HPS282S - HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY AND ENGINEERING
Spring 1998
Electrical Systems
5 March 1998
I. Early History of Electricity
A. Recent science
B. Growth of Industrial Electricity
C. Electrical Illumination Before Edison
II. Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) and the Incandescent Electric Lamp
A. Edison as inventor-entrepreneur (Hughes' phrase)
B. Gas illumination
C. Edison's Achievement
D. Edison's System
III. Edison and Alternating Current
A. Drawbacks of Direct Current
B. Edison's battle against AC
C. Prerequisites for Success of AC
IV. Samuel Insull and the Chicago System
A. Characteristics of Chicago
1. Social, political, and economic differences can affect characteristics of utility systems
2. Chicago: rapid growth; political venality; large, relatively centralized political unit
3. Insull's victory in Chicago
a) Monopoly of electrical equipment sales
b) Willingness to accept regulation
c) Technical innovativeness
B. Load Factor and Diversity Factor
1. Definitions:
LF=Average demand on generating system/Capacity of system
DF=Sum of maximum individual demands of all customers/Capacity of the system
2. Best situation: LF approaches 1 and DF the higher the better
C. Insull as manager-entrepreneur
1. Statistics and Analysis
2. Differential Rates
3. Expanding size of the system
V. The Rise and Fall of Modern American Utilities
A. Patterns of Growth
1. Grow and Build
2. Design from Experience before WW2
3. Insull Pattern of expansion
4. Ontario Hydro: State institution with powers of regulation, distribution and production
B. Social and Technological Consensus
1. The partners: public, engineer-managers of utilities, equipment maufacturers, regulators, investors and financiers
2. Essential consensus on positive aspects of electrical power: aura of scientific technology, clean, regulated, increasingly cheap, more and more efficient service
C. Technological Stasis
1. Breakdown of consensus before 1973 Oil Embargo
2. Theoretical limits of thermal efficiency
3. Metallurgical Problems
4. Pollution problems
5. After initial success, failure of design by extrapolation
