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Wind power has been used as long as humans have put sails into the wind. For more than two millennia wind-powered machines have ground grain and pumped water. Wind power was widely available and not confined to the banks of fast-flowing streams, or later, requiring sources of fuel. Wind-powered pumps drained the polders of the Netherlands, and in arid regions such as the American mid-west or the Australian outback, wind pumps provided water for live stock and steam engines. With the development of electric power, wind power found new applications in lighting buildings remote from centrally-generated power. Throughout the 20th century parallel paths developed small wind plants suitable for farms or residences, and larger utility-scale wind generators that could be connected to electricity grids for remote use of power. Today wind powered generators operate in every size range between tiny plants for battery charging at isolated residences, up to near-gigawatt sized offshore wind farms that provide electricity to national electrical networks. By 2014, over 240,000 commercial-sized wind turbines were operating in the world, producing 4% of the world's electricity.〔(Wind in numbers ), Global Wind Energy Council〕 == Antiquity == Sailboats and sailing ships have been using wind power for at least 5,500 years, and architects have used wind-driven natural ventilation in buildings since similarly ancient times. The use of wind to provide mechanical power came somewhat later in antiquity. The Babylonian emperor Hammurabi planned to use wind power for his ambitious irrigation project in the 17th century BC.〔 〕 The windwheel of the Greek engineer Heron of Alexandria in the 1st century AD is the earliest known instance of using a wind-driven wheel to power a machine.〔Dietrich Lohrmann, "Von der östlichen zur westlichen Windmühle", ''Archiv für Kulturgeschichte'', Vol. 77, Issue 1 (1995), pp.1-30 (10f.)〕〔A.G. Drachmann, "Heron's Windmill", ''Centaurus'', 7 (1961), pp. 145-151〕 Another early example of a wind-driven wheel was the prayer wheel, which has been used in ancient India, Tibet, and China since the 4th century.〔 〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「History of wind power」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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