 |
| Single, three-bladed windmill. On-shore. |
My wife´s English is excellent. My language
skills are certainly not among my strengths. I practised my English in a
business environment, and my vocabulary is limited to business terms. We often
use our different and sometimes conflicting abilities to complement each other
and create our personal ‘fusion’. In this case my wife is the critical editor
for my blog and helps me to make up for my writing deficits.
 |
| Two-bladed windmills in semi-synchronized arrangement. |
We like to argue hard about words and
meaning. Last case is ‘wind mill’ vs. ‘wind turbine’. From the Dutch coast
onwards, the windmills of modern times accompany us along our drive. In the
beginning we hardly notice them. Silently with slowly rotating blades, they
watch us passing.
Later on they try harder to catch our
attention. Not as a single windmill but in groups, sometimes their blades
rotate with the same speed and the same angle, just like ballet dancers. The
next time more than 20 of them line up like the soldiers of a modern version of
the terracotta army. Another time less disciplined, still in a straight row but
with different colours. Typically they have 3 rotor blades. However, there is also an ethnic minority with two blades only.
The most impressive encounter was on a
misty day when the towers of the silent giants were visible and only the tip of
the lowest rotor blade cut through the clouds.
 |
| Military-style line-up of windmills. You can feel the discipline in the group. |
When
seeing such a giant from afar it looks gigantic but it is hard to
estimate the actual size. When we passed trucks that were transporting
rotor blades we got a much better impression on their lengths. We
estimated them about 30m. Curious as always I looked it up in Wikepedia.
Modern rotor blades have a length between 65m (on-shore) and 85m
(off-shore). Quite impressive.
I still like to call them ‘windmills’.
Having grown up close to the Dutch border I still have memories of the old
versions that were used for milling grain. I see the modern giants as their
descendants that help us to harvest energy.
My wife does not agree with my view. For
her milling requires grains or beans that are transformed into powder. The
modern version of the windmill just rotates a turbine that produces
electricity. Therefore, her verdict is clear: ‘wind turbine’.
Though I am the engineer in the family it
seems that this time it is I who stick to a romantic view of a machine that
mills the wind.
