Abraham Lincoln Was on to Wind Power Long Before the Rest
Support CleanTechnica's work through a Substack subscription, on Patreon, or on Stripe. Help us produce all of the high-quality, original content we publish week after week despite the challenges of content-scraping AI, antisocial media, inflation, and other hurdles.
During an election season, it’s easy to find huge faults in every politician, so let’s take a look back on one former president that we can all be proud of, Mr. Abraham Lincoln.
Lincoln was forward thinking on many national policies, including (way ahead of his time) his prescient stance on wind energy.
In his own words:
“Of all the forces of nature, I should think the wind contains the largest amount of motive power—that is, power to move things. Take any given space of the earth’s surface— for instance, Illinois; and all the power exerted by all the men, and beasts, and running-water, and steam, over and upon it, shall not equal the one hundredth part of what is exerted by the blowing of the wind over and upon the same space. And yet it has not, so far in the world’s history, become proportionably valuable as a motive power. It is applied extensively, and advantageously, to sail-vessels in navigation. Add to this a few windmills, and pumps, and you have about all. … As yet, the wind is an untamed, and unharnessed force; and quite possibly one of the greatest discoveries hereafter to be made, will be the taming, and harnessing of it.”
h/t Climate Crocks
Image: Abe Lincoln via Shutterstock
Sign up for CleanTechnica's Weekly Substack for Zach and Scott's in-depth analyses and high level summaries, sign up for our daily newsletter, and follow us on Google News!
Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
Sign up for our daily newsletter for 15 new cleantech stories a day. Or sign up for our weekly one on top stories of the week if daily is too frequent.
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.
CleanTechnica's Comment Policy
