This 1976 University Experiment Spun Up the U.S. Wind Industry

In 1976, a team at the University of Massachusetts Amherst erected a 25-kilowatt wind turbine that proved the technology could heat a home through a New England winter, launching a chain of events that helped create the modern U.S. wind industry [1]. The turbine, built on the highest point on campus, was a frugal assembly of a Ford truck axle, a donated generator, and handcrafted blades [1]. It was designed to power a modular home outfitted with electric heaters. The system worked so well that the crew nicknamed it the “Wind Furnace.” “We had to open up the doors in the dead of winter. It was just too damn hot,” recalled Michael Edds, the project’s first resident engineer [1]. The project was led by William Heronemus, a retired U.S. Navy captain and nuclear submarine designer who had joined the UMass faculty in 1967 [1]. By 1972, Heronemus was presenting detailed plans to deploy thousands of wind turbines across the Great Plains and a vast grid of floating turbines off New England’s continental shelf [1]. He predicted wind could generate nearly a fifth of U.S. electricity needs by the year 2000 [1]. Heronemus’s advocacy was a direct challenge to the nuclear power establishment. He argued that building expanded versions of the Navy’s pressurized water reactors for civilian use could not be both safe and economical, and he publicly called affordable nuclear energy a “myth” at a 1973 licensing hearing for a proposed plant on Long Island [1]. The U.S. nuclear industry was already facing headwinds; most reactors began construction by 1974, but after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 and changing economics, more than 100 orders for nuclear power reactors were canceled in the 1970s and 1980s [5]. The success of the UMass turbine set off waves of development. Robert Thresher, a former wind research director at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, said of Heronemus: “In my mind he was the father of the people that went out and really made the industry what it is today” [1]. The modern U.S. wind industry began in the early 1980s with utility-scale turbines in California, though early projects were plagued by reliability issues and a fluctuating tax incentive program [8]. The 1990s saw the introduction of the production tax credit, which shifted the focus to electricity output and spurred further technological improvements [8]. Wind power has since become the largest producer of renewable electricity in the United States, generating 434 terawatt-hours in 2022, which accounted for 10% of the nation's electricity [9]. Globally, annual wind generation more than tripled between 2015 and 2025, according to data from the think tank Ember Energy [1].