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Boone
Becomes
Windmill City
Today's
quiz; what had 2000 kilowatts, created devotees called 'wooshies',
was the largest of its kind in the world, and didn't work?
Answer; the U.S. Department of Energy wind-powered electric
generator constructed on Howard's Knob in October, 1978.
Standing
131 feet high, sporting two 97 foot blades that rotated counterclockwise
at 35 miles an hour, the windmill generated much fanfare when
it was announced that the knob had been chosen for the largest
working model designed to convert wind power to electricity.
Managed by NASA and operated by BREMCO, the windmill was hoped
to be part of a renewal energy movement begun under President
Jimmy Carter.
The Federal Energy Research and Development Administration
had begun their research into wind-powered energy in 1973,
with Howard's Knob selected as one of 17 sites, and 1n 1977
announced that Boone would be the location of the granddaddy
of them all; a $6.2 million, ten-story, 350-ton, 2000 kW (two
million watts) monster built by General Electric.
It was hoped that the windmill would generate enough electricity
for 300 to 500 average size homes at winds of 25 mph.
Even without the subsequent election of Ronald Reagan, who
pulled the federal funding for alternative energy source research
and development, the indications soon showed Howard's Knob
generation less of electricity than of eccentricity.
The woosh of the steel blades - actually through the blades
as they stood stock-still - was producing less power than
pranksters, as a local group of college students started a
group called the Wooshies.
The
Charlotte Observer took full journalistic advantage with a
story on a "full-blown mythical cult," and a lead
that if you placed a giant windmill in front of ten thousand
college students "someone had to tilt."
Three students produced a twenty-minute '60 Minutes' style
spoof of the DOE project, with narrator 'Morley Water' interviewing
locals from the Boone Drug's Joe Miller to a store mannequin.
Head Wooshie and filmmaker Bill Le received a B-minus grade
for the film.
The Wooshies may have begun the poking of fun, but more serious
was what tourists and locals alike observed from down in town;
the blades more often than not didn't move, thereby not generating
any electricity.
Some claimed to have seen puffs of smoke arising from out
of the housing area on top of the tower.
Too heavy, problems linking the blades to the hub, left to
rotate in reverse and burning out the engines, whatever; some
experiments fail.
In the struggle for the public consciousness, the Wooshies
undoubtedly prevailed over the would-be whirligig, with sardonic
knick-knacks sold in the town, and mock ceremonies alluded
to in published reports.
And
local attitudes toward the federal government?
Unshaken.
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