A Wind Energy Icon Has Passed On

In his masterful blog Wind-works.org, Paul Gipe (pictured here) writes:

Preben Maegaard (pictured below) died 25 March 2021. He was 84. His death likely won’t mean much to most North Americans. After all he wasn’t a household name like reality TV stars Caitlyn Jenner or Kanye West.

It should.

Our future and that of the planet may very well depend on the work he and other Danish pioneers of wind energy did in the early days. He was a visionary among visionaries at a time when the establishment of the day called them crazy, unrealistic, and naive–among the more polite terms used.

Now we consider them prescient. Wind works. It can be found everywhere, not just in Denmark. Now you can find commercial wind energy spinning out clean electricity in–of all places–my central Indiana hometown. Even the President of the United States announces–to much laudatory fanfare–that a country long a laggard in renewable energy development will make wind a centerpiece of the country’s efforts to combat climate change. Preben wasn’t here to see it, but he can rest in peace knowing that he had a role in making that announcement, and the many more like it, come to pass.

Thanks, Paul.  My condolences to his survivors.

You are 100% correct that virtually no Americans are aware of Maegaard’s contribution to climate change mitigation and environmental sustainability more generally, as we have been, in general, indifferent to these subjects.

I predict that this is about to change.  As Trump fades into an unpleasant memory, with only his considerable legal woes to remind us that he ever existed, the United States is in the process of rejoining the rest of the world in an all-out fight to ensure that planet Earth will not lose its capacity to support life as we’ve come to know it.