Energy supply in the earlier industrial era

This book commences discussion at the industrial revolution and attempts to unfold the chronology of energy supply between then and the First World War. Coal features throughout the book and there is also detailed coverage of the early years of the oil industry. Political and social factors and the interplay of those with fuel demand are emphasised.

It is difficult to claim to have an in-depth knowledge of a subject if such knowledge is restricted to the present and the recent past. Information and insights on a particular topic from the past can, in a well informed mind, be reprocessed and contribute to the topic in the present and, even more importantly, in the future. This is saying no more than Lewis Carroll’s maxim:

‘It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards’

This monograph of a little under 8000 words is an attempt to outline fuel supply from the late eighteenth century, when steam power was first becoming prevalent, up to immediately before the First World War. The treatment is quantitative, there being a number of calculations relevant to fuel performance. Prices are brought up to date by use of a recognised index accessible on the Web. The importance of the availability of crude oil from circa 1860 onwards is brought out, and growth in the oil industry over the next several decades analysed. Social and political themes feature centrally.

The text is structured as a monograph having sections instead of chapters. It is directed primarily at those with professional involvement in energy supply. Those seeking to understand the role of energy supply in world affairs – more important now than it ever was – might also benefit from the text. I shall welcome comments from readers.

J.C. Jones
Aberdeen, April 2010.

Preface

1. Introduction

2. The early late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries
2.1 Preamble
2.2 Newcomen’s steam engine in original and more advanced forms
2.3 Fuel for steam power in the early 1800s
2.3.1 Rate of steam usage
2.3.2 The cost of coal in circa 1800

3. The Period 1810-1870
3.1 Background
3.2 New applications of coal
3.3 Thermodynamic analysis of early steam locomotives
3.4 Coal production internationally in the mid Nineteenth Century
3.5 Producer gas
3.6 Oil from shale

4. Enter Oil
4.1 Introduction
4.2 The 1860s and 1870s
4.2.1 Introduction of oil pipelines in the USA
4.2.2 Formation of the Standard Oil Company
4.2.3 Other oil companies
4.3 Expansion between 1880 and 1900
4.4 The early years of automobile manufacture
4.5 The Mexican oil industry
4.6 Fuel gas usage at this period

5. A glimpse into the ‘future’

6. Concluding remarks

7. References

Postscript

Endnotes