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I thought the most important fuel of the Dutch golden age was peat, not wind. The first really fossil-fuelled economy. (You can see evidence of it flying over,

by iguy 6y ago

I thought the most important fuel of the Dutch golden age was peat, not wind. The first really fossil-fuelled economy. (You can see evidence of it flying over, marshy areas where this was strip-mined, I mean strips the size you could load onto a barge & deliver to town.) Edit -- I can't find a great source, but [1] has some figures, putting peat somewhere over 100x as much energy as wind, 17thC. But of course heat energy and mechanical energy were two separate categories then, before steam engines, so it's not easy to compare. He tries to estimate equivalent land areas required to either grow wood (for heat) or feed horses (mechanical) and seem to reach comparable figures. (Which together are a bit less than the figure for horse-area saved by sailing, instead of carts. For which NL was also ideal, of course.) I guess the more interesting, and harder, question is the degree to which each of these enabled economic progress. Sawing wood for ships, vs. baking pottery & bricks. Certainly the easy peat more or less ran out, about the same time that the UK got serious about coal. [1] https://www.peatandculture.org/documenten/Zeeuw.pdf https://www.peatandculture.org/documenten/Zeeuw.pdf

vanderZwan 6y ago
I know peat was used for heating in the house, but I don't know how useful it was to run steam engines. Anyway, my claim is based on two articles from Low Tech Magazine, each with their own sources: > So-called 'industrial water mills' had been used in Antiquity and were widely adopted in Europe by the fifteenth century, but 'industrial windmills' appeared only in the 1600s in the Netherlands, a country that took wind power to the extreme. The Dutch even applied wind power to reclaim land from the sea, and the whole country was kept dry by intermittently operating wind mills until 1850. > For example, the Dutch shipbuilding industry, which was centred around some 450 wind-powered saw mills, imported virtually all its naval stores from the Baltic: wood, tar, iron, hemp and flax > One of the most spectacular developments of industrial wind power technology occurred in the Zaan district, a region situated just above Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Although the area is surrounded by water, the potential of water power was limited because the land is as flat as it can be and so the flow of the rivers is low. The wind, on the other hand, is strong. Many of the applications of windmills described above appeared first (and sometimes only) in the Zaan district. > It is said that the region was the world’s first industrialized area. From 1600 to 1750, when the Netherlands became an important economical power, around 1,000 windmills were built and operated here (see the map on the left). Mills were given names, just like ships. Of course, that doesn't mean that coal (and peat) powered engines weren't used at the same time! Just that the Netherlands really doubled down on wind power very early on. [0] https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2009/10/history-of-industrial-windmills.html https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2009/10/history-of-industria... [1] https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2017/09/how-to-run-the-economy-on-the-weather.html https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2017/09/how-to-run-the-econo...
- iguy 6y ago
  Thanks, didn't see this comment while I was digging for references for mine... I'm sure I read something more recent & more quantitative. But the site you link has this which is not bad: https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/09/peat-and-coal-fossil-fuels-in-pre-industrial-times.html https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/09/peat-and-coal-foss...
  - vanderZwan 6y ago
    Yeah, Low Tech Magazine is run by Kris de Decker, a trained historian. He's pretty good with sourcing his articles :)
- phicoh 6y ago
  What happened was that wind mills were fitted with a steam engine in the 19th century. And later, end of 19th century, factories were built to be powered by steam from day one. Steam came to the Netherlands relatively late. The Netherlands were quite dominant when everything was built from wood. The Netherlands lost its edge when steel became the dominant (structural) element.

by iguy 6y ago

vanderZwan 6y ago

I know peat was used for heating in the house, but I don't know how useful it was to run steam engines. Anyway, my claim is based on two articles from Low Tech Magazine, each with their own sources: > So-called 'industrial water mills' had been used in Antiquity and were widely adopted in Europe by the fifteenth century, but 'industrial windmills' appeared only in the 1600s in the Netherlands, a country that took wind power to the extreme. The Dutch even applied wind power to reclaim land from the sea, and the whole country was kept dry by intermittently operating wind mills until 1850. > For example, the Dutch shipbuilding industry, which was centred around some 450 wind-powered saw mills, imported virtually all its naval stores from the Baltic: wood, tar, iron, hemp and flax > One of the most spectacular developments of industrial wind power technology occurred in the Zaan district, a region situated just above Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Although the area is surrounded by water, the potential of water power was limited because the land is as flat as it can be and so the flow of the rivers is low. The wind, on the other hand, is strong. Many of the applications of windmills described above appeared first (and sometimes only) in the Zaan district. > It is said that the region was the world’s first industrialized area. From 1600 to 1750, when the Netherlands became an important economical power, around 1,000 windmills were built and operated here (see the map on the left). Mills were given names, just like ships. Of course, that doesn't mean that coal (and peat) powered engines weren't used at the same time! Just that the Netherlands really doubled down on wind power very early on. [0] https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2009/10/history-of-industrial-windmills.html https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2009/10/history-of-industria... [1] https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2017/09/how-to-run-the-economy-on-the-weather.html https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2017/09/how-to-run-the-econo...

iguy 6y ago
Thanks, didn't see this comment while I was digging for references for mine... I'm sure I read something more recent & more quantitative. But the site you link has this which is not bad: https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/09/peat-and-coal-fossil-fuels-in-pre-industrial-times.html https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/09/peat-and-coal-foss...
- vanderZwan 6y ago
  Yeah, Low Tech Magazine is run by Kris de Decker, a trained historian. He's pretty good with sourcing his articles :)
phicoh 6y ago
What happened was that wind mills were fitted with a steam engine in the 19th century. And later, end of 19th century, factories were built to be powered by steam from day one. Steam came to the Netherlands relatively late. The Netherlands were quite dominant when everything was built from wood. The Netherlands lost its edge when steel became the dominant (structural) element.