There were no fundamental innovations in fuel and power before the breakthrough of 1945, but there were several significant developments in techniques that had originated in the previous century. An outstanding development of this type was the internal-combustion engine, which was continuously improved to meet the needs of road vehicles and airplanes. The high-compression engine burning heavy-oil fuels, invented by Rudolf Diesel in the 1890s, was developed to serve as a submarine power unit in World War I and was subsequently adapted to heavy road haulage duties and to agricultural tractors. Moreover, the sort of development that had transformed the reciprocating steam engine into the steam turbine occurred with the internal-combustion engine, the gas turbine replacing the reciprocating engine for specialized purposes such as aero-engines, in which a high power-to-weight ratio is important. Admittedly, this adaptation had not proceeded very far by 1945, although the first jet-powered aircraft were in service by the end of the war. The theory of the gas turbine, however, had been understood since the 1920s at least, and in 1929 Sir Frank Whittle, then taking a flying instructor’s course with the Royal Air Force, combined it with the principle of jet propulsion in the engine for which he took out a patent in the following year. But the construction of a satisfactory gas-turbine engine was delayed for a decade by the lack of resources, and particularly by the need to develop new metal alloys that could withstand the high temperatures generated in the engine. This problem was solved by the development of a nickel-chromium alloy, and, with the gradual solution of the other problems, work went on in both Germany and Britain to seize a military advantage by applying the jet engine to combat aircraft. Gas-turbine engine
The principle of the gas turbine is that of compressing and burning air and fuel in a combustion chamber and using the exhaust jet from this process to provide the reaction that propels the engine forward. In its turbopropeller form, which developed only after World War II, the exhaust drives a shaft carrying a normal airscrew (propeller). Compression is achieved in a gas-turbine engine by admitting air through a turbine rotor. In the so-called ramjet engine, intended to operate at high speeds, the momentum of the engine through the air achieves adequate compression. The gas turbine has been the subject of experiments in road, rail, and marine transport, but for all purposes except that of air transport its advantages have not so far been such as to make it a viable rival to traditional reciprocating engines. Petroleum
As far as fuel is concerned, the gas turbine burns mainly the middle fractions (kerosene, or paraffin) of refined oil, but the general tendency of its widespread application was to increase still further the dependence of the industrialized nations on the producers of crude oil, which became a raw material of immense economic value and international political significance. The refining of this material itself underwent important technological development. Until the 20th century it consisted of a fairly simple batch process whereby oil was heated until it vaporized, when the various fractions were distilled separately. Apart from improvements in the design of the stills and the introduction of continuous-flow production, the first big advance came in 1913 with the introduction of thermal cracking. This process took the less volatile fractions after distillation and subjected them to heat under pressure, thus cracking the heavy molecules into lighter molecules and so increasing the yield of the most valuable fuel, petrol or gasoline. The discovery of this ability to tailor the products of crude oil to suit the market marks the true beginning of the petrochemical industry. It received a further boost in 1936, with the introduction of catalytic cracking. By the use of various catalysts in the process, means were devised for still further manipulating the molecules of the hydrocarbon raw material. The development of modern plastics followed directly on this (see below Plastics). So efficient had the processes of utilization become that by the end of World War II the petrochemical industry had virtually eliminated all waste materials.
Petroleum refinery at Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia.Herbert Lanks/Shostal Associates
Electricity
All the principles of generating electricity had been worked out in the 19th century, but by its end these had only just begun to produce electricity on a large scale. The 20th century witnessed a colossal expansion of electrical power generation and distribution. The general pattern has been toward ever-larger units of production, using steam from coal- or oil-fired boilers. Economies of scale and the greater physical efficiency achieved as higher steam temperatures and pressures were attained both reinforced this tendency. Experience in the United States indicates the trend: in the first decade of the 20th century, a generating unit with a capacity of 25,000 kilowatts with pressures up to 200–300 pounds per square inch at 400–500 °F (about 200–265 °C) was considered large, but by 1930 the largest unit was 208,000 kilowatts with pressures of 1,200 pounds per square inch at a temperature of 725 °F, while the amount of fuel necessary to produce a kilowatt-hour of electricity and the price to the consumer had fallen dramatically. As the market for electricity increased, so did the distance over which it was transmitted, and the efficiency of transmission required higher and higher voltages. The small direct-current generators of early urban power systems were abandoned in favour of alternating-current systems, which could be adapted more readily to high voltages. Transmission over a line of 155 miles (250 km) was established in California in 1908 at 110,000 volts, and Hoover Dam in the 1930s used a line of 300 miles (480 km) at 287,000 volts. The latter case may serve as a reminder that hydroelectric power, using a fall of water to drive water turbines, was developed to generate electricity where the climate and topography make it possible to combine production with convenient transmission to a market. Remarkable levels of efficiency were achieved in modern plants. One important consequence of the ever-expanding consumption of electricity in the industrialized countries has been the linking of local systems to provide vast power grids, or pools, within which power can be shifted easily to meet changing local needs for current. Atomic power
Until 1945, electricity and the internal-combustion engine were the dominant sources of power for industry and transport in the 20th century, although in some parts of the industrialized world steam power and even older prime movers remained important. Early research in nuclear physics was more scientific than technological, stirring little general interest. In fact, from the work of Ernest Rutherford, Albert Einstein, and others to the first successful experiments in splitting heavy atoms in Germany in 1938, no particular thought was given to engineering potential. The war led the Manhattan Project to produce the fission bomb that was first exploded at Alamogordo, N.M. Only in its final stages did even this program become a matter of technology, when the problems of building large reactors and handling radioactive materials had to be solved. At this point it also became an economic and political matter, because very heavy capital expenditure was involved. Thus, in this crucial event of the mid-20th century, the convergence of science, technology, economics, and politics finally took place. Industry and innovation