A particularly explicit use of windmills that you saw in Holland as well as in some places in the remainder of Europe was pumping water. Remember that a large part of the land in the country is essentially below sea level, so water pumps would get quite a lot of use, particularly if a dike was breached.

It is not surprising, then, that it was also the Dutch who made so many refinements to windmill technology, especially to the big sails. The majority of these involved altering the shape, to make the sails more aerodynamic. When the cutting edge has a curve, like that at the front edge of an aeroplane wing, it provides more lift. And placing the middle of gravity of the sail and arm 25% of the distance back from the pioneering edge is another element that makes the sail better. These and other changes were implemented in Holland as the country made these windmills characteristically its own.

One might think that since the change over to other types of power, during and after the commercial Revolution, there would now be no more windmills in Holland. But that is not the case. There are still a few, perhaps one thousand or so, and all those are in working order. In truth, Holland doesn’t officially count a mill unless it is still serviceable, and programs of restoration recently have really increased the number. So while the big thrust for wind power these days is the tall wind turbine, some things remain for this more modest kind of windmill to do. Obviously, the Dutch tradition is so strong and so effective that the windmill of Holland has beaten the test of time.

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Tags: environment, Netherlands, wind energy, wind power, windmill

Wind power has been used to accomplish many human jobs over the centuries, but one country has been associated with its use closer than any other in history. That country is Holland.

When bladed windmills were used in the Middle East and China, they tended most frequently to have a vertical axis that is, a shaft that stood up straight with the attached “sails” also vertical, standing out from that central shaft. But by the time this powerful tool moved into Europe, the axis had gone horizontal, often sticking out from the side of a building that contained big gears that translated the motion into useful work inside. This was known as a “tower mill,” and it was the Dutch who took that idea and just about perfected it.

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In a tower mill, the horizontal shaft came out of the building on one side, near to the top. On the upper floor resided the massive gear wheels that turned various tools on lower floors, like the huge stones that would grind grain. Frequently a person known as a “wind smith” would live on the bottom floor of the windmill with his folks, or in a dwelling attached to the side of the main building. He would be the person that maintained the mill, really furling the sails during typhoons, or maybe manually turning the top of the building so that the sails might be orientated into the wind if its direction modified.

There was a great deal of useful work indeed for the windmills to do in Holland, and soon they were dotted all over the landscape. It is calculated that at one time there were 9,000 to 10,000 operating windmills in the country. Just like others in the rest of Europe, an enormous proportion were used to grind grain, powering single or multiple grinding stones. As trade increased, a few of these mills also processed the new commodities coming from other bits of the world, like cocoa or spices. And a couple of others even served as saw mills.

Tags: environment, Netherlands, wind energy, wind power, windmill