Electric World

Electric World

Point Of Divergence is an amateur press magazine and also a forum for discussing AH and AH-related ideas. Here is my comment section.

Well, any potboiler alternate history has to have dirigibles or steam cars, preferably both. All I did here was to figure out a point of divergence that would give us that result without relying on a different set of wars or Alien Space Bats. I'm not sure what this scenario adds to the party in terms of story potential, but I think it's an interesting alternative.

I got to thinking about technology and how it evolves. We live in a world where electricity powers most of our stationary activities, but most of our transportation is based on petroleum and internal combustion engines.

Question: How could we have end up with a society where electricity dominated transportation and the internal combustion engine was just a technological curiosity?

What actually happened: The oil industry got its start mainly as a source of kerosene, primarily for lighting. Kerosene was initially refined form coal starting in 1846. Starting in 1852, kerosene was refined from petroleum. The US oil industry was still in it's infancy at the beginning of the Civil War. In 1859 the US produced 2000 barrels of oil. By 1869, it was producing over 4 million barrels.

The market for kerosene grew through most of the rest of the 1800s. Electricity began challenging kerosene for lighting applications as practical incandescent light bulbs were developed in the late 1870s. Electricity took a detour down the dead-end of direct current (DC) power in the 1880s, before Alternating Current (AC) power caught on, and allowed widespread distribution of electrical power and electric lights.

Kerosene and other petroleum-based lighting was gradually pushed out of the cities, though it stayed in use in some rural areas into the 1950s.

Use of petroleum for lighting meant that refineries and much of the rest of the necessary infrastructure was available for petroleum-driven cars. Once the internal combustion engine was refined enough to provide a source of power, and advances in suspensions (mainly derived from bicycles and carriages) were in place, petroleum-fueled internal combustion engines won out over steam-driven and electric–powered competitors and became the primary means of transportation in the US, and to a lesser extent in Europe.

What might have happened: Let's say the technology behind the light bulb advances a little faster than it did historically. Joseph Wilson Swan, an English physicist and chemist was working on incandescent bulbs as early as 1850, and had working (but not practical) bulbs by 1860. One of the major problems he faced was inability to create a good enough vacuum inside his bulbs. Let's say that techniques for creating a vacuum advance fast enough that the first practical bulbs are created around 1854, twenty-five years earlier than was the case historically.

The bulb itself is a major accomplishment, but it is of very little use without practical means of generating electricity. Historically, that didn't happen until arguably around 1866. I suspect that the existence of practical light bulbs would spur more rapid advances in electrical generation. Let's say that adequate means of electrical generation are available by 1859, and a primitive but practical form of electrical lighting begins to spread.

Electric lighting cuts into the growth of kerosene production, but doesn't initially stop it. Initial electric production is direct current, which makes distribution over long distances difficult. Electrical generators are scattered around major cities, with each station serving customers within about a mile of the station.

Historically, AC power generation lagged DC power by 15 to 20 years. Let's say it follows that pattern in this time-line. That would mean practical AC power by the mid to late 1870s. As AC power spreads, petroleum-based lighting rapidly loses market share, though it persists in rural areas.

With the arrival of AC power, electric-based transportation begins to spread. Trolley systems become commonplace in large cities. They spread out from there, connecting towns to each other and to cities. Cities redesign themselves around the trolley lines. Stores and homes are located with reference to the trolley lines. Towns and cities enact ordinances against use of horses within city limits. A few wealthy people own expensive electric or steam cars, especially if they live in rural areas away from the trolley lines. Bicycles become a major secondary form of transportation within urban areas, and to a secondary extent in rural areas, but they progress more slowly than in our history.

As the infrastructure of electricity spreads, applications for it become feasible—radio, phonographs, and eventually television in the late 1920s. The incentive to get electricity spreads with the new applications, and people find ways of getting some electricity even in rural areas. They buy wind turbines and banks of batteries in areas where it isn't feasible to run transmission lines.

Steam cars have a niche in this society, especially in rural areas. Steam tractors have a somewhat larger niche. Electric engines simply don't have the power to serve as tractors, and batteries aren't up to the task of plowing. Steam engines aren't totally satisfactory, and they remain expensive due to the fact that they don't have the scale of mass production that internal combustion engines had in our history due to their use in cars. Draft horses and mules remain a major factor in the rural US far longer than they did historically

The technology for internal combustion engines finally comes together about twenty years after it did historically. In the 1920s a few companies produce horseless carriages using them, but the infrastructure for electric transportation is deeply embedded in the fabric of society. The petroleum industry is a mid-sized, not especially politically powerful entity. It is in no position to take on the big electric companies or the big trolley companies.

The internal combustion engine does find some niches as time goes on. Internal combustion engines extend the range of dirigibles, and allow the first heavier than air craft to fly by the early 1930s. Heavier than air craft are confronted by entrenched competitors in the dirigible industry and to some extent by high-speed cross-country passenger trains. They do establish a niche in very high speed travel by the 1940s.

So where do we go from there? We have pretty much all of the stereotypical alternate history elements—steam cars, dirigibles, and (especially for David Johnson) trolleys. So now we need to think through the implications of all of this.

Military/strategic: The divergence happens before the US Civil War, but probably would not prevent it. It also would probably not change the complexion of that war a great deal. It might give the north a slight additional advantage by allowing factories in the north to be operated more efficiently at night. I suppose that I could have fun with a desperate south making electric-powered submarines to try to break the union blockade, or spies using newly developed phonographs in some way. I could see this time-line's version of the Gettysburg address being recorded on a primitive phonograph. That would be kind of cool.

As time goes on, the military/political implications get bigger. Is there a Franco-Prussian war? Probably. The two powers were going to clash at some point. Would there be a rush for Africa? Again, probably, though European technology would have taken on different forms and might not be quite as effective at shrinking the world and conquering it as it was historically.

Would there be a couple of World Wars? Probably. No guarantees that they would be between the same countries or that they would take the same shape. No guarantees on the timing either. A 1914 war in this timeline would probably not have tanks or airplanes. It probably wouldn't have Paris taxicabs rushing soldiers to the front.

The US would probably not be the same type of industrial powerhouse in this history as it was in ours. The electric industries would not generate the scale of mass production that the industries built around the internal combustion engine generated historically.

Other implications: Delayed space program in all likelihood. Earlier television, with all of the ramifications of that. Earlier development of mass culture, with musicians and styles from the late 1800s surviving and commingling to create music styles we never saw historically. Probably a more social conservative culture for many years, as the lack of automobiles kept kids under the watchful eyes of adults longer. Television and radio shows that never existed in our history. I wonder what would show up on the radio given the morals of the time they showed up. A lot of Horatio Alger type stuff? A lot of Wild West type things?

How would earlier TV affect reading habits? Would teenagers still flock to Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew or Jerry Todd and Poppy Ott in the 1920s and 1930s? Given the time between the divergence and the 1920s, it is unlikely that specific authors would still be doing the same series but I don't know how that would have change the market. No Stratemeyer Syndicate? How would that have changed young adult literature? Would the pulps have had a chance to develop? Kind of sad to think about a world with no Doc Savage or Tarzan. It might not have a Foundation Trilogy or a Flandry of Terra either.

How would the existence of television affect the course of the inevitable depressions of the late 1800s and early 1900s? Would the psychological impact of TV make getting out of those depressions more difficult?

What about medical advances? Would they be faster or slower? What about computers? More or less advanced than historically? Solar power: earlier or later? More or less successful?

Would petroleum/internal combustion technology eventually win anyway? If it didn't, how would that affect the players in what historically became the power centers of the oil industry? Saudi Arabia still a desert full of warring tribesmen? No Texas oil booms? The Ottoman Empire still theoretically ruling the Middle East? British and French Empires still around in the timeline's equivalent of 2008?

What about the settlement of the west? Slower? Faster? Would the classic Wild West survive longer or become civilized more quickly? I'm guessing it would survive longer, which could be kind of fun, though probably not to the people living there.

So what do you think? Is there anything new or noteworthy about this approach? Any story potential? Any ideas on what 2008 would look like given this divergence?

Revised Version Posted on Feb 4, 2012.

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