Wednesday July 17, 2002
pocketref

Happy day, the 3rd edition of the Thomas J. Glover Pocket Ref is out! In addition to all the great formulas and reference material they've added:

Trailer Electric Wiring and Connectors, First Aid Chapter, Chili Hotness Scale, How to Tie 50 Common Knots, Semaphore & Braille Alphabets, Melting Points and Density of Metals, Clothing Sizes, Torino Asteroid Destruction Scale, Hand Signals for Cranes and Lifting, Hurricane & Tornado Scales, Mileage Tables for Vehicles, Weather Symbols & Cloud Types, and more...

I'd love to share the gallons per minute discharge for a given nominal pipe diameter, the inductance formula for a multiple layer coil winding, or at least the material dumping angle for compact earth but I'm sure you'd prefer to look them up yourself.




Driving across Wyoming on I-80 you'll eventually pass a large wind farm west of Laramie. Having driven this route dozens of times I find it amazing to see how fast they've put together this wind generating system and how large it's become since they began operation on Earth day in 1999. One of the remaining stumbling blocks to making wind power cost effective is reducing the weight of the units. Right now they are built big and heavy in order to withstand the forces of extreme wind conditions. The Air 303 wind generator on my Mom's house has flexible blades and an integral electric brake to combat heavy loads. Still, Mom tends to shut it off during the really heavy storms. Her generator's blades have a diameter of four feet. Compare that with the big generators with rotors that range from 200 to 500 feet in diameter.

Technology review has an article on a new wind generator which might have the right design for handling the winds without all of the extra weight and cost. Also included is an index of manufacturers and related articles.