3 ms·
Yeah, the cost of labour amongst city dwellers seems very far from relevant when you’re stuck down a pit in Wales. I think it’s interesting to note that the or
by moomin 2y ago
Yeah, the cost of labour amongst city dwellers seems very far from relevant when you’re stuck down a pit in Wales.
I think it’s interesting to note that the original steam engines were specifically for coal mines. A lot of the cost of coal was transportation; at the source it was actually pretty cheap.
- vundercind 2y agoFor a while it was the only place where burning coal to power an (early, inefficient) engine made any economic sense. There was an ACOUP piece linked on here recently that did a pretty convincing job of explaining that you needed the twin circumstances of (relatively) deep coal mining (which means you need existing substantial demand for coal unrelated to powering engines) and a lot of effort already being spent on developing pressure vessels (say… a long-running arms race for better and more-powerful cannon) to both get the Industrial Revolution at all, and to see it develop so remarkably fast as it did. Absent the former, it just doesn’t happen, and absent the latter, it’s a lot slower to get going.