I don't think it was burning coal that started the industrial revolution. We had been burning coal and oil for far longer. If anything it was the steam engine. And the internal combustion engine was still part of the industrial revolution. Though the development of cars lead to the automotive era.
this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2024
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Yeah coal has been used for millenia. Humans have been burning coal/charcoal for metalworking for millenia. Like even in the stone age we still used coal/charcoal.
Many people think of industrial developments in slightly different terms. Industry 4.0 is a fairly modern way to look at it.
“The First Industrial Revolution was marked by a transition from hand production methods to machines through the use of steam power and water power. “
“The Second Industrial Revolution, also known as the Technological Revolution, is the period between 1871 and 1914 that resulted from installations of extensive railroad and telegraph networks, which allowed for faster transfer of people and ideas, as well as electricity.”
“The Third Industrial Revolution, also known as the Digital Revolution, began in the late 20th century. It is characterized by the shift to an economy centered on information technology, marked by the advent of personal computers, the Internet, and the widespread digitalization of communication and industrial processes.”
Burning coal was common in stage 1, oil gradually became more common in stage 2, nuclear in stage 3 etc. In this system, the power source wasn’t really the defining feature, but what you could do with it was.
Well, you've run into a problem.
What you're asking in the post isn't what you're asking in the comments.
See, the industrial revolution is not, and was not, defined by the burning of coal as an energy source.
While flipping terminology around to stimulate thought is a great thing, it makes the question you asked in the post unanswerable.
There wasn't a term for when oil started being a fuel source, nor a specific one for automobile use. That's the answer to your title question: there wasn't.
That being said, the automotive era would be a decent term for the use of machine powered transportation.
But I think separating fossil fuels into separate eras when they overlap so much is pointless. It's all fossil fuels, and that's where I would suggest any term for that would be based, not the specific fuels.
Either of the first two Industrial Revolutions were not named because of the burning of coal in and of itself. Coal burning was part of the widespread and rapid transformation of society. Coal played a part in facilitating previously unthinkable changes in a short time.
The adoption of cars has been more iterative and gradual. In the U.S. there are certain periods important for them such as, depending on how much you think it had an effect, the General Motors streetcar conspiracy. There was also the post WW2 push by Eisenhower to building National highways. But those didn't radically and quickly change life in the way industrial revolutions did. There was the post-war boom, which if you want to view it through a certain lens, was a kind of revolution for the U.S., in that people found themselves with much more buying power thanks to the U.S. having assumed superpower status.
Similarly nuclear power production has not caused widespread fundamental change in a short period. Nuclear weapons did become a major part of geopolitics, but nuclear power is as far as society is concerned just another way to make electricity.
Yes I inverted it to burning coal is called the industrial revolution because I think it’s neat way to look at it.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. The industrial revolutions were not just about burning coal.
It's useful to think about things by turning them on their head, aka inverting them. In this case: Burning of coal facilitated the industrial revolution. Yes, yes, yes, I know all the things that it was not caused by the burning of coal, it as not "just about burning coal", it was not named because of the burning of coal, things were iterative, etc, etc, etc. But it behooves you turn things on their head and think through them in different ways.
In the bigger sense of turning things on their head, we can look at energy sources as we go through history: We burned wood. Then we burned coal. Then we burned oil. Then we burned atoms.
We burned wood. Then we burned coal. Then we burned oil. Then we burned atoms.
That is not a useful way of thinking of things. We have been burning oil and coal for a very very long time. Coal has been used in smiths to forge metal and oil to light lamps for 1000s of years.
It is not what we burnt that changed, it is what we did with the energy that changed things. Aka the steam engine was the real keystone technology in the industrial revolution. It was not the burning of oil that changed anything - but the internal combustion engine being put into cars.
If you didn't have things to burn, then you couldn't access certain advancements. Not nearly as easily anyway. We would have needed charcoal for steam engines. Or your example, how would we have processed ore into metal without coal (on any significant scale). Maybe charcoal again. Without something liquid (and very energy dense) combustion engines would have been very hard. Maybe ethanol, but production of that would have been hard. I think advancement has been very dependent on easy, energy dense energy sources.
Or your example, how would we have processed ore into metal without coal (on any significant scale).
We have been processing ore into metal with coal for thousands of years. It sounds like you are arguing that the industrial revolution has been happening for thousands of years. Which it has not.
We also made bread in the industrial revolution which is needed to feed the workers. Without feeding the workforce we could not access certain advancements. Is bread a corner stone technology of the industrial revolution? No it is not. It in no way defines what the industrial revolution was. Just like coal or oil.
You can run a steam engine off of coal, wood, oil, nuclear, basically anything that creates a lot of heat. Coal is more convenient in a lot of ways but it did not unlock anything special. If not for coal we could use wood or charcoal. That was the steam engine, not the fuel it runs on.
And if the advancements were because of these fuels that why did it not happen 1000s of years ago when we had access to them?
Treadles were the first source of power in the industrial revolution. Coal came way later.
I'm not sure if I entirely follow what you mean by "turning things on their head". What are you getting at?
I understand the turn of phrase. I don't quite know what you mean in the application here.
They mean inverting the flow of logic, not looking at consequences but at causes, i guess.
I think they mean they just took a huge bong rip and suddenly became the smartest person in the room.
But hear me out, what if a bong took a huge rip out of you instead...
Far out man
? Your point being that we didn't stop burning coal when we got oil? I am aware.
Looking at that graph and extrapolating from your comment, you're saying the industrial revolution started in 1900?
Yeah i basically just wanted to tell you that there's actual data on stuff and if you wanna know, you gotta read it all, there's a lot. I don't know what it would help you and ask a question such as "is there a name for the time when we started to burn oil?" because if i give you an answer, what do you do with that answer? if you can't embed it into a broader context, that answer seems pretty useless to me. So if you actually wanna know, maybe start reading it all. idk. maybe i come off arrogant, but that's not my intention. i just don't understand what your motivation for asking this question is?
At least in the USA, it is known as the Robber Barron period as the extremely wealthy monopolized everything.
So......we're still in the Robber Barron era then?
Robber barons were in many ways also tied to coal.
Robber barons are just a more evocative way of framing the period compared to the dry Industrial Revolution term, similar to calling it the Gilded Age, but all the terms are roughly talking about the same time period.
The industrial revolution is when we went from mostly normal farmers to industrial scale production in factories, hence the name. The next "revolution" will either be a "renewable revolution" or there will be no revolution, only devolution
You're not wrong, but your response doesn't contribute much to answering the question.
I don't like his question since its a stupid question that ignores basic history. There have been only a couple of true revolutions, and oil and cars ain't one imo
No, I think, they both (burgersc12 and OP) have an important point.
We can think of technology in two different ways: input and output; i.e. what do we put into the machine (source of energy) and what do we get out (factory products). They're just looking at it from two different angles: OP is asking about power source, but burgersc12 is talking about factory outputs.
There has been a Second and Third Industrial Revolutions.
It would be the Second one, but it's not the oil that marks it. It's electricity.
It would be the Second one, but it’s not the oil that marks it.
.... So it would not the be second one.
It happened at the same time, there's no other name.
Kerosene and whale oil have been around for a bit longer than cars.
Lol the internet revolution was adapted to the name tech bubble after it burst.
Water power predates those for mechanization as does wind (water wheels and windmills).
This list also ignores other sources of energy (solar, wind, wave, etc.),
This post also ignores things we burn that aren't in your list (peat, dung, etc.)
None of that has anything to do with the question they asked.
Yes I inverted it to burning coal is called the industrial revolution because I think it's neat way to look at it. I'm thinking through the history of energy: We burned wood. Then we burned coal. Then we burned oil. Then we burned atoms.
I was referring to this part, but the premise of the whole question in the OP is incorrect. We burnt coal before the industrial revolution, during, and after it. One could argue that the industrial revolution was more or less impossible without coal, but that's not what was stated.
The OP left a lot out of the history of energy as well as how it impacted various technologies for mechanization and automation.
I think I just had a lot of talks about this with someone recently. Feel free to DM me if you wanna know more.
Yes, you're right; The sources of energy have a society-defining role.
There's two major sources: carbon-based (coal, oil, gas, biomass) and electricity.
Right now, we consume approximately 50% of either, but this is about to change. I predict that solar power will shift energy consumption to nearly 100% electrical in a few years.
I don't really know about a specific name for when we started burning oil, but you might wanna look at Peak Oil Theory because it explains the mass of oil consumption over time as a bell curve.