History of Wind-Hydrogen System

During the development of electrical generating equipment in the late 1800s, both Europe and America began to experiment with wind power for electrical generation. Among the first to develop wind-powered electrical generators was the Danish professor, Poul La Cour, who worked on wind systems from 1891 to 1908. He also saw the use of hydrogen as a fuel and the use of wind-powered electrical generators to electrolyze hydrogen
and oxygen from water (wind-hydrogen system).

Another early investigator who promoted wind-powered hydrogen production systems was J.B.S. Haldane a British biochemist at Cambridge, England. In 1923, he predicted that England’s energy problems could be solved with a large number of wind generators supplying high voltage power for hydrogen production.

During World War II, Vannovar Bush was the Director of the U.S. Wartime Office of Scientific Research and Development. He was concerned about American fuel reserves and thought that wind generators could be a solution. Percy Thomas was a wind power advocate on the Federal Power Commission, who convinced the Department of the Interior to construct a large prototype wind generator.

In 1951, the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs killed this plan. Wind-generated electricity could not compete with coal that was selling for $2.50 per ton or diesel fuel at $0.10 per gallon. The promise of even less expensive electricity that was too cheap to meter from nuclear power plants resulted in the loss of almost all Federal programs to develop wind-powered energy systems.