Chapter 71: A Shocking Development
A pillar of smoke rose over Hermes. The cause of the smoke was a fire. Fortunately, the fire was not from houses burning. It was a controlled fire, albeit much larger than any others. The city was already filled with factories belching out smoke every day, so this new source of emissions wasn't anything new.
However, an individual factory doesn't actually emit that much by itself since the fires used to run the steam engines are rather small. The pillars of smoke certainly were large from the perspective of someone from a preindustrial society, but the new pillar of smoke dwarfed an individual pillar from a factory. Still, there was only one for now.
The thing creating the huge cloud of smoke was something new. It was a power plant. A coal fired one to be precise. Massive amounts of coal fed into a large furnace which heated up vast amounts of water. The water in the pipes would turn to steam and the steam would be forced through a turbine. The force of the steam would cause the turbine to spin rapidly.
Afterwards, the steam would go into the cooling tower and would turn back into water before being cycled back again. This process would repeat and the turbine would continue to spin as long as coal was put in. The turbine spun a large magnet with wires around it which would then lead to the creation of electricity. From there, the electricity would be sent to the rest of the city.
From a certain perspective, this was all just one giant steam engine. Water was heated up and turned into steam which would then provide energy by turning something. Any fossil fuel fed power plant would operate on the same principles and thus would basically be a steam engine.In fact, a nuclear power plant also did the same thing, using uranium to heat up water which would then become steam that turns a turbine. Essentially, the steam engine was the epitome of energy generating technology.
The power plant was the first of its kind in Hermes. In the future there were plans to build more. However, for now there was only a limited amount of electricity available. The electricity would be used to provide lighting for homes by powering light bulbs. Now, every home would be able to have lighting any time of the day, even during the darkest nights.
The power draw from lighting would be the highest during the night, so there was still excess power to be used during the day. In order to utilize this power, several new factories had been created to run off of electricity. The power from a single power plant was unable to power all of the factories, so full electrification of industry would have to wait until more power plants were built.
Bringing electricity into factories would have a large impact on productivity. The reason was that while steam engines were powerful, they were also quite inflexible. Steam engines could operate very large pieces of machinery but it would be harder for them to deal with many small things. Also, some types of equipment could only be run off of electricity. Electrical equipment can also be started and stopped more easily. It was easier to run a small motor using electricity than it is trying to gear down a large steam engine. In this way, smaller facilities can also make use of machinery even without having a steam engine.
The main change was that the power driving the factory was no longer produced locally but was rather produced at a central location and then delivered to each of the different places it needed to go. Right now, there were only a few factories that ran off electricity but it was hoped that in the future more would adopt it.
The civilian benefits were even greater. With electric lighting, people were no longer bound by the sun and they could work for longer every day. Kids could study and read books using electric lights instead of candles which could start fires. Despite how poorly insulated wires or an improper use of power outlets could cause fires, electricity was actually a net positive to fire safety. Besides the elimination of candles, there were other benefits. Electricity could be used to power smoke detectors in houses. Although smoke detectors were still a bit too advanced to be produced at the moment, in the future they could bring great benefits to fire safety.
Electricity also paved the way for new devices that would be introduced in the future. Electrification allowed for the development of devices like refrigerators, washing machines, and other household appliances. In the far future, televisions might become common in every house in Hermes.
The response to electrification was overwhelmingly positive. The people loved having a way to have light in their house without the trouble of using candles and trying to light them. It was much easier to flip a switch than it is to find a match to light a candle or worse - trying to use a flint. Also, the new electricity powered factories were much quieter because they didn't have a steam engine making a lot of noise. Electrical motors were much quieter than an engine.
The rapid pace of developments had been quite shocking to the inhabitants of Hermes. The development of electrical power was yet another wondrous invention. Creating light without a fire had seemed to be magic from the perspective of the ordinary people, but now it had been done without any need for magic at all.
From the collection of the coal to the generation of electricity, none of the steps needed a witch to be involved. Everything could be operated by the common people. While Neverwinter did indeed have electricity first, they relied on Mystery Moon to make it happen. Using a witch wasn't scalable and thus it could only be used in limited cases. Still, Steven often grumbled about Neverwinter's "hax" and how unfair it was.
Steven had been thinking of ways to promote electricity. He had thought of some slogans such as "national power equals industry plus electrification of the whole nation", but he soon realized it was a bad idea. With the elementary education becoming widespread, people were learning arithmetic. They could twist the slogan into "national power minus industry equals electrification" or "industry equals national power minus electrification". With this minor blunder fortunately avoided, Steven continued along his day working to improve the nation.
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