Poul La Cour - The Experimental Mill at Askov 1891

The Experimental Mill At Askov 1891

During the 1880s there had been some criticism of the Grundtvigian historical approach in the Folk High Schools, especially the use of Nordic myths and realism gained a stronger position at Askov. La Cour’s historical approach was not criticized much, but he also reread his Grundtvig and claimed that “in fact it is an indication of the power of history that I creates life (now)”. In the 1890s la Cour and Askov Folk High School became more concerned with material reality, in teaching as well as in action. La Cour again became an inventor and experimental physicist, working for the benefit of the rural areas, form where most of the students came. Denmark is blessed with a lot of wind, and at a time where electricity was about to be introduced in Denmark, la Cour felt that the wind should contribute to the electrification of the country. In the Netherlands, the idea of electrification by means of windmills had been investigated with negative conclusions, because of their low efficiency, and the problems of storing energy . But these problems had appealed to the inventor and physicist la Cour. In 1891 he got the idea of storing wind as hydrogen (and oxygen) energy by passing the electricity through water and using electrolysis. He was granted financial support by the Danish Government, and the first experimental mill at Askov was erected in the summer of 1891. La Cour’s first task however was to “tame” the wind power, in order to make the mill produce a constant power in order to drive a generator. This was solved by the so-called Kratostate, a differential regulator, which later was simplified (“vippeforlaget”) and widely used in electricity producing windmills in the Nordic countries and Germany.