Wind Power----Past, maybe Present

I learned this year (yes, I can still learn), from my brother Jeff, something I should have known before, or at least have been intuitively aware of it. This tidbit of knowledge is one of those little nuggets that we all just take for granted. Very simply; the ability of removing water from the ground by using wind power was critical to developing the semi-arid west. (Not that "developing" the west was necessarily a hot idea. Oddly, vast acreages are now back to roaming buffalo.)


One would think that having lived in the west and driven willy-nilly over the the high prairie, it would have been obvious. Like dah!

But in this years trip to Colorado we took pictures of old, and some still working, windmills that dot every view of the grasslands. It was really obvious, no water, no cattle---or at least limited cattle. Cattle are not buffalo and they do not know the cycles, the patterns and as near as I can tell don't tend to migrate. This is but one invention that altered the patterns of man.

I know, I am impressed by some really little things, but then maybe the antiquated windmill will have a way of coming around again. In fact, in looking at these old rusted forms, one has to wonder if in an energy constrained world, wind powered water extractors might be the call of the day. Interestingly, many of the old ones are still usable and can be brought back to life. At the Energy Fair this year there was an old hippy, not only restoring them, but selling the devices. They are functional and, if I might say it, photogenic, and fraught with a primitive aesthetics that seems to exemplify the efforts of man by making something that may have a value for generation to come---particularly the simple, "primitive" ones. They might be prized, worshipped?