Energy: A Human History, Rhodes - C

                                                As early as Elizabethan England, coal began to replace wood as the preferred fuel for heating and cooking. The demand for coal led to deeper mines, and those mines were susceptible to flooding. Relieving mines of water required power, and in the 17th century, various English and German scientists tried to harness steam. Thomas Newcomen invented a coal fired steam engine in 1712 that would pump the coal mines of the UK for two hundred years. In 1769,  James Watt fabricated the first steam engine in Glasgow. The Industrial Revolution was at hand. In the early years of the next century, steam was powering railroads and a variety of mechanical devices.
                                               Also at the end of the 18th century, the English and Scotch pursued  solutions to replace the candle. Indoor gas lighting was first used in Manchester in the late 1790's. In 1807, Pall Mall was the first street in London to be lit by coal gas. Throughout the first half of the century, high quality whale sperm oil remained the standard of excellence for residential indoor lighting because of the consistency and quality of the light. As the whales' population diminished, kerosene next took preeminence. Rock oil, the early nomenclature of petroleum, was discovered in northeastern Pennsylvania in the late 1850's and would soon dominate the lighting market. In the second half of the century, decades of electrical research paid off as current now could light a room, a building and even a city.
                                              By the beginning of the 20th century, steam, electricity and the internal combustion engine were all competing to drive the wheels of the new horseless carriages.  The engine won and as auto usage surged, so did the supply of petroleum around the world. Across the industrialized world, excessive use of petroleum products in conjunction with coal fired electrical plants led to massive amounts of smog, sometimes leading to death and certainly, a deteriorating environment. In the 1960's, concern for the well-being of the planet led to a massive movement to curb the damaging effects of the energy industries of the world. We have turned to wind, the original propellant of the sail boat, along with solar and other sources of power to try to face a cleaner future. Hopefully, science will deliver it.
                                             The author's book on the Manhattan project is one of the best I have ever read and it won a Pulitzer Prize. His excellent book on the H-Bomb was also critically honored. This brief treatise is not in that league.