For example we could flow tomato paste through wires and the flow would generate energy instead. Why does everything come down to flow of electrons.
In: 0
Look up “line shafting”. Centralized power distribution is at the core of our technology in the modern industrialized world. But before we could run everything off compact electric motors, we use miles of shafts, belts, pulleys and gears. Mechanical transmission was by far the most common form of power transmission before electricity. All that shafting was driven by one centralized but semi local power source, usually a water wheel or steam engine.
There were other forms of power transmission too; a handful of cities in the UK had centralized hydraulic power that supplied high pressure water to factories and warehouses, who used “water motors” to drive lifts and hoists. Pneumatic transmission saw modest use; pneumatic delivery tubes are probably the most well known but compressed air has been used to drive various engines when the situation calls for it, i.e. mostly tunneling and mining equipment. At one time though, the wealthiest citizens of Paris could subscribe to a precision time keeping service, which would connect their house hold to their network of pneumatic clocks.
Perhaps the second most common form of centralized power transmission today is pressurized steam. In NYC, ConEd not only supplies electricity as a utility but also generate and distribute steam throughout the city in steam tunnels. This steam is used for heating, among other uses in places like hospitals, factories and laundries. A lot of institutional campuses today also have a steam plants to distribute steam to their buildings, not unlike how 100 years ago, those same institutional campuses had their own power houses to generate electricity.
Latest Answers