Harnessing the wind

A look at windmills around SLO County

BY ANNE QUINN

Windmills have long dominated the landscape of SLO County, standing as lone sentinels in the tawny grass where they hearken times past. Their long and varied history began with their development in Europe in the twelfth century, when the first windmill was designed to replace animal power in the grinding of grain–usually wheat or corn. They were later used to drain marsh lands and to pump irrigation water, as well as cool off fields. Their whimsical appearance has also been the subject and passion of many artists over the centuries.

Now due to the present energy crisis, interest in windmills is picking up, and SLO county businessmen, inventors, home owners, and collectors are making sure that wind power is a part of the county’s future.

Perhaps it is the way windmills use human ingenuity to harness nature that has made them so intriguing, and so necessary.

Commercial windmills have dotted mountain passes at Altamont and Tehachapi since the 70’s energy crisis, when they were a considerable tax write off for private investors.

The windmills of Altamont still supply one percent of Pacific Gas & Electric Company power, according to spokesperson Jon Tremayne. (Diablo Canyon Power Plant supplies 20 percent). But PG&E is no longer in the power generation business, he says, and is only transmitting wind power through Altamont because it must honor long term contracts which originated in that period.

The current energy crisis has generated a new interest in wind, and the government is responding with more modern incentives.

U.S. Representative J. C. Watts (R-Oklahoma) introduced a bill proposing a 30 percent investment tax credit for household wind systems.

Today, the California Energy Commission has the authority to administer funds collected from the state’s investor-owned utilities to support renewable energy thanks to State Senate Bill 90. Funds are also available from Assembly bill 1890, which deregulated the electricity industry. It makes $540 million collected from Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, and San Diego Gas and Electric Company available for a statewide renewable energies policy. Of this, $70.2 million is earmarked for wind energy, which also promises new jobs.

Here’s a look at what’s being done locally with windmills, as well as a pictorial view of how they define our landscape:

***

On Sept. 4, inventors John L. Borg of Atascadero and Kenneth C. Morisseau of Paso Robles were awarded patent number 6283711 from the United States Department of Commerce for a self-spinning, auto-rotating cylindrical windmill blade they call the Magnus Effect propeller.

While the patent has brought no money to the pair yet, it has brought a certain deep satisfaction that the government recognizes that their 18-years of collaboration and research has resulted in a device that breaks new ground. Borg and Morisseau believe their discovery could help solve the state’s energy crisis.

Borg is a naval architect, researcher and inventor, who comes from a family of inventors. His grandfather, C. W. Borg, invented the type of clutch most commonly installed in automobiles today. His father, George W. Borg, invented new uses of the refrigerant freon, and also developed new designs for scales, clocks and refrigerators.

Morisseau, a mechanical marine engineer, said Borg is the type of person "who can look at things and see molecules." His type of mind works differently, translating ideas into physical realities, much as a windmill can turn a breeze into energy.

The two met in 1981, when Borg authored a study for the U. S. Navy on the application of the Magnus effect by Finnish sailor S. J. Savonius in the invention of boat rudders in the 1920s. Morisseau was the Naval contract officer who edited it.

The Magnus effect is far reaching, although many people may not understand they are working with it while trying to improve their golf game or master a mean curve ball pitch. It is a theory of aerodynamics named for Heinrich Gustav Magnus, a German chemist, physicist, and educator who lived from 1802 to 1870. From his study of projectiles came the theory of the Magnus effect, the lateral force on rotating cylinders in air currents.

Borg and Morisseau continued to study and invent with the Magnus Effect long after both retired from the Navy. Their newly-patented rotating windmill blade capitalizes on the Magnus effect and improves it by reducing the amount of drag caused by the rotor moving and spinning.

Theoretically, it could be four to five times more efficient than other windmill blades, said Borg. Hundreds of them could deliver electricity from a coastal wind farm on the Diablo Canyon Power Plant property once the plant closes, Borg suggested. "After all, wind rises up off the ocean and PG &E has already got the transmission lines there."

For home use, this inventing team has also worked to improve an ancient design–the Portuguese Jib Windmill–named for one of the first civilizations to set sail and explore the seas.

It features bright cloth blades, or sails. Borg said he and Morisseau have improved its rotation so that one could produce enough juice to at least keep home refrigerators running.

Morisseau imagines color coordinating the brightly-colored sail windmill with Central Coast homes and starting a new trend.

"We hope to put our Portuguese Windmill design out over the Internet. It’s something anybody can make, it’s quiet and works in a low speed wind," said Borg.

***

A traditional Dutch windmill that can be glimpsed from Los Osos Valley Road was inspired by the energy crunch of the 1970s.

John Lindeman, who immigrated from the Netherlands in 1958, worked for a decade building a house and a windmill based on his memories of the Zahn River Windmill.

Now his daughter, Julie Tacker, and her husband Tom live there. They are working with students from the Cal Poly Mechanical Engineering and Electrical Engineering schools to bring the windmill online and generate power.

Julie said her father got help from NASA to build the windmill.

Apparently, Lindeman had almost completed the mill, but got stuck when he had to design the blades, so the project was abandoned.

A friend who worked for NASA noticed that construction had stopped and asked why. Lindeman responded by saying he needed to know how the blades were built so they would properly catch the wind and turn the cap. If he could just look at a set of plans of any windmill, he could finish it, he said.

Three weeks later, Lindeman received plans from NASA, which had been studying the aerodynamics of Holland’s windmills for years.

His friend had attached a note to the blueprint, apologizing for the plans being in Dutch. Apparently, Lindeman’s friend was unaware that he was from Holland and Dutch was his native tongue.

Even more amazing, the plans NASA sent were for the Zahn River Windmill, the one Lindeman was replicating.

***

Farm Supply of San Luis Obispo employee Rocky Poletti recalls that when he began working on county windmills in the late 70s he thought of them as just one more piece of ranch equipment. Now they are his passion.

"I always liked them, then one day I bought one and soon I had to have another. Exposed gears are my favorite. I like to see them turn." he said, looking at the whirling windmills that irrigate his small vineyard and orchard near SLO, while also bringing fresh water to his kid’s pool. His wife, Kim, has also caught the fever. A painter, she turns the blades into bright folk art.

Poletti has installed most of the rural windmills that ranchers use to pump water to stock ponds throughout SLO County.

As Poletti drives to far-flung county spots such as Los Alamos, the Hearst Ranch, North County, Los Olivos, and Fox Canyon to install new windmills he is also "questing," for his extensive antique windmill collection.

If Poletti sees a windmill miles from nowhere that is sagging from disrepair, he stops to take a closer look. If he likes it, he begins to "horse trade. "Anybody can have anything for money," he said, implying that it takes a certain finesse to talk an owner out of it. Many SLO County antique windmills have stood on the same spot for generations and are heirlooms to the families, he explains.

Poletti is a patient man. Not only can it sometimes take years to obtain the windmills he desires, but it can also take years to find the 100-year-old-parts he sometimes needs to repair them.

Poletti has one windmill that he knows is like no other. It is a composite of two different windmills that he speculates was created during the depression when a family had two broken windmills on their property and parts were impossible to find.

Farm Supply has gotten a few more calls for windmills since the energy crisis has sent residential power bills soaring.

But most people find that the cost of installing windmill, which he estimates at $5,000, is too much. But this could change, thanks to new federal funds recently earmarked for wind energy.

Money from those funds, and creativity of SLO County residents like Borg, Morisseau, and Lindeman should guarantee that SLO County’s windmills will continue to go round. Æ

New Times reporter Anne Quinn denies being long-winded.