“You know with one shot, you could take out a solar panel that runs a water pump and it would be done. But a windmill can take a lot of damage from a gun and still work.” *
“They’ve always been used for target practice…” **
Growing up in the American west, I’ve always been interested in windmills, particularly the “Aermotor” brand which can still be found in dilapidated or brand new condition throughout the country. I secretly always wanted to acquire a small Aermotor windmill on a weathered all-wood frame and have it in my back yard just for the aesthetics of possessing “an icon of the American frontier” as it has been described. I don’t have a well on my one-third acre urban lot so it wouldn’t serve any practical use.
Of course, they are all pretty noisy when the wind is blowing, banging and clanking at every rotation. I’m sure it would drive my neighbors crazy and they’d work up a complaint to have me remove it or stop it from spinning.
What caught my recent interest for this post was a recent wandering through the New Mexico State University website where I discovered there is a page devoted to windmills, including an on-campus display and a “Windmill Technology Center.” Who knew? It’s yet one more thing to love about NMSU. And interestingly (at least to me) was the fact that the gold standard of windmills — Aermotor — and NMSU, both got their start in 1888.
Here’s the link to the NMSU “Windmill Technology Center”:
https://windmilltechnologyworkshop.nmsu.edu/
First off, the term “Windmill Technology” was a bit hard to digest, given that I think most of us associate technology with such things as Artificial Intelligence, computers and other electronic gizmos. When we think about windmills, we’re talking about a fairly simple mechanical contraption that has been around for hundreds of years — not high on the “technology” spectrum.
But luckily the web page listed the name of someone to talk to about windmills, so I called him up.
Carlos Rosencrans retired from NMSU after 25 years on the faculty in charge of the Windmill Technology program in what is now the Agriculture, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences College. If anyone on the planet knows more about windmills than Carlos, I’d be hard pressed to identify them.
He still puts on an annual workshop to help ranchers, farmers and anyone else who relies on wind-powered water pumps to learn more about the contraptions and how to make them run more efficiency, repair them and just appreciate them more.
Carlos says he believes the Windmill Technology program at NMSU is the only one like it on any college campus in the United States.
“We get about 40 percent of our attendees to the annual conference from New Mexico,” he told me. “The rest come from all over the country.”
He said the program teaches basic safety about working on the machines, how to do maintenance and how to “take everything apart and put it back together.”
“We teach them how to secure themselves on a windmill so they can use both hands while working on them at the top of the towers,” he said.
He said solar applications have been used in many farms and ranches in the past several years, but they have drawbacks.
“A lot of the older ranchers and farmers are of the age that they don’t want to climb the towers to work on the windmills and younger ones sometimes aren’t much interested,” he noted. “But they realize that windmills can operate 24 hours a day while solar cells can’t.”
He also noted that solar-powered water pumps can be disabled by a simple gunshot or other act of vandalism. But windmills can take a lot of beating and still work. If you’ve ever looked at an older windmill still turning in the wind as you drive through the New Mexico landscape, you might see multiple bullet holes in the blades that haven’t hindered its ability to continue pumping.
I asked him how many windmills might still be operating in New Mexico alone. He said it would probably be above 1,000.
“On the Navajo Nation, I’m pretty sure there are at least 1,000 operating there,” he added.
Aermotor was originally established in Chicago in 1888 and has dominated the windmill industry since then. The company was bought and sold several times, then acquired by a company in Argentina. It now has returned to the United States and is located in San Angelo, TX. I’m personally glad the company is back in the United States. Here’s their website:
And just for the fun of it, I might attend the next windmill conference at NMSU this spring.
*Carlos Rosencrans, NMSU windmill guru
** Margo Lamb, former Nebraska farm girl and my wife
aero-cordero.com 