So what is new – solar energy? wind energy? bio-fuels? electric vehicles? No, these and other energy and transportation technologies have been around for over a century. In the past 100 years, no single technology can make a legitimate claim as a new energy or transportation technology, rather than innovation there have been merely tweaks and incremental development of the technologies of over a century ago.
Mankind has long relied on energy provided by other humans and animals to accomplish work. But humans and animals can supply only a limited amount of power, for a limited duration and require a constant energy input of food and water. Thus mankind sought to tap natural resources to overcome these limitations. Perhaps the first successful utilization “natural power” was the addition of sails to ships, replacing or supplementing the power provided by oarsmen. Sailing vessels are known to have existed in Egypt by 3000 BC, and the technology has been worldwide for most of recorded history.
Just as it was over 5,000 years ago, wind is still being being used to power ocean-going vessels. Perhaps the most recent example is the 20,000 ton MV Beluga SkySail which uses a bow-mounted “kite” to achieve fuel savings of approximately 30% while primarily carrying cargo between Europe and North America.
The first known use of windmill to power a machine was in 150 BC by Hero in Alexandria, Egypt. By the 9th Century windmills where widely used thought the Persian Empire to grind gains and pump water, applications that are currently in common usage throughout the world. In 1887 James Blyth constructed a windmill powered generator in Scotland to provide lighting. By the 1920’s the basic design of contemporary 3-blade windmills was fixed, with some of the windmills that supplied electricity on farms, islands and other remote areas during the 1930's still in use today. A Jacobs wind generator installed by Admiral Byrd in Antarctica on his 1933 exposition was found to be operating perfectly in 1955 after running in the severe Antarctic environment without maintenance for over 20 years.
In 1881 a water driven generator in the British town of Godalming, used to provide DC electricity for street lighting, become the first public power supply. While electricity was first generated by the renewable energy sources of wind and water, Thomas Edison added a third energy source in 1885 when he constructed a coal-fired steam DC generator in London, England. Because direct current (DC) electricity could not be transmitted for any great distance early generating plants could service only local customers. The distribution of electricity was revolutionized in 1895 when the work of Nikola Telsa made possible the construction of a large AC (alternating current) water driven generating station at Niagara Falls, NY. The alternating current from the Telsa generators could be transmitted for long distances, and is still the system in common usage today.
Unlike wind–driven generators, steam plants can produce a uniform supply of electricity, and do not require a source of running, or falling, water. Steam driven AC generating rapidly spread throughout the world, providing the majority of our electrical energy. The only major variable is the source of heat used to generate the steam, with fossil fuels being the most popular. Biomass, solar energy, geothermal energy and most recently nuclear energy are also used to produce the steam required to drive the generators. But all share the same design as a water-powered plant, with the steam driving a turbine connected to an AC generator. Coal, wood or nuclear the principle is the same – a “fire” boiling water to make steam which spins a turbine connected to a generator.
The photovoltaic effect was first noted in 1839 by a French physicist, but it was not until 1883 that an American, C. Fritts, built the first solar cell; a selenium/gold device. Early solar cells were highly inefficient, however recent advances have demonstrated efficiencies of 20% to 40%, under laboratory conditions. As individual solar cells have a very low, DC, electrical output many cells must be connected together into modules or arrays to provide useful power. Solar cells have undergone an application curve much like windmills, initially providing low voltage DC power primarily used to charge batteries in remote locations, but are now being connected to the public power supply grid. Current solar cells typically have a life span of 25 – 30 years, and remain economical only with government subsidies.
The history of automobiles is much the same. While a great deal of attention is currently being focused on “new, green” technologies these same technologies were common place in the early years of automobiles. Electric vehicles were popular in Europe in the late 1800’s, with the first major U.S. manufacturer being the Pope Manufacturing Company, established in Hartford, Connecticut in 1897. Within two years Pope had built over 50 cars and in 1899 merged with two
smaller companies to form the Electric Vehicle Company, which by 1904 was producing over 2,000 taxis, buses and trucks per year. A subdivision, of the Electric Vehicle Company, the Columbia Automobile Company was selling hundreds of personal vehicles per year by the turn of the century. During the early 1900’s electric vehicles were the most popular in America, followed by steam, and then gasoline.
During a visit to the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, NY. (a celebration of electric lighting) President William McKinley was shot by an assassin. McKinley was carried to the hospital in the electric ambulance pictured here, becoming the first U.S. President to ride in a motorized ambulance, and most likely the first to ride in an electric vehicle.
In 1903 the Krieger Company produced a hybrid electric/petrol vehicle as did Woods Motor Vehicle Company of Chicago in 1917. Several other companies introduced hybrid vehicles, but none became popular due to slow speed, poor reliability and difficulty of servicing.
Due to their durability many electric trucks were still in service during World War II, during which they found increased usage due to diversion of gasoline to the war effort. If you ate the original Shredded Wheat breakfast cereal, your breakfast was transported from the factory in Niagara Falls, NY to the nearby railroad siding by a fleet of electric trucks until the early 1950's.
With the introduction of the Ford Model T in 1908, and the “self-starter” in 1913 demand for electric vehicles declined. The Model T and Model A Fords that rapidly became the most popular cars in the word, were both so called “flex-fuel” cars, using either petroleum products or biofuels such as ethanol for fuel.
Meanwhile, the Wright brothers flew the first fixed-wing airplane in 1903, at Kitty Hawk, NC. Most importantly they also defined the “three-axis” (yaw, pitch and roll around the center of mass) of flight dynamics, and designed the basic control systems which has made it possible to control all fixed-wing aircraft from their “Flyer” to the space shuttles.
Thus none of the technologies that we commonly rely on today for our energy and transportation are new, they are all over a century old, as are the so-called “green” or “alternate” fuels currently returning to popularity. We might actually refer to such fuels as wind, electricity, ethanol as “traditional” fuels rather than “alternate fuels”.
The current state of our energy and transportation technologies is the result of incremental development or “tweaking” over the past century, not innovation. We are suffering from a lack of innovation, and radical innovation is needed if we are to address and adapt to climate change. Innovation is rooted in education; a rigorous foundation in mathematics, engineering and technology is essential for innovation in energy, transportation, communication, housing and other fields. However, we will also need innovation in governance, institutions, and other social fields. No one country, or society, is going to solve climate change, nor will any one nation be able to adapt without global cooperation. As a civilization, we cannot continue to be satisfied with incremental development, but rather must foster and embrace innovation.
