Wind Power and Our Energy Needs: an Overview. Traditional windmills -- Power and energy in the modern world -- Global warming and climate change -- Renewable energy sources -- Wind energy conversion -- Energy payback and wind energy costs -- Intermittency issues -- Wind or nuclear? -- Costs compared with conventional generation -- Wind power's growth and potentia. -- The First Windmills. Hero's toy windmill -- Early Persian drag-driven windmills -- Chinese-drag-driven windmills -- The European windmill -- How post mills work -- Origins and economics. -- Seven Centuries of Service. Post mills -- Diffusion through Europe -- Medieval milling capacity -- Controlling the mill -- Sail developments -- Milling the grain -- Design evolution -- Smock mills and tower mills -- Control refinements -- Power output from traditional windmills -- Land drainage and other applications -- The windmill's nineteenth-century peak -- Causes of decline -- Steam power -- White bread -- Roller mills -- The American multi-bladed windpump. -- Generating Electricity: the Experimental Years, 1887 to 1973. First wind-powered electricity generation -- Danish beginnings: Poul la Cour -- The inter-war years -- Small wind-electric systems -- Grandpa's Knob, Vermont: the first megawatt-plus machine -- Wartime shortages rekindle Danish interest -- Post-war energy concerns, and Denmark's Gedser mill -- French and German post-war programmes. -- The Evolution of the Modern Wind Turbine, 1973 to 1990. 1973 oil crisis -- American Federal Wind Power Program -- First generation machines, Mod-0 and Mod-1 -- Second- and third-generation machines, Mod-2 and Mod-5 -- The American-Swedish WTS-4 -- The Darrieus vertical-axis wind turbine -- European national wind power programmes -- Sweden -- Germany -- Denmark -- Different Danish way forward -- The Tvind machine -- Small grid-connected wind turbines -- The Californian wind boom -- The first wind farms -- Danish imports -- The market peaks -- Environmental concerns -- Design evolution -- Danish success factors. Progress and Economics in Europe, 1973 to 1990. Denmark -- Stall control or pitch control? -- Shut-down in high wind speeds -- Costs relative to the annual energy output -- Costs per unit energy output -- Cost comparisons -- The Netherlands and Germany. -- UK Progress, 1973 to 1990. Wind power: the least promising renewables option? -- The offshore wind potential -- Managing wind power's variability -- The Department of Energy wind programme -- The Orkney multi-megawatt wind turbine -- Offshore wind farm assessment -- Vertical-axis wind turbines -- Other UK wind turbine developments -- Lawson-Tancred -- Fair Isle -- Carmarthen Bay wind turbine test centre -- Howden -- Wind Energy Group -- Institutional barriers -- Privatisation and the Non-Fossil fuel Obligation (NFFO). -- Development and Deployment, 1990 to 2008. Global overview -- The 1990s, a decade of growth -- Offshore wind makes progress -- Danish overview -- Germany -- 1991: a feed-in tariff established -- Domestic manufacture -- From 2000: the Renewable Energy Law -- German overview -- Spain -- The 1994 feed-in tariff -- Spanish overview -- United Kingdom -- The disappointing 1990s -- Why NFFO failed -- The renewables obligation -- Offshore wind farms -- UK overview -- United States -- Low growth beginnings -- The Production Tax Credit (PTC) and "green power" -- Momentum builds -- US overview -- Canada, Netherlands and Japan -- India -- China. -- The Future: From Marginal to Mainstream. Low-carbon options for electricity generation -- Carbon capture and storage -- Nuclear power -- Renewables -- Wind power's progress -- Cost-of-energy comparisons -- Variability: keeping the lights on -- Wind power's global growth -- The power output from wind turbines -- The performance of traditional windmills -- Wind characteristics.