Siemens Generates Enthusiasm and Electricity

Yesterday three people from Siemens presented a program at our school. This wind generator manufacturer has been in operation in Hutchinson for one year. In two daily shifts, they are now producing two generators a day. The local factory specializes in manufacturing the nacelle, which is the "body" of the wind generator "airplane." The fan blades come from Iowa, and the hub into which the blades are fastened comes from China. Plans are underway to begin manufacturing the hub in Hutchinson in the future--in a new factory to be built near Siemens. The tower is also built elsewhere.

Each generator sells for $5 million, and powers 690 households. With better efficiencies, they hope to eventually use the same model to power up to 900 households.

Several distinctives in Siemens' generators:

1) No other manufacturer uses one-piece blades. All others are made up of glued-together pieces. The finish on the blades is applied as though it were being applied to fine furniture. Running a hand across the surface to check for irregularities that would result in undesirable friction or imbalance is part of the process.

2) No other manufacturer offers a ten-year warranty. Some offer no warranty, and others only a one-year warranty.

3) They didn't make a point of this, but Siemens is probably unique in their countries of origin being both Germany and Denmark. The company was formed in Germany and later sold to someone from Denmark. I associate Germans with second-to-none expertise in engineering, and Scandanavians with elegant design. That sounds like a winning combination to me. Siemens' spokespersons yesterday alluded to wind generators owing their design origins to traditional Dutch windmills, so Holland perhaps needs its own place in the countries-of-origin list.

The enormity of these generator "beasts" is truly impressive. The towers are nearly 400 feet tall. The blades are over 90 feet long, making the circumference of the fan sweep close to 200 feet. The hub is shipped overland by semi, but its size presents a formidable load even for a semi. The nacelle can only be shipped by rail car. I assume that is true also of the fan blades. The whole assembly at the top of the tower weighs at least 150 tons, and is put in place by three cranes.

Wind generators are touted as a way to produce environmentally friendly energy. I've wondered, though, how the energy output of a generator compares with the energy required to manufacture the generator in the first place. Siemens answered that question by saying that in one year of operation, a Siemens machine produces as much energy as it took to bring it online for generating electricity in the first place.

Siemens hopes to bring their program to every school in our county. Pilgrim was the first school to be so favored. They're asking us for feedback on the presentation. I will provide some suggestions for improvement, but it was very good as it was. It was certainly a worthwhile Friday afternoon activity.

Hutchinson has the potential for becoming as much a hub (Ha. Accidental pun.) of wind generator production as Wichita is for airplane manufacturing. If Siemens' professed commitment to Reno County proves to be more durable than Boeing's commitment to Sedgwick County (They recently announced plans to move much of their manufacturing west to Washington.), we're on a very good economic course. Wages there are better than any jobs I know of requiring comparable skills.

Our school now owns its very own wind generator. True, it's only 15 inches tall, and the fan blades are about three inches long. But the Siemens name fits on the nacelle. and I think I know exactly what we should do with it, along with the chunk of salt that came from the mine in Hutchinson. I plan to tell the Home Environment class about it next week.