Significant inventions in energy history cannot be viewed in isolation from the socioeconomic and cultural shifts that precede and accompany them. This blog series will explore technologies and innovations in the energy field that have prompted life-altering societal shifts and massive policy changes.
Modern technologies can spark massive economic growth, but they also carry significant human costs that ripple throughout society. This narrative dives into how the steam engine played a key role in Britain’s colonization of South Asia.
One of the earliest versions of the steam engine was developed by Thomas Newcomen in 1712. It took advantage of steam power to create continuous motion by drawing steam into a cylinder, or piston, and quickly cooling that steam with cold water to create a vacuum that pushes the piston that pulls a weight. Originally designed to pump water from underground mines, Newcomen’s invention accelerated coal production in England by allowing deeper access to mines previously blocked by water.
Image source: Lira, C. Michigan State University. “Newcomen Atmospheric Engine Description”. 2006. Available at: https://www.egr.msu.edu/~lira/supp/steam/newcomen.htm
This innovative equipment allowed for a major expansion in England’s energy industry by improving its ability to meet growing coal demand; nevertheless, the Newcomen steam engine was extremely large, expensive to operate (with a thermal efficiency of roughly 0.5 percent), and not particularly useful in a non-coal mining context. Newcomen’s steam engine predated railroads, so each unit had to be constructed locally with materials and fuels transported in by the island’s canal network and horse-drawn wagons. The Industrial Revolution prompted improvements in the Newcomen engine—most notably by James Watt, who developed a separate cooling chamber that increased the steam engine’s efficiency by roughly 2 to 5 percent. By 1782, Watt’s improved steam engine was not limited to mining. The result was increased production of goods in locations where water power was not available. Once adapted for rail and ships in the 1800s, the coal-fired steam engine expedited and expanded overseas trade of raw materials, finished goods, and people.
Source: Royal Museums Greenwich. N.d. “Ships and steam power”. Available at: https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/steam-power
New technology amplifies the effect of conventional work. Just as the creation of the internet led to the growth of online shopping, ultimately shifting patterns of individual consumption, the spread of the steam engine created “industrial unrest” that affected labor structures at a local and global scale. For instance, the steam engine resulted in a boom in English textiles, which was aided by a series of British economic policy choices, particularly the ban of Indian textiles in the late 1700s. While growth in England’s textile industry drove rising demand for raw cotton from India, by the first half of the 19th century, Indian cotton revenue declined by a third. This trade imbalance, combined with taxes and undervaluing traditional textile practices, prompted an uprising against the British East India Company in 1857. This unrest was a catalyst for the beginning of the formal British direct rule in India, or the start of the British Raj under Queen Victoria.
When viewed in isolation, the steam engine is an invention that improved productive efficiency and allowed for more work to happen with less human power. But when considered holistically, steam engines were the catalyst for a vast shift in energy use, labor forces, political and economic spheres, and cultural and linguistic patterns. A close analogy for the digital age might be data. Applied to essentially all aspects of life, our reliance on modern communications technologies not only affects the global economy but has profound social impacts. In the last three to four decades alone, data has fundamentally transformed the way communities and individuals interact with one other.
