From: [email protected]
Climbed the top of GrandFather Mountain the weekend. It the highest point in the South East. Look how the trees have blown. Took some pictures and made an animation. [snip] The site is bit too good for that purpose, Frank. not to mention, you may be tilting at windmills ;-) >From an old post by a former resident of that area of N.C. (thirty years ago) Today's quiz; what 70s era DoE boondoggle generated more electricity than the entire hot fusion program, created devotees called 'wooshies', was the largest windmill in the world by a long shot (at the time), yet. sadly. didn't last till the end of the year due to *poor design* (accomplished by the same morons at GE who design nuclear reactors)- and yes, actually served the infamous purpose of setting-back wind-energy in the USA by at least a decade ? Answer; the DoE windmill on Howard's Knob, near Boone N.C. (Grandfather Mountain area) .... which was born a few months prior to, and died in high winds in October, 1978. http://www.mountaintimes.com/history/1970s/windmill.php3 Standing 131 feet high, sporting two 97 foot blades that rotated counterclockwise at 35 miles an hour, the windmill generated much fanfare when it was announced that the knob had been chosen for the largest working model designed to convert wind power to electricity. Managed by NASA and operated by BREMCO, the windmill was hoped to be part of a renewal energy movement begun under President Jimmy Carter. The Federal Energy Research and Development Administration had begun their research into wind-powered energy in 1973, with Howard's Knob selected as one of 17 sites, and 1n 1977 announced that Boone would be the location of the granddaddy of them all; a $6.2 million, ten-story, 350-ton, 2000 kW (two million watts) monster built by General Electric. It was hoped that the windmill would generate enough electricity for 300 to 500 average size homes at winds of 25 mph. Even without the subsequent election of Ronald Reagan, who pulled the federal funding for alternative energy source research and development, the indications soon showed Howard's Knob generation less of electricity than of eccentricity. Jones
