Wind Power: What’s New? (summary from 1932/33)
By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 19, 2022
Ed Note: This excerpt is from Erich Zimmermann, World Resources and Industries: A Functional Appraisal of the Availability of Agricultural and Industrial Resources (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1933).
“Harnessing the air for generating electric power … [is] engrossing the attention of scientists and technicians and may revolutionize the German electric industry. [Hermann] Honnef claims to have … overcome the drawback of the inconstancy of air currents which hitherto has been a handicap to the utilization of this source.” (1932)
Erich W. Zimmermann’s World Resources and Industries (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1933) is one of the towering tomes of energy and mineral thought. The treatise (850 pages) in the old tradition, wherein a scholar presents a unified system of thought and considers differing viewpoints.
It is a tradition that seems to have stalled, with the next-best-thing being the latest book from Vaclav Smil.
https://www.masterresource.org/zimmermann-erich/whats-new-windpower-zimmermann-1933/