write a report on quest for energy from ancient to till date.
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Explanation:
The old days
Before the industrial revolution, our energy needs were modest. For heat, we relied on the sun—and burned wood, straw, and dried dung when the sun failed us. For transportation, the muscle of horses and the power of the wind in our sails took us to every corner of the world. For work, we used animals to do jobs that we couldn't do with our own labor. Water and wind drove the simple machines that ground our grain and pumped our water.
Simple machines based on the ability to harness the power of steam have been dated by some sources as far back as ancient Alexandria. The evolution of the steam engine continued over time and significantly ramped up in the 17th and 18th centuries. But it was the significant adaptations of Thomas Newcomen and James Watt in the mid 1700s that gave birth to the modern steam engine, opening up a world of possibility. A single steam engine, powered by coal dug from the mines of England and Appalachia, could do the work of dozens of horses.
More convenient than wind and water, and less expensive than a stable full of horses, steam engines were soon powering locomotives, factories, and farm implements. Coal was also used for heating buildings and smelting iron into steel. In 1880, coal powered a steam engine attached to the world's first electric generator. Thomas Edison's plant in New York City provided the first electric light to Wall Street financiers and the New York Times.
Photo of Thomas Edison
Only a year later, the world's first hydroelectric plant went on-line in Appleton, Wisconsin. Fast-flowing rivers that had turned wheels to grind corn were now grinding out electricity instead. Within a few years, Henry Ford hired his friend Edison to help build a small hydro plant to power his home in Michigan.
By the late 1800s, a new form of fuel was catching on: petroleum. For years it had been a nuisance, contaminating wells for drinking water. Initially sold by hucksters as medicine, oil became a valuable commodity for lighting as the whale oil industry declined. By the turn of the century, oil, processed into gasoline, was firing internal combustion engines.
Horseless carriages were a rich man's toy until Henry Ford perfected the assembly-line method of mass production for his Model T. Interestingly enough, electric cars were a rich woman's toy at the same time. Quiet and clean, electric cars started without a starter crank, an exertion that would have overtaxed the gentle ladies of the day. When gas cars adopted electric starters, their superior range quickly drove the electrics out of the market.
Another key invention of the era was the safety bicycle, which had two wheels of the same size, putting the rider much lower to the ground than earlier bicycles. The pneumatic tire, invented by John Dunlop, made cycling all the more comfortable over the cobblestone and dirt roads, and bicycles became a national obsession in the 1890s