In those days of the Wild West, many machines failed. Casually, he told Smith there were scheduledįixes to this potentially disastrous scenario-but the turbines needed to keep turning Those silhouettes were from 20-foot-long fiberglass turbine blades that became airborneĭaggers once they spun off the turbine. He recalled turning to his boss to ask what was going on. Then, a shadow flashed over their shoulders.
He told the audience about his first day on the job as chief engineerĪt a wind farm in Palm Springs, California, in 1984 as a hungry 25-year-old engineer,Īs Smith walked with his boss, surveying the site’s 100 "windmills" as he called them
It drew schemers, dreamers,Īnd believers seeking to pluck the new gold from the air.Īmong those who trekked to the Golden State was Brian Smith, now NREL’s wind laboratory The California wind boom was taking off because of federal and state tax incentivesĪnd alternative fuel mandates for Golden State utilities. Mining comparison to life during an April 6 panel at NREL’s Flatirons Campus, expanding on the tales included in NREL’s Clean Energy Innovators book by Ernie Tucker. And that explorer’s mindset persists today.Ī panel of National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) wind experts brought the wind The stampede to harness wind for energy in the late 20th century was as frenzied as
NREL’s Flatirons Campus near Boulder, Colorado, is central to the Wild West of wind
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