A history of power production in eight limericks

Robin Ford, November 2017

(See notes at the end if you are wondering who the people are.)

Brother Newcomen’s low-pressure steam
Made a force on one end of a beam.
It went down (let’s suppose)
So the other end rose,
Doing work – a remarkable scheme.

John Smeaton was ever so neat.
The windmills he built worked a treat.
And waterwheels too,
Though efficient, he knew
That with coal pow’r they’d never compete.

Said canny young Scotsman, James Watt,
‘This sep’rate condenser I’ve got
Will, if you’re using coal
To de-water a hole,
Surely save you a hell of a lot.’

Said mysterious man Rudolf Diesel,
‘I’ll explain with this chart on my easel.
There’s no water to boil
And it runs well on oil
It’s as simple as “pop goes the weasel”.’

Young man in a rush Martin Green
Built the best solar cells ever seen.
We have barely begun
Getting pow’r from the sun.
It’s becoming quite cheap, and it’s clean.

Modern windmill designs have made gains.
Of which many are down to the Danes.
Get them built on a hill
And for good or for ill
They’ll produce as wind waxes and wanes.

Good storage, it now is quite clear,
Can overcome many a fear.
Drive all day without fright,
Keep the lights on at night;
The options improve year by year.

Australia is a coal miner,
Our exports just couldn’t be finer.
Though they might bring us shame
We can transfer the blame
To the people who burn coal in China.

Notes on the people referred to

Thomas Newcomen (1664-1729)….Although there is some dispute over who first harnessed steam to produce power, Thomas Newcomen defined the basic scheme of a separate boiler and a piston in a cylinder. His designs worked, but at a very low thermal efficiency.

John Smeaton (1724-1792)    Perhaps better known for building the Edystone lighthouse that successfully stood up to North Atlantic gales, consulting engineer John Smeaton also systematically designed windmills and water wheels based on his own tests using scale models.

James Watt (1736-1819)    The engines built by James Watt and Thomas Newcomen produced a partial vacuum in a cylinder by condensing steam, so the difference between the pressure inside and atmospheric pressure outside generated a net force. Newcomen injected cold water directly into the cylinder, which meant that it lost much of its heat each cycle; Watt used a separate condenser so the cylinder stayed hot. With his business partner Boulton, Watt charged for his engines based on the savings in coal over older designs.

Rudolf Diesel (1858-1913)….Rudolf Diesel really was mysterious, disappearing from a steam-ship on the high seas. He gave his now-familiar name to a highly efficient compression-ignition engine. He originally envisioned that it would work on coal dust, but changed to oil. Today, high speed engines use light oil; the enormous engines used in ships run on heavy oil, which is perhaps like coal dust. The final line in the limerick is debatable, but I needed it to get two rhymes for Diesel!

Martin Green (1948-)    When I Joined The University of New South Wales in the late 70s, Martin Green was a young and upcoming academic. His development of high-efficiency solar cells began his rapid rise to success and fame. We now see the results of his work, and that of others, appearing everywhere, from garden lights to industrial solar farms.