Power The Genius of Invention



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Good evening and welcome to The Genius Of Invention.

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Tonight from Drax, the largest power station in Britain!

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Every day, seven million of us rely on this place.

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The screen you're looking at, the lights in your house,

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the cup of tea in your hand

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none of that would be possible

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without what's happening right here, right now.

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And because of the enormous contribution

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made by a handful of brilliant minds

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who unlocked the key to power itself.

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Tonight, we'll be celebrating Britain's amazing history of inventiveness,

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getting to grips with the very nature of the invention

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and taking a glimpse into the future.

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Just what does it take to change the world?

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Hello, I'm Michael Mosley.

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In this series,

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we're exploring some of the greatest inventions in history

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and the geniuses behind them.

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I'm joined by industrial archaeologist Dr Cassie Newland.

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-Nerdy but nice.

-Hello!

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-And colourful Professor of Engineering Mark Miodownik.

-Hello.

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We three will be uncovering the story of invention,

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from the Industrial Revolution to the present day.

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From conquering power to the transport revolution,

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telecommunication and the moving image.

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Tonight, we are concentrating on power -

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how we learned to produce it, control it and consume it!

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Until a few centuries ago,

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we had to rely on wind, water or muscle for power.

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Then, we learned to make our own.

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From the steam engine

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to the electrical generator

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and finally, the steam turbine.

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Tonight's inventions represent pivotal moments

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in our growing love affair with power.

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From a machine that could replace six horses

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to today's vast power stations

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that do the work of six million horses.

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300 years ago, a blacksmith from Devon

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built the first practical working steam engine.

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I'll be looking at why the story of steam

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is the story of invention itself.

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This allowed Watt to build steam engines that were more powerful

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than anything that had been seen before.

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This drove the Industrial Revolution and made Britain rich.

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A century later, the brilliant Michael Faraday

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uncovered the mysteries of electromagnetism.

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The age of electricity had arrived.

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Power was separated from its source and free to travel everywhere.

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But what's happening is quite amazing - the light is lighting up.

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And that means electricity is being generated in the coil.

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What Faraday had created here is the world's first electricity generator.

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Now, we had power, but we wanted more!

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The aristocratic Charles Algernon Parsons

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discovered how to produce it in huge quantities.

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We still rely on his compound turbine.

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Cassie will be finding out

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how these three inventions are crucial

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to the way we generate power today,

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here, at Britain's biggest power station.

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This is the turbine hall at Drax,

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where they actually generate the electricity

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on a scale far greater than Faraday's lab equipment

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but the principle is exactly the same.

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All the inventions we are looking at tonight are about finding ways

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to put energy in and get useful energy out in the form of work.

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That is what power is and that's why we are here at Drax,

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where they do it on a truly gigantic scale.

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Now, this is the maintenance store

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and in here, there are just enormous bits of metal

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because these bits form the guts of a power station.

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And, as I said, everything here is huge, including Andy who runs it.

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-Hi, Andy.

-Hi.

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What sort of stuff have you got here? What's this, for example?

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Basically, this is one of our main steam valves

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that admits steam into our turbine

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and it has to do it accurately

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so that we can maintain a shaft speed of 3,000 rpm.

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OK, because I'm used to heart valves and they are about this size,

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-so this is a good million times bigger.

-Sure, yeah.

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-But it does much the same thing, yeah?

-Absolutely.

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And these, I guess, are nuts and bolts Drax style, aren't they?

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Yeah, yeah, a typical turbine bolt, basically.

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HE LAUGHS

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That's a good thousand times heavier

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than anything I've handled before.

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Oh, wow!

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And this is just for holding bits together?

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Yes, a nut that fits round the fastener. Yeah.

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Thank you, Andy.

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Now, everything here at Drax has to be so huge,

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because they generate such vast amounts of power.

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But how do our three inventions fit in?

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-Hi, Cassie.

-Hiya!

-What have you been finding out, then?

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Well, I'm going to take it right from the top,

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from the beginning, from our very first invention of the night -

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the steam engine, the first time

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anyone takes heat energy

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and turns it into usable useful power.

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Now, you might not know this, but 75% of power stations worldwide,

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including nuclear ones, use steam to generate electricity.

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So to create steam, you need to heat water,

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which means you need a primary source of power

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and just as with steam engines 300 years ago,

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here, at Drax, that primary source of power is coal.

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Take a look at this.

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Drax uses so much coal that it has its very own railway.

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Each day, 30 trains bring in over a thousand tonnes.

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And every year, Drax burns an astonishing ten million tonnes.

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Once the coal is unloaded, it comes here the pulverisers.

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60 grinding machines, each containing ten giant metal balls

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that pulverise the coal to a fine combustible powder.

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All that coal provides the energy to heat the water in six giant boilers,

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each the height of a 15-storey building.

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'The temperature inside is 568 degrees.'

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Wow!

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Drax has to be so big

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to provide the enormous amounts of power we demand every day.

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But the way it makes that power is rooted in the past.

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The world's first ever practical power source, the steam engine,

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burned coal to make steam to provide work energy.

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And, 300 years later, Drax is still doing that.

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The pictures are very impressive, but what was it actually like being there?

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Oh, it's violently noisy!

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The whole place is covered with a fine powder of coal dust

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and you're like a hamster in one of those space-age cages -

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it's all mesh floors and ladders.

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And vast! It's not a building,

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it's like a machine with a hat on.

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But that's only half of it - look at this place.

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This is the turbine hall

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and, in here, you can really see how a long history of British invention

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still informs the way we generate power today.

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Steam comes from the boilers and feeds six giant turbines,

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all based on Charles Parsons' original invention of 1884.

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These, in turn, power six electrical generators,

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based on the discoveries of Michael Faraday.

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It's here that heat energy is finally converted to work energy usable power.

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Enough to create electricity for six million homes,

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24 hours a day, seven days a week.

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The thing that strikes me

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is that, although this is all incredibly modern,

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it clearly has its roots in the past.

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Yeah. I mean, the principles are exactly the same,

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it's just vastly scaled up. It's an amazing place.

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It is and what's really impressive is not just the physical environment,

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but the ideas that underpin it.

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After all, humans had to dream up everything that is around us

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and, throughout tonight's show, we are going to be tracing

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how, together, our inventions made it possible.

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And it all started about 300 years ago,

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when we finally cracked the mystery of power itself.

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Mark is going to introduce us

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to the universal forces that we used to do it.

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This is a working model of the first ever steam engine.

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The engine that changed the world

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and, quite rightly, the first invention in our series.

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Now, in the 18th and 19th century,

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when people were thinking about using steam,

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they thought, "Well, just get a lot of steam and get it to rotate something."

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But when that's metal and heavy - you had to have very high pressure.

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But, when they tried working on those principles,

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what they found is that when you get a very high-pressure steam, it blows everything up.

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They didn't have the materials to make it work and people died left, right and centre.

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So that was a dead end and they didn't really know where to go forward

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until there was a bit of genius.

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The first ever practical engine was powered by steam,

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but not in the way you might expect.

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It uses steam the wrong way.

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When you heat water,

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it turns from a liquid into a vapour,

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which will expand

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to replace the air in a vessel.

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But if you seal that vessel

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and add cold water to condense the steam,

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it will return to liquid form

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and leave behind a vacuum.

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What happens next is the force behind all early steam engines.

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I want to show you a demo

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-showing how using steam the wrong way was actually the right way.

-OK.

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This is a normal oil drum

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and we filled it with steam. And I'm going to destroy it

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to show you the principle behind the steam engine.

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I have read about this but I've never seen it before.

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Is going to be dangerous?

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It's moderately dangerous for the drum at least,

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but for us, it should be fine.

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We've got steam in here but, though it's coming out at quite a rate there,

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inside here is the pressure around us, it's the same pressure as air.

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But that isn't such an unappreciable pressure.

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You've got a sky full of air on your shoulders.

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That's like having a tonne pushing down on you.

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Why when you've got a tonne of weight hanging on your shoulders, don't you crush?

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Yeah, OK. Well, that's true.

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But it's also in your lungs pushing out, it's also around you pushing up.

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So you've got it from all directions and so it all equilibrates out.

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Now, what we're going to try is say,

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if you've got the pressure of the steam inside and the air outside,

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what if you mess around with that equilibrium,

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how much force does that generate?

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That is a lot, presumably.

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A lot!

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-Now, your job is to turn off the steam.

-OK.

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And, Cassie, your job is to turn on a spray of water

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-which is going to cool the steam.

-OK.

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And my job is to direct you from over here.

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From way back there, OK... Have you ever done this before?

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I've done this before, but on a small scale, on a tin can

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and it works beautifully.

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How quickly?

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-In quick succession. OK, ready?

-Yeah.

-GO!

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THEY CHUCKLE

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Right.

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SHE YELLS

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THEY LAUGH

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That was good!

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It made a really big noise.

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-That was very, very good. Well done!

-It was!

-Brilliant!

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Oh, my goodness!

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THEY LAUGH

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Now, that is absolutely astonishing.

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I really wasn't expecting the force to be that great

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it just crumpled this steel as if it was just a toy.

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And that's atmospheric pressure?

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Yeah, this is just the pressure of the room crumpling in,

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so we created a vacuum in there by putting the steam in there,

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then turning off the valve and then Cassie spurted some water in there

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and that condensed the steam, creating a vacuum

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and the rest of the room did the rest. Incredible.

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SHE LAUGHS

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That demonstrates it's exactly the same force

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that was harnessed in the first steam engine.

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Now, its full name was the Atmospheric Steam Engine

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and it was invented in 1712 by a blacksmith from Dartmouth

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called Thomas Newcomen.

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For thousands of years,

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people had looked for a reliable source of power

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and this giant machine is the engine that finally cracked it.

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All it needed was heat from coal,

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which created steam,

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which condensed to leave a vacuum

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and the weight of the atmosphere did the rest.

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Finally, we had a mechanical process

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where you could put energy in and get work out.

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The world was about to change more in the next 200 years

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than it had in the previous thousand.

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But not initially that fast.

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Now, you might imagine

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that once somebody had designed and built a working steam engine

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that lots of other people would come in, tinker, try and improve it

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and, in fact, dream up all sorts of other uses for it.

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But, for over 50 years,

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there was only one type of steam engine in the world

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and it did one deeply unglamorous, albeit useful, thing -

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pumping water out of mines.

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They say necessity is the mother of invention

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and, in the case of the steam engine,

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necessity wasn't some grand dream of bringing power to the world,

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it was the result of a simple economic desire

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to extract coal and ores from deeper and deeper mines.

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To do that, they needed a really good pump.

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I must admit I have never been down a mine

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as wet as this.

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It's literally pouring out of the ceiling.

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How deep are we at the moment?

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Uh... We must be about 100-150 feet now.

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And when you get down further, you get more water?

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You get more and more water, yes.

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You can absolutely see the problem they had. What did they do about it?

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They actually had to bail it out or wind it out,

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so a very labour-intensive process.

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But manpower and horses could not drain all this water fast enough.

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Enter local blacksmith Thomas Newcomen.

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You may not have heard of him

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and there are no existing pictures,

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yet he built the world's first practical steam engine.

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I just find it unbelievable

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that somebody goes from appreciating that there is this stuff, atmospheric pressure,

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to actually building a machine that can utilise it.

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It was an amazing step, no doubt about that.

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There were people before him that...sort of paved the way,

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but it was getting the engineering expertise,

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being able to rivet things and join things together comfortably,

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which, really, Newcomen did.

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The water was such a problem

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and when he came up with his atmospheric engine,

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everyone was extremely happy.

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I guess they made it possible to go deeper

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and, therefore, make the Cornish a bit richer for a bit longer.

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Very much so, yes.

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The better the engines got, the deeper the Cornish could go.

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Newcomen saw first-hand the problems in the tin mines of Cornwall,

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but he knew nationally there was an even bigger market.

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His first engine was installed at a coal mine near Birmingham in 1712.

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It completed 12 strokes a minute,

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each stroke lifting ten gallons of water.

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Within 20 years, over 100 of his engines had been installed

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at mines all over the country.

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Now, the Newcomen engine allowed miners

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to go deeper and deeper underground,

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but the trouble was it was monstrously inefficient -

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it consumed a huge amount of coal.

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And coal was very difficult and expensive to transport.

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It transformed the mining industry,

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but it was never going to power an industrial revolution.

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The story of how the Atmospheric Steam Engine

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came to drive a revolution

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is the story of inventiveness itself

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a profound desire to make things work better.

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The atmospheric engine was nothing like anything that had come before.

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And Newcomen's version of it reigned supreme for decades.

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When it was replaced, it was by an innovation that was so radical

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it was almost like a completely different machine.

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And the man behind this innovation was James Gaius Watt.

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In 1763, James Watt,

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a mechanical instrument maker in Glasgow,

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was asked to repair a model of the by now world-famous Newcomen engine

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that was being used in the university to instruct students.

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He first thought of it as just a model,

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almost like a plaything toy.

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But, gradually, by investigating the different elements of it in more and more detail,

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taking it apart, creating alternatives to the various aspects of the model,

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he began almost to think of it as a kind of scientific experiment,

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a composite scientific experiment.

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Something that could perhaps be developed

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in order to create power from steam in a better way.

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We have Watt as part of a strident,

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quite severe Scottish Presbyterian culture,

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so, for example, coal was something

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that had been provided by God for man's use

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and it was up to humanity to make the best of that.

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So burning it fruitlessly was considered to be a waste

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of something which had been divinely given,

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and, therefore, morally abhorrent as well as economically inadvisable.

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This drive to make the engine more efficient obsessed Watt.

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Finally, in 1765, he had a simple, but brilliant idea.

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Now, this is an extract from a letter he wrote

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describing his eureka moment.

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"I was thinking upon the engine at the time,

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"and had gone as far as the Herd's house,

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"when the idea came into my mind that if a communication were made

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"between the cylinder and an exhausted vessel,

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"steam would rush into it,

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"and might be there condensed without cooling the cylinder."

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I like this bit.

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"I had not walked further than the golf house

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"when the whole thing was arranged in my mind."

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It was as easy as that.

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With the idea burning brightly in his mind,

0:18:240:18:27

Watt went off and had this made

0:18:270:18:30

it's a separate condenser

0:18:300:18:32

and this is actually the first, the original.

0:18:320:18:35

Now, this allowed Watt

0:18:350:18:37

to build steam engines that were more powerful, more efficient,

0:18:370:18:41

more portable than anything that had been seen before.

0:18:410:18:44

This allowed Watt to unleash power

0:18:440:18:46

in a way that was previously unimaginable.

0:18:460:18:49

THIS drove the Industrial Revolution

0:18:490:18:52

and made Britain rich.

0:18:520:18:54

Mark, I really enjoyed holding Watt's condenser,

0:18:560:18:58

just because it was a piece of history,

0:18:580:19:01

but I'm not utterly convinced in the cold light of day

0:19:010:19:03

I know how it works.

0:19:030:19:05

Talk me through it.

0:19:050:19:07

It might be helpful to talk about what Watt was trying to improve,

0:19:070:19:11

which is the Newcomen engine, this is a working model of that.

0:19:110:19:13

And here is the heat, the boiler,

0:19:130:19:16

so you get steam that comes out through here,

0:19:160:19:19

it goes into the cylinder

0:19:190:19:20

and this is the bit like the oil barrel,

0:19:200:19:22

this is where the steam is going to be condensed by cold water

0:19:220:19:26

and it's going to pull down a piston.

0:19:260:19:29

And that piston pulls this down, which pulls this up.

0:19:290:19:32

And this, over here, can be water in a mine which you pump out.

0:19:320:19:36

-So you do work, and it works!

-OK, OK.

0:19:360:19:39

So the key bit is what's happening in there?

0:19:390:19:41

That is the crucial bit

0:19:410:19:43

and, in fact, we've got a mock-up of it over here,

0:19:430:19:45

so you can actually see what's going on.

0:19:450:19:47

So, you know, the steam has to come from the boiler,

0:19:470:19:49

so if this is the boiler and that's steam,

0:19:490:19:51

-you can put some steam into the cylinder. Do you want to have a go?

-Certainly.

0:19:510:19:55

So I just whack this button down here? Excellent.

0:19:550:19:57

Yeah, steam coming into it.

0:19:570:19:58

All very nice.

0:19:580:19:59

All we now need to do is condense it

0:19:590:20:01

so I now open the vent for the water pressure.

0:20:010:20:05

Yes!

0:20:070:20:08

OK, that's neat.

0:20:080:20:10

And that's being dragged down by the atmospheric pressure?

0:20:100:20:13

Exactly, the atmospheric pressure in this room is pushing that down,

0:20:130:20:16

because we created a vacuum by condensing the steam.

0:20:160:20:18

-Right.

-But that means, of course,

0:20:180:20:20

that you have to heat and cool this one cylinder, which is inefficient.

0:20:200:20:23

And Watt looked at that and he thought,

0:20:230:20:25

"Mmm, I can do better, I can improve that."

0:20:250:20:28

And that really is the hallmark of an engineer,

0:20:280:20:30

someone who doesn't just say, "Oh, it works, I can make some money out if it."

0:20:300:20:33

But who thinks, "Mmm, I can do it a bit better than that. I have an idea."

0:20:330:20:37

And that is where the separate condenser comes in.

0:20:370:20:39

If you get the steam out and condense it in a separate vessel,

0:20:390:20:42

you don't have to keep heating and cooling this one

0:20:420:20:45

-and that saves you, it turns out, a hell of a lot of energy.

-Right.

0:20:450:20:48

An obsession with efficiency is still at the heart of invention.

0:20:480:20:51

Cassie has been exploring Drax

0:20:510:20:53

to find out why it is the single most important factor

0:20:530:20:55

when it comes to making power.

0:20:550:20:57

This is the enormous coalfield at Drax.

0:21:020:21:05

hundreds of thousands of tonnes of coal are stored here

0:21:050:21:09

to make sure the station never runs out.

0:21:090:21:11

And this machine over here has a really important job to do -

0:21:110:21:15

it compacts the coal in the coalfield

0:21:150:21:17

to make sure it doesn't just spontaneously combust.

0:21:170:21:19

Now, when you are talking about the enormous amounts used at Drax,

0:21:240:21:29

a 1% improvement in efficiency is actually 100,000 tonnes of coal a year.

0:21:290:21:34

-Now, I'm joined by Peter Emery. He's Production Director at Drax.

-Hi.

0:21:340:21:38

Peter, how important is efficiency here?

0:21:380:21:40

Efficiency drives everything we do on site.

0:21:400:21:43

We grind the coal so it's very, very small, almost like a powder

0:21:430:21:47

and that gives us 100% combustion.

0:21:470:21:50

Another good example is the cold water coming in the boiler

0:21:500:21:53

is also heated up with a bit of steam

0:21:530:21:56

that's bled off from the turbines.

0:21:560:21:58

Again, an efficient use of the heat.

0:21:580:21:59

So the water going in is already warm

0:21:590:22:02

before it gets into the furnace.

0:22:020:22:04

Now, I understand you've recently put new turbines in?

0:22:040:22:06

It's a £100 million project,

0:22:060:22:08

but it saves us just under 5% of our coal.

0:22:080:22:12

Now, 5% doesn't sound like much.

0:22:120:22:14

No, 5% might not sound a lot,

0:22:140:22:15

but in an operation this size, every percentage counts.

0:22:150:22:19

We're working 24/7 and that 5% for us

0:22:190:22:22

is 10,000 tonnes of coal every week,

0:22:220:22:24

and 10,000 tonnes of coal every week

0:22:240:22:26

is three-quarters of a million pounds.

0:22:260:22:28

-That's a lot!

-That's a big deal.

0:22:280:22:30

Peter, thank you ever so much.

0:22:300:22:32

-OK, nice to meet you.

-See you soon.

0:22:320:22:34

Now, efficiency is nothing new -

0:22:390:22:41

it's the reason the Watt engine is so successful

0:22:410:22:43

but it's Matthew Boulton, his business partner,

0:22:430:22:46

who really understands the importance of it.

0:22:460:22:49

He came up with a scheme

0:22:490:22:50

where he would sell you an engine quite cheaply,

0:22:500:22:53

but you would have to pay royalties on the efficiency savings you make.

0:22:530:22:57

So if you imagine that this is the amount of coal that a Newcomen engine would use in a week,

0:22:570:23:02

whereas this pile here is how much coal

0:23:020:23:05

a Boulton and Watt's engine uses in the same period.

0:23:050:23:08

That is a massive efficiency saving.

0:23:080:23:11

So for every three pieces of coal you save,

0:23:110:23:15

you have to pay Boulton and Watt one in royalties.

0:23:150:23:20

Now, by 1800, they had sold over 500 of their engines

0:23:200:23:24

and they were very rich men indeed.

0:23:240:23:26

So Boulton and Watt were pretty smart operators, weren't they?

0:23:280:23:30

Yeah. One of the reasons they made so much money was they really understood the power of patents.

0:23:300:23:35

This is a copy of the original patent

0:23:350:23:37

for the Watt engine with a separate condenser.

0:23:370:23:39

And they didn't just get a standard patent.

0:23:390:23:41

Boulton was pretty influential

0:23:410:23:43

and he managed to get it extended right through to 1800.

0:23:430:23:45

Basically, any steam engine that used a separate condenser was protected by this patent,

0:23:450:23:49

so if you didn't have that condenser,

0:23:490:23:51

you'd use four times as much coal.

0:23:510:23:53

So why would anyone buy a steam engine from you, if you were,

0:23:530:23:56

you know, having to use four times much coal?

0:23:560:23:58

So they pretty much controlled all of the steam power at that time.

0:23:580:24:01

So that's one of the significant downsides, presumably?

0:24:010:24:04

Yeah. I mean, the pros are

0:24:040:24:06

that, you know, you did all that effort making your invention,

0:24:060:24:09

so why shouldn't you benefit from it?

0:24:090:24:11

And that seems totally fair.

0:24:110:24:13

The cons are, well, while you've got a monopoly over the technology,

0:24:130:24:17

no-one else is going to innovate.

0:24:170:24:18

And in this case, it was particularly problematic,

0:24:180:24:21

because, from 1786 to 1800,

0:24:210:24:23

there were no significant improvements in steam technology at all.

0:24:230:24:26

And so, basically, innovation stopped.

0:24:260:24:30

OK, well, Watt's patent may have stifled innovation in the steam engine,

0:24:300:24:34

but it certainly led to a period of intense innovation

0:24:340:24:37

in new technology that developed around it.

0:24:370:24:40

Power was now available in a way it had never been before

0:24:400:24:43

and it inspired a generation of inventors.

0:24:430:24:45

Now, Cassie has been to Lancashire to find out

0:24:450:24:48

how the ability to put a steam engine almost anywhere

0:24:480:24:51

transformed an entire way of life.

0:24:510:24:53

Newcomen's engine used so much coal

0:24:550:24:58

it was only really cost-effective at a coal mine.

0:24:580:25:00

But once Watt started improving his engine,

0:25:000:25:03

making it much more efficient

0:25:030:25:05

and increasing the type of work it could do,

0:25:050:25:07

it was poised to radicalise industry.

0:25:070:25:10

Now, for the first time, we could use it to power OTHER machines.

0:25:120:25:16

This is Queen Street Mill, in Burnley.

0:25:180:25:20

It's home to over 300 power looms

0:25:200:25:23

and it's one of the first factories in the world.

0:25:230:25:25

They may seem noisy and antiquated

0:25:300:25:33

but, in the 19th century,

0:25:330:25:34

these machines powered a revolution in Lancashire,

0:25:340:25:37

transforming it into one of the greatest industrial centres on the planet.

0:25:370:25:42

Until the late 18th century, weaving was a cottage industry.

0:25:420:25:46

Men, women and children, all working from home

0:25:460:25:50

or in small groups using hand-powered equipment.

0:25:500:25:53

All that changed with the advent of powered machinery.

0:25:530:25:56

Huge numbers of machines could be tethered to the same engine.

0:25:560:26:00

Power had finally brought us industrialisation.

0:26:000:26:03

-SHOUTING ABOVE MACHINE NOISE:

-What part of the handloom weavers' actions

0:26:030:26:07

are taken over by the machines?

0:26:070:26:08

Well, basically everything they would have done by hand.

0:26:080:26:11

The passing of the shuttle through the warp,

0:26:110:26:15

the operation of the heddles.

0:26:150:26:16

-Right.

-The treadles on the floor, so all that's taken away.

0:26:160:26:21

And is there just one machine or was one weaver doing a lot?

0:26:210:26:24

One weaver would look after between six and eight looms.

0:26:240:26:27

Right, can I have a go?

0:26:270:26:29

Yes, if you feel confident, you certainly can.

0:26:290:26:32

People were no longer the providers of energy.

0:26:340:26:37

Instead, they now operated the machines

0:26:370:26:39

that could do it far more efficiently.

0:26:390:26:41

By 1860, Lancashire produced half the cotton in the world.

0:26:430:26:48

But the steam engine did more

0:26:480:26:50

than just boost profits and increase production.

0:26:500:26:53

For the first time, it took work outside of the family home.

0:26:530:26:56

It effectively invented the job.

0:26:560:26:59

So what are conditions like for the handloom weavers

0:27:000:27:03

arriving in these factories?

0:27:030:27:04

Women and children who'd worked together before,

0:27:040:27:07

but as family units in the factory,

0:27:070:27:09

become just parts of a labour force.

0:27:090:27:12

Also, there's a much greater division of labour,

0:27:120:27:15

so the whole of the work process becomes routinised.

0:27:150:27:19

On a wider scale, steam must have brought more benefits?

0:27:190:27:23

All the products that are pouring out of these factories are cheaper

0:27:230:27:27

and working people can afford to buy them.

0:27:270:27:29

And, of course, all the time, their pay does go up

0:27:290:27:32

and there's regular work as well

0:27:320:27:34

and people are able to buy all kinds of new products.

0:27:340:27:37

The wider impact of steam power is that it powers a factory system

0:27:370:27:42

that is delivering cheaper products

0:27:420:27:45

that can be sold all around the world.

0:27:450:27:47

By 1870, Britain is the richest, most powerful country

0:27:470:27:50

the world has ever known.

0:27:500:27:52

The workshop of the world.

0:27:520:27:53

Britain's worldwide success was thanks to its heroes of invention.

0:27:550:28:00

For all the early hardships, steam still leaves us a lasting legacy.

0:28:000:28:05

From the genius of Watt's steam condenser,

0:28:050:28:08

we get engines which not only drive an industrial revolution

0:28:080:28:12

but a social revolution too.

0:28:120:28:13

With me is Professor Christine MacLeod,

0:28:150:28:18

author of Heroes Of Invention.

0:28:180:28:21

So Christine, why do some people like Watt become heroes?

0:28:210:28:25

It's largely thanks to the Victorians that inventors became heroes,

0:28:250:28:28

because, until round about 1820,

0:28:280:28:31

inventors were generally seen in quite a bad light.

0:28:310:28:34

-Really?

-Yes! In fact, in the 17th century,

0:28:340:28:37

an inventor was very much seen

0:28:370:28:39

in the company of cutpurses and pick-pockets,

0:28:390:28:43

as somebody who'd come along with a big idea and steal your money

0:28:430:28:46

and ask to invest in it.

0:28:460:28:48

So it's really a huge turnaround

0:28:480:28:50

that inventors become heroes in the 19th century

0:28:500:28:53

and the first one to do so was James Watt.

0:28:530:28:55

Really? I didn't realise. He's the first kind of hero of modern times?

0:28:550:28:58

-Well, he's the first hero of invention.

-Yeah.

0:28:580:29:00

And he becomes a hero thanks to his supporters,

0:29:000:29:04

who were some personal supporters, his family and his friends,

0:29:040:29:07

but also thanks to a lot of politicians and scientists

0:29:070:29:11

who, in the 1820s, decided that he'd make a very good hero

0:29:110:29:14

for the new middle classes

0:29:140:29:16

and he was set up as a hero against the great military heroes

0:29:160:29:20

who'd just won the Napoleonic Wars,

0:29:200:29:22

obviously Nelson and Wellington.

0:29:220:29:25

And, at this time,

0:29:250:29:27

a lot of middle-class people were campaigning for the vote

0:29:270:29:31

and it looked as though they'd taken a big step backwards

0:29:310:29:34

with the Napoleonic Wars because Nelson and Wellington were now seen

0:29:340:29:39

-as these great military heroes, great aristocratic heroes.

-Ah...

0:29:390:29:43

-And so...

-So if Watt had been an aristocrat,

0:29:430:29:45

they would have probably not been pushing him quite so enthusiastically?

0:29:450:29:49

Well, it's the fact that they're now developing a new explanation

0:29:490:29:52

of what made Great Britain great.

0:29:520:29:54

And they want to say it isn't that we were great soldiers,

0:29:540:29:57

it's not that we were so successful on the battlefield,

0:29:570:30:00

but it's that we had the industry that paid for these great battles.

0:30:000:30:05

So Watt is then cast as the great hero who invented the steam engine

0:30:050:30:10

and they forget about Newcomen

0:30:100:30:12

-and all the people that have gone before.

-Thank you, Christine.

0:30:120:30:15

Now, no-one these days can underestimate the importance of the steam engine in changing the world,

0:30:150:30:20

but it has its limits.

0:30:200:30:21

If power was going to become more accessible to all of us,

0:30:210:30:25

not just industrial factories,

0:30:250:30:26

we needed to find a way

0:30:260:30:28

to separate the engine from where the power is used.

0:30:280:30:31

Now, I don't want a steam engine in my basement

0:30:310:30:34

and that is what electricity has given us.

0:30:340:30:37

But first, we needed a genius of invention to tame it.

0:30:370:30:41

Newcomen and Watt were both engineers.

0:30:430:30:47

They achieved incredible things

0:30:470:30:48

because they understood machinery -

0:30:480:30:50

how to make large pieces of metal move and create work.

0:30:500:30:54

Our next inventor couldn't be more different.

0:30:550:30:58

His speciality was pure science

0:30:580:31:00

and he was about to uncover the mysteries of a universal force

0:31:000:31:03

that would radicalise our relationship with power.

0:31:030:31:06

I'm at the Royal Institution, in London

0:31:080:31:10

and this is its most celebrated member - Michael Faraday.

0:31:100:31:14

In the 1820s,

0:31:150:31:17

he carried out a series of revolutionary experiments here.

0:31:170:31:20

It was around this time that he started experimenting

0:31:220:31:24

in the area that would define his career - electricity.

0:31:240:31:27

But just as Watt had been inspired by Newcomen's ground-breaking work,

0:31:290:31:33

Faraday's incredible discoveries could never have happened

0:31:330:31:36

without the work of others.

0:31:360:31:37

This is the world's first battery

0:31:390:31:41

and it was invented by Alessandro Giuseppe Volta, in 1800.

0:31:410:31:45

This is a model of the original battery

0:31:470:31:49

and it consists of discs of copper and zinc alternately spaced,

0:31:490:31:54

separated by paper which has been dipped in acid.

0:31:540:31:58

And we've assembled some of these alternate plates here.

0:31:590:32:02

And If I put this top plate on of zinc,

0:32:020:32:05

it should produce an electric current because of the reaction

0:32:050:32:08

between the metals and the acid.

0:32:080:32:10

And that we've wired up to this little electric hamster,

0:32:100:32:12

and that hamster should go.

0:32:120:32:14

If all goes to plan.

0:32:140:32:15

HE CHUCKLES

0:32:150:32:16

It stuttered along.

0:32:160:32:18

And that was the problem with these early batteries.

0:32:180:32:20

The power only lasted for as long as the reaction was sustained.

0:32:200:32:24

Across Europe, scientists were experimenting with Volta's battery

0:32:250:32:29

and, in 1821, Hans Christian Oersted uncovered some very unusual behaviour.

0:32:290:32:36

While preparing for a lecture,

0:32:360:32:38

Oersted noticed that when he connected a copper wire to a battery

0:32:380:32:41

and held it near a compass, the needle moves.

0:32:410:32:45

That may not seem much now,

0:32:450:32:47

but that's the beginning of electromagnetism.

0:32:470:32:49

The first demonstration that electricity and magnetism can create motion.

0:32:490:32:54

Faraday used these two critical discoveries

0:32:550:32:58

to tap into the universe's very own power system.

0:32:580:33:01

Here, in his workshop, at the Royal Institution,

0:33:030:33:06

Faraday showed that electricity, magnetism and motion are all firmly linked.

0:33:060:33:11

Just a year after Oersted's discovery, Faraday designed this.

0:33:110:33:15

There's a wire that goes into a pool of mercury

0:33:170:33:20

to which a magnet's attached.

0:33:200:33:21

Now, when you pass a current through that wire watch what happens.

0:33:210:33:25

Believe it or not, this is the world's first electric motor.

0:33:270:33:31

Ten years passed

0:33:320:33:33

and, with proof that magnetism and electricity could drive motion,

0:33:330:33:37

Faraday made an incredible intellectual leap.

0:33:370:33:40

If electricity and magnetism can create motion, Faraday thought,

0:33:420:33:46

could the reverse be true?

0:33:460:33:48

Could motion and magnetism create electricity?

0:33:480:33:53

Well, he answered that emphatically with this rudimentary device.

0:33:530:33:58

This pole in the middle is a magnet.

0:33:580:34:00

And there's a tube here in which he's wrapped round copper wire

0:34:000:34:03

and covered it with cloth.

0:34:030:34:05

And attached two small lights.

0:34:050:34:06

Now, watch what happens when I move the coil though the magnetic field.

0:34:060:34:10

HE LAUGHS

0:34:100:34:11

I know it looks ridiculous, but what's happening is quite amazing -

0:34:110:34:14

the light is lighting up!

0:34:140:34:16

And that means electricity is being generated in the coil

0:34:160:34:18

by just moving through the magnetic field.

0:34:180:34:21

What Faraday had created here is the world's first electricity generator.

0:34:210:34:25

Where work was once created by physical force of cylinders, gears and pistons,

0:34:270:34:32

now all we had to do was move a magnet.

0:34:320:34:34

And from that process, out flowed the incredible force of electricity.

0:34:340:34:39

And while we owe a huge debt to Faraday and his eureka moment,

0:34:410:34:44

spare a thought for Volta and Oersted,

0:34:440:34:47

without whose building blocks we might be living in a very different world now.

0:34:470:34:50

They did for Faraday what Thomas Newcomen did for James Watt -

0:34:500:34:54

provided the foundation for some truly genius inventions.

0:34:540:34:58

Faraday went on to discover some of the most important laws about the universe,

0:35:010:35:05

which show the relationship between electricity, motion and magnetism.

0:35:050:35:09

Basically, he worked out that if you have a big coil

0:35:090:35:11

and you rotate it very fast, you get a lot of electricity.

0:35:110:35:15

But this machine, Michael, is going to show us that, actually,

0:35:150:35:18

that isn't so straightforward.

0:35:180:35:20

Here is his dynamo,

0:35:200:35:23

so this is a coil with...so you're going to generate electricity from it.

0:35:230:35:26

And we've rigged it up to some bulbs. And you're lighting up one?

0:35:260:35:28

-Can you light up two?

-I think I can.

0:35:280:35:31

Oh-hoo! OK!

0:35:310:35:33

And do you feel strong enough to light up three?

0:35:330:35:35

It's actually getting surprisingly hard.

0:35:350:35:38

So you can feel... That's what extraordinary, isn't it? And four?

0:35:380:35:42

-Right.

-So there's actually communication going back and forth.

0:35:420:35:45

That's good, keep that up. Nice one!

0:35:450:35:46

I am just going to read my book at night while I'm trying to learn something and...

0:35:460:35:50

This is surprisingly hard work!

0:35:500:35:53

Could you just keep going for a bit, because I've just got a few more pages to get through.

0:35:530:35:57

I can't help feeling I would probably be doing better if I was cycling.

0:35:570:36:00

I'm finding it very hard to concentrate with you shouting like that, I have to say.

0:36:000:36:04

I can keep it up for hours.

0:36:040:36:05

It's really difficult, isn't it?

0:36:050:36:07

You are displaying a third of a horse power. Of course, not using your legs but your arms.

0:36:070:36:11

HE LAUGHS

0:36:110:36:13

What's incredible about Faraday's dynamo

0:36:130:36:16

is that you turn rotation, you turn effort into two wires

0:36:160:36:20

that just give you power which you can do anything you want with.

0:36:200:36:23

These don't have to be right next to it, they can be 100 miles away.

0:36:230:36:27

He really makes electricity a thing that everybody can use.

0:36:270:36:31

THEY LAUGH

0:36:310:36:33

I am knackered. I can completely understand now why,

0:36:330:36:37

if you want to produce an awful lot of electricity,

0:36:370:36:40

you're going to need something which is a lot stronger

0:36:400:36:42

and moves a lot faster than I can.

0:36:420:36:45

This is the turbine hall at Drax,

0:36:550:36:57

where they actually generate the electricity.

0:36:570:36:59

It's incredibly noisy!

0:36:590:37:03

Under this blue cover is an electrical generator

0:37:030:37:06

and you can see five others stretching down the hall behind me.

0:37:060:37:08

Now, these beasts are on a scale far greater

0:37:080:37:11

than Faraday's lab equipment,

0:37:110:37:14

but the principle is exactly the same.

0:37:140:37:16

A generator doesn't CREATE electricity.

0:37:190:37:22

It uses the mechanical energy supplied to it to INDUCE it.

0:37:220:37:26

As the magnet spins,

0:37:260:37:28

it forces negatively charged electrons in the copper

0:37:280:37:31

to move into a flow that can be harnessed an electric current.

0:37:310:37:35

This is Sean. He's the maintenance manager for the whole of Drax.

0:37:370:37:41

So no pressure there, then.

0:37:410:37:42

He's brought me to this shed, which is crammed full

0:37:420:37:45

with this massive piece of equipment. What exactly is it?

0:37:450:37:47

This is a stator, which is one half of the machine that generates the electricity.

0:37:470:37:51

-So this is what's under those blue covers in the turbine hall?

-That's right, yes.

-Excellent!

0:37:510:37:55

This doesn't look like Faraday's invention. How different is it?

0:37:550:37:58

It's very similar indeed.

0:37:580:38:00

The only detailed difference is that with the Faraday model,

0:38:000:38:02

the magnet was static and the generator rotated.

0:38:020:38:05

In this case,

0:38:050:38:06

the magnet spins and the conductor is static.

0:38:060:38:10

So down the shaft were rotating magnets and all of these bits, the white stripy bits, presumably...

0:38:100:38:14

This, this is the copper.

0:38:140:38:15

So, basically, this is the conductor.

0:38:150:38:17

The magnet spins around in this at 3,000 rpm, so 50 times per second,

0:38:170:38:22

the magnet spinning around inside this machine.

0:38:220:38:24

What kind of power does that generate?

0:38:240:38:27

This is one of six units that we have

0:38:270:38:29

and each unit generates 660 MW,

0:38:290:38:31

which is enough to power one million homes.

0:38:310:38:34

Across all six units, we can generate enough electricity

0:38:340:38:37

to supply Northern Ireland and Wales combined.

0:38:370:38:39

-That is vast!

-It's amazing.

0:38:390:38:41

It's really hard to think that Faraday could ever have imagined

0:38:410:38:45

his handheld equipment would end up as something as vast as this.

0:38:450:38:48

So how did we get from Faraday's laboratory equipment

0:38:480:38:51

to a power station like Drax?

0:38:510:38:53

The ability to put energy in and get work out had transformed industry -

0:38:550:39:01

we could have power whenever we wanted it

0:39:010:39:03

as long as the engine came with it.

0:39:030:39:05

But Faraday's experiments eventually made it possible

0:39:070:39:10

to separate the power from the engine.

0:39:100:39:13

Electricity can travel hundreds of miles from where it is first generated.

0:39:130:39:18

Power can be released at the flick of a switch

0:39:180:39:20

and using it in huge quantities has become part of our daily lives.

0:39:200:39:25

But wind back the clock, 130 years to, say, the 1880s

0:39:250:39:30

and it is a very different world.

0:39:300:39:32

There are no slick electronic gadgets or big screens.

0:39:320:39:37

So what on earth do the Victorians need electricity for?

0:39:370:39:41

It all started in the rather unlikely surroundings of the Savoy Theatre.

0:39:430:39:48

Going to the theatre in the 19th century was not a particularly enjoyable experience.

0:39:480:39:53

Because the whole thing was lit by gas lamps it was hot,

0:39:530:39:57

it was stuffy and it was incredibly smelly.

0:39:570:40:00

On the 10th of October 1881,

0:40:010:40:04

the audience came to see

0:40:040:40:06

a new production of Gilbert and Sullivan's opera - Patience.

0:40:060:40:10

It was a ground-breaking evening in more ways than one. Lights on!

0:40:100:40:14

As the actors strode out on to the stage that evening,

0:40:150:40:18

they were lit for the first time ever by electric power.

0:40:180:40:22

The Savoy Theatre, in London,

0:40:220:40:24

became the first public building in the world

0:40:240:40:26

to fully exploit the wonders of electricity.

0:40:260:40:29

The light bulb was invented by Joseph Swan and Thomas Edison.

0:40:310:40:35

This basic human need for light

0:40:350:40:37

created the world's first electricity-hungry product.

0:40:370:40:41

Edison was a better businessman than Swan

0:40:410:40:45

and he realised there was serious money to be made,

0:40:450:40:47

not just from producing light bulbs

0:40:470:40:50

but also selling the electricity needed to power the light bulbs.

0:40:500:40:54

Now, the Savoy Theatre had its own generators,

0:40:540:40:57

but this was hardly a practical solution for most people.

0:40:570:41:00

Edison's brilliant idea

0:41:020:41:03

was to remove the need for a personal generator

0:41:030:41:06

and centralise the source of power.

0:41:060:41:08

He proclaimed, "We will make electricity so cheap

0:41:080:41:12

"that only the rich will burn candles."

0:41:120:41:15

In 1882, Holborn Viaduct, in London,

0:41:150:41:17

became the site of the world's first public power station.

0:41:170:41:21

The Holborn Viaduct is currently having something of a makeover,

0:41:230:41:26

but back in 1881, when they were putting in the power station,

0:41:260:41:31

you would barely have noticed.

0:41:310:41:32

They didn't have to dig up the roads,

0:41:320:41:34

they just slung some cables along at rooftop height.

0:41:340:41:38

And the generating plant itself,

0:41:380:41:40

well, that was assembled in the basement of Edison's London office.

0:41:400:41:45

Edison's power station owed a huge debt to both Watt and Faraday.

0:41:460:41:51

A 125-horsepower steam engine drove a 27-ton generator called Jumbo.

0:41:510:41:57

Finally, the work out had been separated from the energy in.

0:41:570:42:03

Domestic demand for power could now take off.

0:42:030:42:06

It was a modest beginning and there were serious problems ahead,

0:42:060:42:11

but the days of flickering gas light were clearly numbered

0:42:110:42:15

and a golden age of electricity had begun.

0:42:150:42:19

The bicycle is one of my favourite inventions of all time,

0:42:230:42:26

but, for the purposes of this programme,

0:42:260:42:29

I'm not actually riding on a bicycle, am I, Mark?

0:42:290:42:31

No, we've been through this, Michael. It's a reciprocating engine.

0:42:310:42:35

It's turning the up and down motion of your legs into rotary motion.

0:42:350:42:38

And the first ever working version wasn't a bike,

0:42:380:42:40

it was a type of steam engine invented by James Watt.

0:42:400:42:43

Watt is obviously most famous for his separate condenser,

0:42:430:42:46

but it was his ability to produce rotary motion

0:42:460:42:49

that he was most proud.

0:42:490:42:51

Yeah, and rightly so,

0:42:510:42:53

because rotary motion is incredibly useful and incredibly efficient.

0:42:530:42:56

Being able to move things round and round instead of just up and down,

0:42:560:42:59

it seems simple, but it's one of those important things in the history of power invention.

0:42:590:43:04

So I'll expect you're wondering, what has this got to do with electricity generation?

0:43:040:43:07

Well, the early versions of power stations,

0:43:070:43:10

including the one at Holborn Viaduct,

0:43:100:43:11

were powered by reciprocating engines -

0:43:110:43:13

steam providing the power to make a piston go up and down

0:43:130:43:17

and that would then convert it using gears into rotary motion.

0:43:170:43:20

And that's what Watt made possible in 1781.

0:43:200:43:23

This rotary motion would make the magnet spin inside the copper coils

0:43:230:43:26

to produce the electricity.

0:43:260:43:28

But, as we showed you before, you need to put in a lot of energy

0:43:280:43:31

to get electricity out.

0:43:310:43:33

Exactly, and that was the problem.

0:43:330:43:34

The demand for electricity was increasing so fast

0:43:340:43:37

and we needed to make a lot more of it.

0:43:370:43:40

Faraday's electrical dynamo was a pioneering breakthrough,

0:43:430:43:47

but it was limited by the engines that powered it.

0:43:470:43:50

Early steam engines vibrated violently

0:43:500:43:52

and broke down on an almost daily basis.

0:43:520:43:54

It was clear that what was needed was a better, more reliable engine.

0:43:540:43:59

In 1883, Charles Parsons was in charge of the electrical generators

0:44:010:44:06

at Clarke, Chapman and Co.

0:44:060:44:08

Like every generator in the world,

0:44:080:44:10

they were powered by a reciprocating steam engine -

0:44:100:44:13

vertical motion converted into rotary motion.

0:44:130:44:17

To Parsons, the inefficiencies of this two-step engine were obvious

0:44:170:44:21

he wanted a one-step version.

0:44:210:44:23

Parsons knew it wouldn't be with a steam-driven piston engine.

0:44:250:44:28

He needed a pure rotary motion

0:44:280:44:30

without the vibration that would damage and shake

0:44:300:44:32

the windows of the buildings surrounding

0:44:320:44:34

he turned to the turbine.

0:44:340:44:36

The essential theory of a turbine is thousands of years old.

0:44:380:44:42

In a windmill, the energy of the wind works directly on the rotating parts

0:44:420:44:46

to create useful mechanical work.

0:44:460:44:48

Parsons' plan was to replace wind with high-pressure steam.

0:44:480:44:54

He was going to blast steam at the turbine,

0:44:540:44:56

causing it to rotate and spin an electrical dynamo.

0:44:560:44:59

There was scope to produce a lot of power.

0:44:590:45:02

Existing turbine designs were not powerful or fast enough

0:45:020:45:06

to generate electricity.

0:45:060:45:08

The obvious solution was to increase the amount of energy in,

0:45:080:45:11

but the metals available couldn't withstand the increased force.

0:45:110:45:16

So just adding more steam wasn't going to work.

0:45:160:45:19

It took a genius of invention to think differently.

0:45:190:45:22

This is Charles Parsons' original factory in Newcastle,

0:45:240:45:27

now run by Siemens and they still make turbines here.

0:45:270:45:31

So, Geoff, what did Parsons do?

0:45:330:45:36

The energy that is available in steam

0:45:360:45:37

is much higher than you have with windmill and air,

0:45:370:45:40

so we had to somehow control the efficiency

0:45:400:45:43

and control the stresses of the whole process.

0:45:430:45:46

So what he did was, rather than just use a single set of blades,

0:45:460:45:51

he decided, if you had more than one wheel,

0:45:510:45:53

you could share the energy out between the two,

0:45:530:45:56

and the process would be more efficient

0:45:560:45:58

without the danger of overloading.

0:45:580:46:00

'But there was a problem any additional blades don't spin.'

0:46:020:46:06

So what actually happened was,

0:46:070:46:09

as we put the air on to the first blades,

0:46:090:46:11

it's certainly pushed those,

0:46:110:46:13

but the air actually came out of the blade at the angle of the blade,

0:46:130:46:17

edge on to the second wheel.

0:46:170:46:19

So it wasn't able to push on the second wheel as well.

0:46:190:46:22

So he invented the stator.

0:46:220:46:23

Parsons realised that you had to put something between the two wheels

0:46:230:46:27

to make the air direction change so it approached the second wheel

0:46:270:46:32

at the same angle as it approached the first.

0:46:320:46:35

Yeah, let's see if it works.

0:46:350:46:36

That's it!

0:46:380:46:40

So now we've got the second wheel

0:46:400:46:42

working just as well as the first wheel.

0:46:420:46:44

What you've done is you've created a turbine now, not a windmill,

0:46:440:46:47

and it's extracting energy.

0:46:470:46:50

The simple idea of compounding rows of blades,

0:46:500:46:53

each row designed to work with ever-decreasing pressures,

0:46:530:46:56

meant Parsons' turbine was able to extract far more energy

0:46:560:47:00

from the same volume of steam.

0:47:000:47:02

But when it comes to generating electricity,

0:47:040:47:06

if you want to make more, you have to go faster,

0:47:060:47:10

and Parsons' next problem was speed.

0:47:100:47:12

If we look at the blades on a real turbine,

0:47:150:47:18

we're going to see it's very similar to our model,

0:47:180:47:20

but the blades are now curved.

0:47:200:47:22

And the gap between the blades, where the steam passes,

0:47:220:47:24

is getting narrower.

0:47:240:47:25

So to go through a narrow gap, the steam has to go at a higher speed.

0:47:250:47:29

-I brought one of these along.

-All right, OK!

0:47:290:47:31

-If I blow with an open mouth...

-Yes.

0:47:310:47:34

..I can get it to go around a little bit.

0:47:340:47:36

But if I just narrow my mouth, same lung capacity...

0:47:360:47:39

So yeah, it goes around much faster,

0:47:400:47:42

so that's the same as happening in the turbine blades.

0:47:420:47:44

As the gap narrows, the speed of the steam goes faster.

0:47:440:47:47

That's exactly right.

0:47:470:47:48

Nearly 130 years later,

0:47:480:47:51

we're still making turbines using exactly the same principles.

0:47:510:47:54

Before Parsons, power stations were operating under 500 revs per minute.

0:47:550:48:00

His turbo generator could rotate at 4,800 revs per minute.

0:48:000:48:05

Finally, we could produce far more electricity.

0:48:060:48:10

He'd cracked it!

0:48:120:48:14

In 1884, just a year after he started working on the problem,

0:48:140:48:17

Parsons patented the compound turbine,

0:48:170:48:20

and the first one was installed just up the road from here,

0:48:200:48:23

lighting the streets and homes of Newcastle.

0:48:230:48:26

He'd succeeded in creating a small, efficient, powerful rotary motion

0:48:260:48:30

for the electrical dynamo,

0:48:300:48:31

and it's that turbine design

0:48:310:48:33

that's still in use today in power stations across the globe.

0:48:330:48:37

And if you come with me now,

0:48:390:48:40

you can see just how impressive turbines are.

0:48:400:48:43

There's one over there, hanging up,

0:48:430:48:45

looking like an enormous Christmas decoration in this huge space,

0:48:450:48:50

which is just filled with turbines.

0:48:500:48:52

-Hi, Andy!

-Hi.

0:48:520:48:54

It is beautiful, I have to say, it is enormous and gorgeous.

0:48:540:48:58

-Are you in love with turbines?

-Not exactly in love,

0:48:580:49:00

but they are a marvellous piece of engineering, yes.

0:49:000:49:03

It is fantastic, when you think this sprang out of the mind

0:49:030:49:06

of a sort of 20-something-year-old so long ago.

0:49:060:49:09

How fast does this spin?

0:49:090:49:11

This spins at 3,000 rpm, 50 times a second.

0:49:110:49:15

Oh, blimey! And how heavy is it?

0:49:150:49:16

This particular one weighs 63 tonnes or thereabouts.

0:49:160:49:19

Right, and there's a metal casing here, is there?

0:49:190:49:22

Yes, there's a metal casing that this all is housed in.

0:49:220:49:25

Right, so presumably the risk is if you've got a metal housing here,

0:49:250:49:28

this is going to hit it.

0:49:280:49:30

Yes, yeah, that is our biggest concern,

0:49:300:49:32

and obviously we take great care and attention to detail

0:49:320:49:36

to make sure that these bits don't clash, basically, in service.

0:49:360:49:39

Yes, imagine! What sort of clearance are you aiming at?

0:49:390:49:42

-Roughly 40 thousandths of an inch.

-That is close, isn't it?!

0:49:420:49:45

Presumably if it hits the metal, then that's complete carnage.

0:49:450:49:48

It is, it just strips the rotor, all the blades come off,

0:49:480:49:51

and basically you're left with a mess.

0:49:510:49:52

-Right, which has to be cleared up.

-Yeah.

0:49:520:49:54

But if you leave too much space, presumably it's inefficient.

0:49:540:49:57

The steam tends to come round the outside of the blade,

0:49:570:50:00

rather than through it, and the efficiency is affected.

0:50:000:50:02

And the steam comes in there, spins all that around,

0:50:020:50:05

and the giant magnet is on the end there.

0:50:050:50:08

The giant coupling on the end turns the generator,

0:50:080:50:10

which obviously in turn generates electricity.

0:50:100:50:12

How much power does that generate?

0:50:120:50:14

When the station is generating at full capacity,

0:50:140:50:17

it's 4,000 megawatts,

0:50:170:50:19

which is getting on towards six million horsepower, basically.

0:50:190:50:23

Six million horsepower, so multiply by ten to get human power,

0:50:230:50:26

and you're up near 60 million humans.

0:50:260:50:29

This is doing the work of 60 million humans,

0:50:290:50:31

the entire population of the UK on exercise bikes

0:50:310:50:34

could perhaps produce as much power as your turbine.

0:50:340:50:38

-It's phenomenal, isn't it?

-It is, absolutely, yeah.

0:50:380:50:40

Thank you, Andy.

0:50:400:50:41

Now, the turbine is the last of our great inventions,

0:50:410:50:45

but it is not the end of the story of power.

0:50:450:50:48

This place, Drax, produces six million horsepower.

0:50:480:50:52

What happens to it next?

0:50:520:50:53

And this is it, the end of the line.

0:50:580:51:01

All that power generated by the boilers and the turbines

0:51:010:51:04

and the generators ends up here, in tiny, skinny little cables.

0:51:040:51:09

Now, these are at 400,000 volts,

0:51:090:51:13

and this cable set has enough power to power Liverpool or Birmingham.

0:51:130:51:17

And it's just one of six sets of cables

0:51:170:51:20

coming out of the turbine hall.

0:51:200:51:22

Our modern world is all about access to power,

0:51:220:51:26

but we know our resources are finite,

0:51:260:51:28

so nowadays invention isn't just about making more power,

0:51:280:51:31

it's about using it more cleverly.

0:51:310:51:33

I'm here with Dr Colin Brown

0:51:340:51:36

from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

0:51:360:51:39

So how do you think our relationship with power is affecting invention?

0:51:390:51:44

I think what inventors have realised now

0:51:440:51:46

is that the more people we've got,

0:51:460:51:47

the higher standard of living that we want,

0:51:470:51:49

the more power we are consuming,

0:51:490:51:51

so the more efficient the devices have got to be.

0:51:510:51:54

-Such as?

-Well, the modern version would be something like a light bulb,

0:51:540:51:57

where historically we would have heated something up

0:51:570:51:59

so it glowed red-hot, or white-hot,

0:51:590:52:01

and we're heating it up in order to get light,

0:52:010:52:03

it's a funny way of getting light.

0:52:030:52:05

So what you do is come up with things that give off light,

0:52:050:52:07

like fluorescent lights, or now we have light-emitting diodes.

0:52:070:52:10

Right, and I must admit, I still quite like the old lightbulbs,

0:52:100:52:13

but you can't get them any more, can you?

0:52:130:52:15

You can't, because they are six times less efficient

0:52:150:52:17

than having other ways of generating light.

0:52:170:52:19

I guess there's something beautiful about efficiency, isn't there?

0:52:190:52:22

There is as an engineer, you've got to take delight in elegant solutions,

0:52:220:52:26

and you're wondering, "How on earth did the engineer manage to do that?"

0:52:260:52:29

You're dying to take it apart and look inside,

0:52:290:52:32

but it's because it's an efficient design,

0:52:320:52:34

it's because it's the best way of doing something,

0:52:340:52:36

it's the one that wins through in the end and we all use.

0:52:360:52:39

And that's sort of true as well of the mobile phone,

0:52:390:52:42

that most people would rather have something small and neat

0:52:420:52:44

than something enormous.

0:52:440:52:46

We can all remember a mobile phone you could hardly pick up,

0:52:460:52:48

the battery was much larger.

0:52:480:52:50

But particularly the electronics consumed huge amounts of power.

0:52:500:52:53

Now, with the reduction in the size of electronics,

0:52:530:52:57

the amount of power you need has gone down

0:52:570:52:58

by around about a factor of 40 since the original phones were made.

0:52:580:53:01

So is efficiency just about cost?

0:53:010:53:04

I think efficiency used to be just about cost,

0:53:040:53:06

but now it's about a grim realisation

0:53:060:53:08

that we're on a finite planet and there are finite resources here,

0:53:080:53:11

so if we're setting fire to certain things to get energy out of them,

0:53:110:53:14

we know they're going to run out at some time,

0:53:140:53:16

and that's true of all of our energy sources,

0:53:160:53:19

maybe apart from when we talk about using the sun,

0:53:190:53:22

which has got four billion years.

0:53:220:53:24

But apart from that, we are on a finite planet with finite resources,

0:53:240:53:27

and that's becoming ever more evident.

0:53:270:53:29

And you can see those pressures operating here at Drax.

0:53:290:53:32

If it wants to stay in the game,

0:53:320:53:34

it can't continue to rely simply on coal.

0:53:340:53:37

Pollution costs, and Drax is Britain's biggest polluter.

0:53:370:53:40

Its sheer size means it produces more CO2 than anywhere else.

0:53:400:53:45

So what are they doing about it?

0:53:450:53:47

Coal provides around 90% of the fuel burned at Drax.

0:53:510:53:55

The rest is biomass.

0:53:550:53:57

For the past few years,

0:53:590:54:00

Drax has been preparing to convert to this new fuel.

0:54:000:54:04

This giant dome is where they'll store it.

0:54:050:54:08

This is Nigel Burdett. He's head of environment at Drax.

0:54:100:54:14

Nigel, what exactly is biomass?

0:54:140:54:16

Biomass is a term which covers a lot of things,

0:54:160:54:18

so that's miscanthus, which we use some of,

0:54:180:54:21

and that's pieces of willow, the ordinary tree that we're using.

0:54:210:54:24

We use an awful lot of wood pellets as well,

0:54:240:54:26

which is wood finally ground

0:54:260:54:27

and pelletised into that sort of material.

0:54:270:54:29

Does it burn as hot as coal?

0:54:290:54:30

It burns at the same temperature and efficiency of coal, yes.

0:54:300:54:33

And how are wood pellets better?

0:54:330:54:35

Coal is very polluting, it produces a large amount of carbon dioxide,

0:54:350:54:38

so what we're trying to do is replace coal

0:54:380:54:41

with biomass as far as we can.

0:54:410:54:42

Like coal, burning biomass still releases CO2 into the atmosphere.

0:54:450:54:51

But its supporters say growing the plants required cancels this out.

0:54:510:54:56

So what's the future for biomass at Drax?

0:54:560:54:59

What we're aiming to do is fully convert a boiler,

0:54:590:55:01

so it'll be on 100% biomass, and the year after that another one,

0:55:010:55:04

so eventually the aim is to have three boilers

0:55:040:55:06

fully converted to biomass.

0:55:060:55:08

Biomass is just the latest chapter in the story of power.

0:55:100:55:13

Newcomen brought us the first working engine.

0:55:140:55:17

Watt made it efficient and adaptable.

0:55:170:55:21

Faraday's genius unlocked electricity.

0:55:210:55:24

And finally, Parsons found a way to provide it in vast quantities.

0:55:240:55:29

In just 300 years, we jumped from six horsepower to six million

0:55:290:55:33

thanks to British invention.

0:55:330:55:36

Our lives are far easier and more fun

0:55:360:55:39

than our ancestors could ever have dreamt of.

0:55:390:55:42

Inventors are still driven by the same desire

0:55:440:55:46

to give us more power, more efficiently,

0:55:460:55:49

wherever and whenever we want it.

0:55:490:55:52

But now the overwhelming challenge for all of us

0:55:520:55:55

is to do it more sustainably.

0:55:550:55:57

So there you can see the Newcomen engine to biomass in just 300 years.

0:56:000:56:05

300 years - fast, slow?

0:56:050:56:06

What are you going to compare it with?!

0:56:060:56:08

I think we dawdled at the beginning, then we got the hang of power,

0:56:080:56:11

and we got really addicted to it, and now we love it.

0:56:110:56:14

You know, TVs, computers, what's not to love?

0:56:140:56:16

And then we kind of sped up, then we got addicted.

0:56:160:56:19

Do you think biomass is the answer?

0:56:190:56:21

Well, I mean, it's... it's not exactly carbon neutral,

0:56:210:56:24

because you've always got to transport it,

0:56:240:56:26

but it is a lot better than coal.

0:56:260:56:28

I think the answer is solar power, to be honest.

0:56:280:56:30

I think biomass is cool, I like it, a step in the right direction,

0:56:300:56:33

but there's energy raining down from the sky in the form of sunshine,

0:56:330:56:36

more than enough for everybody - just turn it into electricity.

0:56:360:56:39

All we need is a bit more invention and we'll be there.

0:56:390:56:42

So why aren't we doing it? Why haven't we tapped it?

0:56:420:56:44

I think we sort of got a bit lazy and we think, you know,

0:56:440:56:47

"All these great inventions around, someone else will do it."

0:56:470:56:49

-But no, we should do it. Let's get out, use solar power.

-Do you agree?

0:56:490:56:53

I do, we've got that wealth of understanding of engineering,

0:56:530:56:56

we've built this amazing modern world full of stuff.

0:56:560:56:59

We just need to find a new way of feeding that addiction.

0:56:590:57:01

Whatever the future, our inventions tonight

0:57:030:57:05

certainly show the immense resourcefulness of the human race,

0:57:050:57:08

and we are going to bring you more of these moments of genius

0:57:080:57:11

in the next programme.

0:57:110:57:12

We will be at Rolls-Royce in Derby

0:57:140:57:16

to tell the story of movement and speed

0:57:160:57:19

from the earliest steam train

0:57:190:57:21

to the internal combustion engine

0:57:210:57:23

to the jet engine.

0:57:230:57:25

I'll be finding out how all steam engines are not the same.

0:57:250:57:28

The arrival of an engine

0:57:280:57:30

that could work with forces of high-pressure steam

0:57:300:57:33

revolutionised our relationship with travel.

0:57:330:57:36

Cassie will be exploring what happened

0:57:370:57:40

when the internal-combustion engine finally met the chassis.

0:57:400:57:44

And Mark will be revealing

0:57:450:57:46

the extraordinary and British technology that goes into making

0:57:460:57:50

one of the fastest and most complex machines in the world.

0:57:500:57:53

It's going to be great.

0:57:590:58:00

For now, however, it's good night from Drax.

0:58:000:58:03

-Thank you for watching. Good night!

-Good night.

-Good night.

0:58:030:58:07

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0:58:340:58:37

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