Today was my personal favorite day of the trip. We started with a short introduction to windmills which explained to us some of the math and the workings of a common windmill.

      Afterwards we then went to a huge windmill farm and got a really in depth tour of their facilities on site. The system that was started there was its own grid where a collection of sustainable companies got together to make a separate grid. I think a project similar to this is almost impossible in the states. I just don’t think regulations or even companies would fund and support separate grids. Especially because of the huge monopolies on energy in America. The cheif electrical engineer was explaining to us how the company sells their energy to the grid and how the windmills operate to make sure they make the most money as possible. They spin the main housing if the windmills to point towards the wind when energy need is high and then they can turn the out of the wind when demand is really low because it actually costs money to put energy on the grid when demand is that low. On site we were also shown the battery system they have so that they can store the energy produced during peak wind times that isn’t used by the grid. For example when wind is high and demand is low they wouldn’t want to loose money by putting that energy into the grid so they store it in the batteries. On our way out we got to see the raw scope of the full wind farm which I had never seen anything like before. From the bus I could see least fifty to sixty of them. I know there is some huge wind farm in America but I would hope to see more smaller projects in the future to just make small steps towards a more sustainable world as a whole. 

    After the windmills we visited a small village where we learned a little bit about some of the past life of the Netherlands. We learned all about how the village has transformed from basically a fortress to a bustling little town. They had huge walls where some were taken down and some were transformed into little houses, and we were told about some of the World War Two past of the town and how there used to be a pretty large Jewish population which was entirely destroyed by the war. Then for dinner I had one of the best burgers of my life and got to head home for some well needed sleep.