The vertical windmill on ice uses a number of skis to benefit from the low friction of the ice. The windmill spins around an axis that is fixed into the ice. The small prototype works very good, but if scaled up in size it would be necessary to take lifting forces into account. [Video]

A similar concept is applied to a vertical windmill floating on water, contained within a rigid structure. The windmill rotates smoothly with the use of a simple water bearing. [Video]

Gripenberg also made a wind-powered carousel from a 6 ton ice sheet. [Video]

Images: Simon Gripenberg

A wind power system made from plastic buckets is seen on boats at a floating village in Hanoi, Vietnam June 29, 2016. REUTERS/Kham

“Vietnamese families living in slums along the Red River in Hanoi are using red plastic buckets and old printers to help light homes, cook meals and slash electricity costs by as much as a third.

The recycled goods form the blades and motors of electrical generators that power old motorcycle batteries to illuminate lamps with a brightness equivalent to a 45-Watt light bulb.

Though the output generated is small, it makes a significant difference for families previously denied power because they lived too far from a power station or had to ration supply because of the expense.”

More pictures and information at Reuters: Plastic buckets, broken printers shine light on Hanoi’s poor. Via Playground Magazine.

See all our low-tech windmill posts.

François Porcher has translated our 2009 article “Wind Powered Factories: History (and Future) of Industrial Windmills” (“Des fabriques mues par le vent: histoire (et avenir) des moulins à vent“) and sends us the image above to complement the illustrations. For a high-resolution image, go here. More articles have been translated to French and other languages.

Previously:

• How to rig a windmill sail
• Building plans for Dutch Industrial Windmills
• The homemade windmills of Nebraska
• Tree Windmills
• Windmills and wind motors: how to build and run them
• Scale models of Dutch Industrial Windmills

This collection of 21 building plans for 5 different types of Dutch industrial windmills was published in 1850. There is a saw mill, an oats mill, a flour mill, and two pumping mills. The book contains no text, only illustrations.

“Theoretisch en practisch molenboek: voor ingenieurs, aannemers, molenaars en andere bouwkundigen“, G. Krook, 1850.

(“Theoretical and practical windmill book; for engineers, contractors and millwrights”).

Follow the link above for high-resolution images.

More:

• The home made windmills of Nebraska (1899)
• Windmills and wind motors – how to build and run them (1910)
• Scale models of Dutch industrial windmills 
• Wind powered factories: history (and future) of industrial windmills
• Boat mills: water powered, floating factories

“Flagged trees only reflect the prevailing wind direction of the strongest winds, which may occur during only part of the year. Seasonal variations in the wind have a pronounced effect on the type of wind deformation and these effects are characterized in this handbook. Techniques for estimating the mean annual wind speed have been developed using indices of wind effects on trees. These indices have been calibrated on two widely distributed species of conifers. The main conclusions are that trees provide a simple, inexpensive and quick method for identifying promising locations where more detailed measurements can verify the wind potential.”

Trees as an indicator of wind power potential (.pdf), John E. Wade & E. Wendell Hewson, 1979.
Vegetation as an indicator of high wind velocity (.pdf), DOE report, John E. Wade & R.W. Baker, 1977

More low-tech wind power.

“The merit of homemade mills has enjoyed such prompt recognition that they are going up daily. Not to the detriment, we are happy to say, of those important adjuncts to the farm, the shopmade mills, but in addition to them.

In a given community, the man who puts up the first mill generally furnishes the model for the rest of the community. Hence it seems the more desirable that good models should be at hand, the better models are often of quite as easy constructed and no more expensive than the poorer, and their efficiency considerably greater.

It is advantageous to have good models to copy, and the next best thing to the actual model is a good simple drawing. This is the first object of this paper on our homemade windmills; it aims to supply cuts illustrating all sorts of windmills, as found in this State.”

“The homemade windmills of Nebraska” (pdf), Erwin Hinckley Barbour, 1899. Illustration: a wind powered sawing machine.

Related: Windmills and wind motors – how to build and run them (1910), Building plans of Dutch Industrial windmills (1850).

Source: “Travailler au moulin / Werken met molens”, Jean Bruggeman, 1996.

He could have saved himself some work if he had seen the illustration on the right, which I copied from a 1901 Dutch newspaper. The accompanying text says:

“Windmills are ugly contraptions and many attempts have been made to make them look better. This illustration shows how nature and mechanics can coexist.”

“It is a windmill constructed in combination with two trees. The trees only serve as a support for the upper part and for the ladder to reach the top. The mill was built in Illinois (US) and worked so well that several have been constructed.”

I could not find any more information about it.

“In the late 90s/early 2000s my interest was in developing boats that can sail directly into the wind. To some, this seems impossible, and they find it hard to accept that it is possible to overcome the wind using the force of the wind itself. This technology has further implications also, it can allow a boat, or a buoy, to remain stationary in the water, unsecured, no matter how hard the wind blows without using any fuel. Having revived the project recently (2008) I am doing further research.”

I cannot help but admire the simplicity of the design. Find all information here.

“I have endeavoured in the following pages not only to interest the practical amateur in a branch of mechanics unfortunately much neglected, but also to present a series of practical original designs that should prove useful to every reader from the youngest to the most advanced.”

Chapter 1 : windmill evolution
Chapter 2 : a small working model windmill
Chapter 3 : a small American type windmill
Chapter 4 : a small working windmill
Chapter 5 : a practical working windmill
Chapter 6 : production of electricity by wind power

Windmills and wind motors – how to build and run them (1910).

Related:

• Wind powered factories
• A wind-powered knitting machine
• Scale models of Dutch Industrial windmills
• The home made windmills of Nebraska
• Building plans for Dutch industrial windmills.

This engraving, published in 1798, shows the gigantic St. Malo raft, designed in 1791 during the French Revolution. The engraving informs us that this extraordinary structure was 600 feet long by 300 broad, mounts 500 pieces of cannon, 36 and 48-pounders, and is to convey 15,000 troops for the invasion of England. In the midst is a bomb-proof, metal-sheathed citadel.

The St. Malo raft was supposed to be propelled by means of 4 large paddle wheels powered by 4 windmills. Whenever the wind apparatus should be unavailable, the paddle-wheels could be worked by horsepower. Squadrons of cavalry are seen proceeding at full gallop, passing across the surface, having entered the great floating affair by a set of draw-bridges at one end, which can evidently be lifted up when the process of embarkation is completed. They are deploying round and passing into an arched entrance to quarters provided for them in the basement of the central fortress or citadel. Note the second raft in the distance.

These formidable appliances for the invasion of England were never constructed, of course. The idea originated as propaganda to convince the more gullible section of the French public that the notion of the invasion was to be taken seriously. The English, on the other hand, used these posters to arouse British patriotism and to raise awareness against possible French invasion.

Napoleon Bonaparte wrote to Tayllerand, his Minister for Foreign Affairs, in 1797:

“The government must destroy the English monarchy, or expect itself to be destroyed by these intriguing and enterprising islanders. The present moment offers a capital opportunity. Let us concentrate all efforts on the Navy, and annihilate England. That done, Europe is at our feet.”

A contemporary publication, entitled “Recherche sur l’Usage des Radeaux pour une Descente”, deals fully with this chimerical means of transport, and gives elaborate statistics to prove the absurdity of the plan, which was not, of course, ever seriously intended by those in authority:

“One of them would require thirty fir trees in length, 900 in breadth and eight in height, in all 216,000 trees; each a foot square, each containing sixty cubic feet, each foot weighing from fifty-two to fifty-five pounds, would make 3120 to 3300 feet, or three horse loads; and the whole would require 618,000 horses or 108,000 carriages and as many carters to bring them from the forest to the sea. The total weight of one raft would be 44,500 tons.”

The foreseen invasion never happened. Napoleon abandoned the plan because he realised he could not cross the Channel as long as the powerful Royal Navy was patrolling it. Admiral Jervis of England proved right when he said:

“I do not say that the French cannot come – I only say they cannot come by sea.”

Napoleon also seriously considered using a fleet of troop carrying balloons as part of his proposed invasion force. But, his air service chief said the proposed aerial invasion would fail because of the winds. A tunnel was also considered.

Napoleon kept the idea of the invasion alive, but then planned to hit England indirectly, by conquering Egypt, where English trade interests were high. In May of the same year, Napoleon set sail for Alexandria.

———————————————————————————————————————————————-

Sources:

• “Two Napoleon Relics“, a booklet published in 1895
• “Napoleon and the invasion of England, Vol.1″, a book from 1908.
• “Napoleon’s planned invasion of the United Kingdom“, Wikipedia.
• “Anti-Napoleon caricature and propaganda in England 1798-1803“, Bogdan Andrei Bernevig.

Related:

• Guido Vigevano’s wind car: 14th century war vehicle
• Wind powered factories: history and future of industrial windmills
• A steam powered submarine: the Ictíneo II

Penterbak shows a dozen scale models of traditional Dutch Windmills. The text is in Dutch, but that should not stop you. Above: a saw mill. Some building plans are here, here and here. Related: Wind powered factories – the history (and future?) of industrial windmills.

A snuff windmill :

Detail of a drainage windmill:

One of the sails:

And more at Penterbak.

Related:

• Wind powered factories – the history (and future?) of industrial windmills.
• Building plans for Dutch industrial windmills (1850)
• The home made windmills of Nebraska (1899)
• Windmills and wind motors – how to build and run them (1910)
• Boat mills: water powered, floating factories

Low-tech energy revolution in Africa by William Kamkwamba and the Moving Windmills Project. Simple diagram (pdf). Image by Tom Rielly (TED).

Finally, a real-world use for small windmills: the wind-powered knitting machine.

“Chapter XII. On the way of making a second waggon which is propelled by the wind without draught animals, and which dashes violently over open country to the confusion of all troops”

Quoted from “Texaurus regis Francie” by Guido von Vigevano (1331) – see these two texts (translated to English).

The illustration shows a digital replica of Guido Vigevano’s 8 metre long wind-propelled battle wagon, made by historian Ulrich Alertz (he has more drawings). For his replica, Alertz built upon both the texts and the original plans (which are hard to interpret because of the absence of perspective). He concludes that with better gearings and with the insertion of a steering mechanism the wind car would indeed have been able to speed over flat and smooth terrain – in strong winds.

Guido Vigevano’s wind-propelled battle wagon was designed as a weapon in the crusades. But the wind conditions and the scarcity of flat and smooth terrain made it so that the car was never built (although the inventor probably constructed a scale model). It is remarkable that Vigevano imagined a wind car powered by a vertical windmill (hot and sophisticated technology in those days), rather than using a low-tech sail (which the Chinese had done centuries before).

Sources: 1 & 2, both in German. There is a short Wikipedia entry on Guido Vigevano in English. More “machine books” at the database machine drawings. Related: more low-tech cars / floating citadels, powered by wind and water mills.

Corn-grinding windmill, equipped with an auxiliary steam engine (Rotterdam, the Netherlands, circa 1900). Source: “Geschiedenis van de techniek in Nederland“.