Power Sources

Steam Engine

The steam engine provided a landmark in the industrial development of Europe. The first modern 

steam engine was built by an engineer, Thomas Newcomen, in 1705 to improve the pumping 

equipment used to eliminate seepage in tin and copper mines. Newcomen's idea was to put a 

vertical piston and cylinder at the end of a pump handle. He put steam in the cylinder and then

condensed it with a spray of cold water; the vacuum created allowed atmospheric pressure to 

push the piston down. In 1763 James watt, an instrument-maker for Glasgow University, began 

to make improvements on Newcomen's engine. He made it a reciprocating engine, thus changing 

it from an atmospheric to a true "steam engine." He also added a crank and flywheel to provide 

rotary motion.

                                                                                            In 1774 the industrialist Michael Boulton took 

                                                                                            Watt into partnership, and their firm produced 

                                                                                             nearly five hundred engines before Watt's

                                                                                             patent expired in 1800. Water power continued 

                                                                                             in use, but the factory was now liberated from 

                                                                                             the streamside. A Watt engine drove Robert 

                                                                                              Fulton's experimental steam vessel Clermont 

                                                                                              up the Hudson in 1807.

Coal

This was largely due to a quirk in English geography: England sits on vast quantities of coal, a carbon 

based mineral derived from ancient life forms. Coal burns better and more efficiently than wood and, 

if you have lots of coal, is infinitely cheaper. The English figured out that they could substitute coal for 

wood in the melting of metals, including iron, and blissfully went about tearing coal from the ground 

while manufacturers in Europe looked on jealously.

Mining coal, however, was not an easy task. As you drew more and more coal out of the ground, you 

had to mine deeper and deeper. The deeper the mine, the more it fills with water. In 1712, Thomas 

Newcomen built a simple steam engine that pumped water from the mines. It was a single piston 

engine, and so it used vast amounts of energy. Because of its inefficiency, nobody could think of any 

use for it besides pumping water.

Oil

Entrepreneurs first focused on petroleum oil as a lighting 

substitute for the depleting stock of whale oil. But in 1859, 

Colonel Edwin Drake struck black crude oil when he drilled 

the first modern well in Titusville, Pennsylvania. As widespread 

drilling produced an abundant supply of crude oil, the products derived from it -- especially 

gasoline -- began to inspire inventors. In 1865, the world's first pipeline of about 6 miles was 

laid in the USA. Since then, oil has become an important source of power. By the beginning 

of the 20th century, gasoline provided the fuel for the internal combustion engine.

Electricity

It was not until 1873 that a dynamo capable of prolonged operation was developed, but as early 

as 1831 Michael Faraday demonstrated how electricity could be mechanically produced. Through 

the nineteenth century the use of electric power was limited by small productive capacity, short 

transmission lines, and high cost. Up to 1900 the only cheap electricity was that produced by

generators making use of falling water in the mountains of southeastern France and northern Italy.

Italy, without coal resources, soon had electricity in every village north of Rome. Electric current ran 

Italian textile looms and, eventually, automobile factories. As early as 1890 Florence boasted the 

world's first electric streetcar. Edison invented the light bulb in 1879, bringing electric light into 

houses all over the world. Besides, the world's first power station was built in USA in 1882.

The electrification of Europe proceeded apace in the twentieth century. Russia harnessed the 

Dneiper River and the Irish Free State built power plants on the River Shannon. Germany was 

supplied with electricity in the 1920's, and by 1936 Great Britain had built an ''electric grid'' completely 

covering the country. Electricity was a major factor in the phenomenally rapid industrialization of Russia in

the 1930's.

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