Turbine waterwheels. Gas, steam, and water turbines have a casing around the blades that contains and controls the working fluid. Credit for invention of the steam turbine is given both to Anglo-Irish engineer Sir Charles Parsons (1854–1931) for invention of the reaction turbine, and to Swedish engineer Gustaf de Laval (1845–1913) for invention of the impulse turbine. Modern steam turbines frequently employ both reaction and impulse in the same unit, typically varying the degree of reaction and impulse from the blade root to its periphery. The word "turbine" was coined in 1822 by the French mining engineer Claude Burdin from the
Gedser wind turbine Gedser wind turbine The Gedser wind turbine is located near Gedser in the south of the Danish island of Falster. It was constructed by the engineer Johannes Juul in 1957 for the SEAS ("Sydsjællands Elektricitets Aktieselskab") electricity company with support from the Marshall Plan. Its innovative design was a major breakthrough in the development of wind turbines. As a 17-year-old, Johannes Juul (1887–1969) had studied wind electricity applications under Poul la Cour at Askov Højskole, a folk high school, in 1904. In the early 1950s, he built two smaller alternating current turbines which operated at Vester Egesborg near Næstved and