Obscura and Trivia 6
The Mystery of Electrical Power Generation in Verne's Future
Green Paris
By
Quentin R. Skrabec Ph.D.
Verne’s future vision of
a green Paris in 1960 was based on the known science at the time of his writing
in 1863. Verne’s realistic predictions depended on his ability to put known scientific
principles into engineering designs and then upscale from the laboratory to
mass application. Verne’s power grid for his green Paris had these sources.
1.
Compressed
air produced from windmills to drive trains, factory machines, and river
cantilever river bridges (p.135)
2.
Electricity
for street lighting, commercial applications, billboards, music, and communications,
as well as home electricity for small appliances.
3.
Hydrogen
gas from electric power electrolysis to fuel cars and boats.
4.
A
combination of compressed air and hydrogen burning to heat homes.
5.
Hydraulic systems and possibly hydroelectric
power from river dams
Other than
compressed air, electric power generation was the primary energy for Verne’s
futuristic Paris and probably would have accounted for 70 percent of the power
grid. So, how did Verne generate it? Chemical, electromagnetic/mechanical power
generation? Verne clearly believed electricity would be available to power
green Paris in 1960. He doesn’t directly
address the mass electricity generation, but there are clues. Verne had consistently
utilized the work and speculation of Humphrey Davy (1778-1829) and his lab
assistant Micheal Faraday (1791- 1867) in his futuristic engineering. Virtually
all electric power today is produced using Faraday's principles, no matter
whether the prime source of energy is coal, oil, gas, chemical, nuclear, hydro,
or wind.
Battery-generated electricity was
the source in Verne’s world in 1863, and Verne’s green Paris did still use
some battery power for things like musical instruments (p. 209); however, he
was aware battery power could not light a city, light billboards, and provide
electrolysis for massive hydrogen production. Humphery Davy had established the
battery power cost, noting it in his arc lighting experiments. Davy used
electricity to create arc lighting in the 1820s, but 2000 galvanic battery
cells were required at six dollars per minute (about 200 dollars a minute today)
to power one arc light.[1] In 1848, two experimental arc streetlights in
Paris were tried but short-lived because of battery cost.[2] Verne’s green Paris had
200,000 streetlights (p. 24), and battery electricity would be cost-prohibitive.
By the early 1850s, a theoretical bias was established to generate electricity
by cheaper mechanical magneto-electric generators (dynamos), and Verne quickly
realized it.
An arc lighthouse was built in 1862
in England, and a year later, a Faraday/ Siemens (also Serrin system) dynamo
was used in France. The system was part of the Way Method (after John Thomas
Way), which Verne noted in Paris in the Twentieth Century. The problem
was, however, a hand crank was used. [3] Even green Paris’s colossal lighthouse, which was 152
meters high and could be seen for forty leagues (p. 136), could hardly be hand-cranked!
That’s where technology stood in 1863, and it wasn’t until the 1880s that large
amounts of mechanical dynamo electrical generation could light a city block. Still,
in 1863, Verne had a small-scale theoretical basis. However, Verne needed to upscale
the mechanical dynamo with a more efficient and sustainable power source to
drive the shaft of this hand-cranked dynamo. Verne’s green Paris did have several
potential power sources to drive a dynamo's shaft, such as wind, coal, gas,
chemical, and hydrogen.
He could have used a coal-fired
steam engine to drive a dynamo, which would be commercially developed a few
decades later (1880s). However, Verne
indicated the limited use of coal in his green Paris. Verne even suggested the
replacement engine for steam in green Paris. This carbonic acid engine (p. 12)
was experimented on during Verne’s writing by Victorian engineer Isambard
Kingdom Brunel, of Great Eastern fame.
Another possible Verne solution could
have been compressed air from windmills to power magneto-electric. Verne’s
green Paris had a wind farm of 1838 windmills available. However, Verne’s
stated use of compressed in green Paris was to make compressed air used trains
and factory machines not for electric generations.
Hydropower was another option. Verne’s
green Paris had a major dam, with water turbines on the Seine River, that could
produce 2000 horsepower (p.204). Verne
does not directly note hydroelectric generation, but Faraday had speculated and
experimented about converting water power into electrical energy in the 1850s.
By the 1880s, water turbines were being used to generate electricity. Verne’s
green Paris did have hydro-powered turbines available (p 204), and Westinghouse
would use water turbines to make hydroelectric power available in 1879.
Verne
never directly indicated his electricity generation, yet he believed the future
would be electric! He prophesied the future sources that would be used, such as
hydroelectric, wind, and clean fuels that could have been used. Verne’s
literary series Voyages Extraordinaire would continue to augur the future of
green power.
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