Making the Wind Work

Horowhenua Chronicle, 2 August 1910, Page 4

Making the Wind Work

A NEW INVENTION. Wind power for generating electricity has arrived, an English miveotor getting ahead of all others and finding a power tuat may prove a substitute I'o-r coal and gasoline in many instances. The wind motor promises to become a commercial, everyday fact much quicker than the sii.n motor -upon which many American and other inventors have expended so many hours, months, and \cars in an effort to make it practical. .J. G. Childs i.s the name of the Englishman, and lie is constructing his giant wind motor for generating ; le.'t rieity upon a farm at W'illesde.u Green, not far from London. Ho expects to have it in operation in a. short time. Mr Childs' wind motor i.s liko a •jigantie windmill in appearance, and it worlcs pamtlv on the same principle as the thousands of windmills we see on the farms of the United States. But it is a little different. The tower is 100 feet high, and the wheel is only forty-eight foet. in diameter. The average person would immediately jump to the conclusion that a windmill of that size would tear tilings to pieces in an ordinarily heavy wind. Mr.Childs has met this difficulty by a novel device. He has eveloved a method of 'automatic control so that .the wheel is kept facing the wind as long as the wind is kind and gentle and doesn't attempt any rough play. Tho moment, however, the wind gete strenuous the automatic govemnor promptly turns the wheel a quarter round, so that the wind strikes it on. the ends instead of in the face, a great deal less resistance being offered. The mill is so constructed that it' will run in an extremely light wind, and, a specially built dynamo will generate electricity while running at a low speed. All of the heavy work on the farm will be par-formed by tho electricity generated by wind power, and in addition 300 lights will Ijo kept going. Mr Childs estimates that tho cost of .t.lie electricity thus furnished, allowing liberally for wear and. tear, will bo 1 per cent a unit. The automatic governor on the wheel consists of three planes arranged in a triangular form. When the. wind increase's beyond a certain point two of these planes take a horizontal position, while the third acts as a rudder, steering the wheel around until its ends are toward the. wind.