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I think that the term industrial revolution is a bit misleading even, it should be named the fossil fuel revolution. Because cheap and abundant energy is what d

by tda 4y ago

I think that the term industrial revolution is a bit misleading even, it should be named the fossil fuel revolution. Because cheap and abundant energy is what differentiates the world post industrial revolution from the world before more than anything else

ZeroGravitas 4y ago
The industrial revolution used water power. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_power_during_the_Industrial_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_power_during_the_Industr... > Improvements to the steam engine were some of the most important technologies of the Industrial Revolution, although steam did not replace water power in importance in Britain until after the Industrial Revolution
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- Robotbeat 4y ago
  Precisely this. Coal for powering machinery was just at the science experiment stage in the First Industrial Revolution. Water power was the workhorse. Even for iron and steel making, America (which has an abundance of trees) relied primarily on charcoal well into the mid 1800s.
  - tomxor 4y ago
    > Water power was the workhorse Wasn't the workhorse the workhorse before water power, allowing larger scale farming - which itself is another large step in human history towards increased efficiency and mass production that predates both the industrial revolution and the Roman empire. I believe horses and even people were also used to drive non-agricultural machinery before water and steam. The underlying theme to all these things feels more like "automation" than any specific energy source which are seemingly arbitrary (whatever is at hand, quite literally sometimes).
    - towaway15463 4y ago
      It’s still energy. The difference in power output between a horse and an engine is quite large. You also need cheap energy in order to automate anything. Energy derived from people and horses is expensive.
    - jcranmer 4y ago
      The energy source is actually very important, because it dictates how much energy you have to invest to gain extra energy. Using draft animals has a very low rate of return. During my grandparents' time, the draft animals used to produce the food consumed about a third of the total farm produce--and this is likely to be a more efficient farm than any that existed a thousand or two thousand years ago. Fundamentally, this means you have wildly different costs for energy. Modern electrical energy costs around ten cents per kilowatt-hour. Gasoline fuel costs in the US right now turn out to around eleven cents per kilowatt-hour basis (although obviously an internal combustion engine isn't the same efficiency as a electric engine). By way of comparison, a single workhorse for an entire working day will put out maybe 6 kWh of energy, and the food input requirements for that workhorse are going to cost far more than 60 cents.
    - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
      Yes, I think thats probably a better way to think of it. The "water frame" was a key element of the industrialisation, and what was that initially powered by? That's right horses. It was only because they used water later on that it got that name. The fact that they were basically automating an industry that India had led for centuries, and couldn't compete on wages seems key to the whole thing (and still needed government support to stop the cheap manually produced imports from crushing the early automation). Another example is the early use of steam engines in iron production, where they were used to pump water, which then did the actual work (because steam engines couldn't rotate yet).
  - towaway15463 4y ago
    Bingo. When trees are abundant charcoal is the superior fuel. It’s much cleaner to burn than coal, weighs less and doesn’t require you to mine it out of the ground which is difficult and dangerous. I’d argue the difficulty of mining and burning coal are what kicked off the industrial revolution. Mines necessitated the invention of coal powered pumps and other equipment. To burn coal efficiently you need iron stoves which drove demand for foundries and metallurgical development. Once you’ve got lots of coal and lots of iron and people who know how to work with it you start getting bright ideas about other things you can do with all that coal and iron.
    - Robotbeat 4y ago
      That would be a good argument for the second half of the first industrial revolution, but in the 1700s (the industrial Revolution starting around 1760 or so), steam power was a footnote.
      - notahacker 4y ago
        A footnote that was arguably one of the key driving forces though. Coal was burned in stoves and used in blast furnaces as well as in newfangled Newcomen Engines Even Canal Mania, the Industrial Revolution mass expansion of boat transport using horses and artificial ditches (all tech familiar to the Romans) kicked off in the 1760s as a way to get coal out of the Duke of Bridgwater's mines.
        ZeroGravitas 4y ago
        They already transported the coal by boat, and they copied the idea of artificial canals as an obvious incremental improvement. I'd say the business aspects of canal mania might have been a bigger factor. So the overly neat "its was all about coal" story doesn't really hang together. One of the first canals in the UK was built, because someone blocked the river with a weir, so that they could run a watermill. It's all a bit fractal.
        notahacker 4y ago
- mannykannot 4y ago
  This is essentially a definitional issue - do you define it narrowly, with multiple sequential revolutions along the path of industrialization, or broadly, with multiple phases? The facts are the same either way. Personally, I prefer the latter view, on account of how the various stages interacted. Water-powered mechanical fabric manufacture greatly expanded the use case for rotary-output steam engines, and both technologies took off synergistically when the latter became available with sufficient efficiency. Mechanized manufacture greatly expanded the use case for mechanized transport...
- t_mann 4y ago
  > The industrial revolution used water power. No. "Water power is the use of falling or fast-running water to produce electricity or to power machines" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydropower https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydropower). Steam engines used coal, ie fossil fuels. By your defintion, even nuclear plants would be "water power".
  - zardo 4y ago
    > No. "Water power is the use of falling or fast-running water to produce electricity or to power machines" Which is what powered most factories throughout the industrial revolution. Not using electricity obviously, machines would be connected by belt to overhead power shafts, which were connected to a water wheel.

by tda 4y ago

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

The industrial revolution used water power. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_power_during_the_Industrial_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_power_during_the_Industr... > Improvements to the steam engine were some of the most important technologies of the Industrial Revolution, although steam did not replace water power in importance in Britain until after the Industrial Revolution

deleted 4y ago
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deleted 4y ago
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Robotbeat 4y ago
Precisely this. Coal for powering machinery was just at the science experiment stage in the First Industrial Revolution. Water power was the workhorse. Even for iron and steel making, America (which has an abundance of trees) relied primarily on charcoal well into the mid 1800s.
- tomxor 4y ago
  > Water power was the workhorse Wasn't the workhorse the workhorse before water power, allowing larger scale farming - which itself is another large step in human history towards increased efficiency and mass production that predates both the industrial revolution and the Roman empire. I believe horses and even people were also used to drive non-agricultural machinery before water and steam. The underlying theme to all these things feels more like "automation" than any specific energy source which are seemingly arbitrary (whatever is at hand, quite literally sometimes).
  - towaway15463 4y ago
    It’s still energy. The difference in power output between a horse and an engine is quite large. You also need cheap energy in order to automate anything. Energy derived from people and horses is expensive.
  - jcranmer 4y ago
    The energy source is actually very important, because it dictates how much energy you have to invest to gain extra energy. Using draft animals has a very low rate of return. During my grandparents' time, the draft animals used to produce the food consumed about a third of the total farm produce--and this is likely to be a more efficient farm than any that existed a thousand or two thousand years ago. Fundamentally, this means you have wildly different costs for energy. Modern electrical energy costs around ten cents per kilowatt-hour. Gasoline fuel costs in the US right now turn out to around eleven cents per kilowatt-hour basis (although obviously an internal combustion engine isn't the same efficiency as a electric engine). By way of comparison, a single workhorse for an entire working day will put out maybe 6 kWh of energy, and the food input requirements for that workhorse are going to cost far more than 60 cents.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    Yes, I think thats probably a better way to think of it. The "water frame" was a key element of the industrialisation, and what was that initially powered by? That's right horses. It was only because they used water later on that it got that name. The fact that they were basically automating an industry that India had led for centuries, and couldn't compete on wages seems key to the whole thing (and still needed government support to stop the cheap manually produced imports from crushing the early automation). Another example is the early use of steam engines in iron production, where they were used to pump water, which then did the actual work (because steam engines couldn't rotate yet).
- towaway15463 4y ago
  Bingo. When trees are abundant charcoal is the superior fuel. It’s much cleaner to burn than coal, weighs less and doesn’t require you to mine it out of the ground which is difficult and dangerous. I’d argue the difficulty of mining and burning coal are what kicked off the industrial revolution. Mines necessitated the invention of coal powered pumps and other equipment. To burn coal efficiently you need iron stoves which drove demand for foundries and metallurgical development. Once you’ve got lots of coal and lots of iron and people who know how to work with it you start getting bright ideas about other things you can do with all that coal and iron.
  - Robotbeat 4y ago
    That would be a good argument for the second half of the first industrial revolution, but in the 1700s (the industrial Revolution starting around 1760 or so), steam power was a footnote.
    - notahacker 4y ago
      A footnote that was arguably one of the key driving forces though. Coal was burned in stoves and used in blast furnaces as well as in newfangled Newcomen Engines Even Canal Mania, the Industrial Revolution mass expansion of boat transport using horses and artificial ditches (all tech familiar to the Romans) kicked off in the 1760s as a way to get coal out of the Duke of Bridgwater's mines.
      - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
        They already transported the coal by boat, and they copied the idea of artificial canals as an obvious incremental improvement. I'd say the business aspects of canal mania might have been a bigger factor. So the overly neat "its was all about coal" story doesn't really hang together. One of the first canals in the UK was built, because someone blocked the river with a weir, so that they could run a watermill. It's all a bit fractal.
        notahacker 4y ago
mannykannot 4y ago
This is essentially a definitional issue - do you define it narrowly, with multiple sequential revolutions along the path of industrialization, or broadly, with multiple phases? The facts are the same either way. Personally, I prefer the latter view, on account of how the various stages interacted. Water-powered mechanical fabric manufacture greatly expanded the use case for rotary-output steam engines, and both technologies took off synergistically when the latter became available with sufficient efficiency. Mechanized manufacture greatly expanded the use case for mechanized transport...
t_mann 4y ago
> The industrial revolution used water power. No. "Water power is the use of falling or fast-running water to produce electricity or to power machines" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydropower https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydropower). Steam engines used coal, ie fossil fuels. By your defintion, even nuclear plants would be "water power".
- zardo 4y ago
  > No. "Water power is the use of falling or fast-running water to produce electricity or to power machines" Which is what powered most factories throughout the industrial revolution. Not using electricity obviously, machines would be connected by belt to overhead power shafts, which were connected to a water wheel.