unless it is accelerated and combined with conservation, as it should be, this does not make it an "alternative to an increased use of nuclear power" but merely an alternative to so large an increase.

5

The prospects of wind power should be compared with the program now being promoted in Washington to build 200 nuclear reactors, probably largely at government expense, in nuclear parks by 1990. There is no apparent limit to the harnessing of wind power that would preclude its generating as much power as they would by that time and supplementing other sources of power as reliably as can be expected of nuclear power. It will involve a huge construction effort but not one beyond the capacity of industry, equivalent to perhaps half of the automotive industry, with a substantial increase in the lagging shipbuilding industry. Equipping those nuclear parks will also take a large industrial effort, including that for associated facilities that industry has been reluctant to provide.

The greatest difference in the prospects of actually using nuclear or wind power is that one is promoted and the other is not. As a prelude to industrial acceptance and promotion government initiative is needed for wind power, even as was the case with nuclear, with financial backing much less than that devoted to the civilian nuclear effort. With such initiative wind power would be capable of supplanting nuclear completely. This would involve not only the system described for the Grand Banks and capable of supplying all the electric energy needs of New England in 1990, but half a dozen projects of similar magnitude, offshore along the east coast and on land over the great plains and perhaps elsewhere. In the light of this possibility, it must be concluded that wind power is a real alternative to nuclear power. But no matter whether it is viewed as a start toward reducing the need for additional nuclear power or eliminating it completely, the first full-scale demonstration on wind-power units should be built immediately.

Mr. ABOUREZK. Mr. President, Professor Inglis began work in nuclear physics in 1935. From 1949 to 1969 he was employed by the AEC at its Los Alamos and Argonne laboratories.

In this paper, Professor Inglis presents a clear and convincing case for speeding development of wind power generating electricity. His statement is a concise review of the past experience with wind generators. That experience, he contends, is being ignored at least in part in the present research programs: "There is no question but that wind power can contribute substantially to national power needs in this century."

Professor Inglis contends that wind power with financial backing "much less than that devoted to the civilian nuclear effort, would be capable of supplanting nuclear completely. But no matter whether it is viewed as a start toward reducing the need for additional nuclear power or eliminating it completely, the first full-scale demonstration windpower units should be built immediately."

See footnotes at end of table.