Leigh Kimmel’s Reviews > Energy and Civilization: A History > Status Update

The growing importance of *control* of transportation and other technology. A runaway team of horses could cause damage but a runaway train or an airplane crash could cause widespread havoc because of the far greater amounts of energy involved, requiring procedural rules to prevent such disasters.

The growth in the size and capacity of jet airliners (with the Concorde as an outlier), as power to mass ratios of engines improved.

Development of modern electrical grids and of hydrocarbon fuel transmission pipeline networks. The development of hydroelectric generation from Westinghouse's first generators at Niagra Falls. The beginning of nuclear energy in the wartime effort to produce a weapon of unparalleled power by releasing the binding energy of the nucleus, as opposed to chemical energy of electron bonds.

Tesla's critical AC patents, which are the foundation of the modern electrical grid.

The development of electricity as a primary energy source. Edison's light bulb, the transformer, and the War of the Currents.

The development of flight, which is heavily dependent upon compact, lightweight energy sources. The new gasoline engine proved perfect for this job. But even with all these new applications for ICE's, the steam engine did not vanish altogether.

The beginnings of the modern car -- and how it would remain an elite item until Henry Ford produced his Model T, and in the process created the modern assembly line.

The maturation of the steam engine, and the development of the internal combustion engine, particularly as petroleum provided a more energy-dense fuel than producer gas or other alternatives.

Barriers on the development of steam transportation.

The earliest versions of the steam engine, and how James Watt made the modifications that produced the practical steam engine design which would be the basis of all further steam engines,