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Stories from the Verse
In Verse Proportion
Chapter 135: Slade 210
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Brown 240
It turned out that the birds had already started using wind to drive generators. They had been using wind power to pump water in various parts of the world and for several applications for centuries, and it had been a small step from pumping water and grinding grain to generating electricity. For the telegraph and other more recent applications they had been using steam engines, but windmills had been adapted to the purpose.
That didn’t mean Slade and Kondor had nothing to do. Joe’s airfoils were considerably more efficient than the older types, which were closer to fan blades at best. They experimented with several turbine designs, connecting the turning force directly to the generator rather than going through an intermediate drive system and so making the devices more efficient. They also tried several different materials.
It was somewhat disappointing that this didn’t produce a finished product more quickly. Of course, neither of them had ever worked in electrical generation, nor indeed in any of the fields that mattered here, such as metallurgy. On the other hand, the department was very supportive, and given their track record the fact that they were taking longer to accomplish this objective than some of their others was not counted against them.
Wind power was in some ways the easiest to accomplish, but it had an inherent problem that the wind was inconsistent. That meant power fluctuation, more electricity being generated when winds were strong, none at all when they fell too low to move the blades. Their solution to this was to put a battery between the generator and the devices. That, though, meant they had to work in direct current. Joe said that direct current was more limited in a lot of ways, but would probably be adequate for the tasks they wanted.
They worked on these all winter, and by spring had developed two different prototypes which they mounted not exactly on the rooves of their homes but on semi-independent towers added to the end to provide support. They used their generators to charge lead-acid battery arrays for one hundred-twenty-volt direct current power, and installed electric lighting in both homes. It was proof of concept, and would allow them to test the two versions of their wind collectors. They were one step closer to advancing the technology of the world.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with twenty other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #456: Versers Prepare. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
