TABLE OF CONTENTS In Chapter 6, we discussed the development of steam engines during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These engines enabled industrialization by making available the vast stores of energy contained in coal, wood, and oil. By burning fuel, chemical energy is converted into heat energy, which in turn can be used to boil water to produce steam. By letting the steam expand against a piston or a turbine blade, heat energy can be converted to mechanical energy. In this way, a steam engine can power machinery.
Steam engines had two major defects, however. First, the mechanical energy was available only at the place where the steam engine was located. Second, practical steam engines were big, hot, and dirty. As the use of machines run by steam engines increased, people were crowded together in factories, and their homes stood in the shadow of the smoke stacks. Even steam-powered locomotives, though useful for transportation, were limited by their size and weight. They also added further air pollution.
Using one central power plant for sending out energy for use at a distance could partially overcome these defects. The energy transmitted by the central power plant could drive machines of any desired size and power at the most practical locations. After Volta's development of the battery, many scientists and inventors speculated that electricity might provide such a means of distributing energy and running machines. But the energy in batteries is quickly used up unless it is delivered...
