Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
autumn of the year 1973: “On Sundays we took walks on the highways
or took out our bikes.” Oil had become scarce on the markets of
Europe and North America. Therefore many governments saw
the need to take unpopular action, for instance the ban on driving
private cars on Sundays. From one day to another, the public noticed
how strongly industrialised countries depended on imports of oil
and gas.
The situation was triggered by oil drilling Arab states. That
autumn they had reduced the crude oil production by up to 25%,
and had set-up embargos from time to time. In January 1974 they
started a new pricing policy and in consequence the listed prices for
crude oil were almost four times as high. The Western world faced a
serious oil price crisis.
Under the impression of rising energy prices the use of
alternative energy sources, as for instance wind power, came back
into the focus of public attention. “Wind power always comes over
mankind in waves. People remember it always in times of crisis,”
Dörner resumes, “after World War I, when coal was getting scarce,
and after World War II, when the energy supply lay waste, and once
more after the oil price shock in the early seventies.”
Dörner had directly experienced the renaissance of the use of
wind energy after the first oil crisis at the University of Stuttgart.
Although he had worked at this institute of research for more than 35
years, he did not see himself as a pioneer. The rebirth of wind energy
had a previous history, and this was connected especially to the name
of the man whose academic heritage Dörner has administrated,
and had passed on to students for more than three decades, the name
of his teacher, mentor and role model—Professor Ulrich Hütter.
Figure 17.1
Professor Ulrich Hütter (Photo: Heiner Dörner's Archive).
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