But a wide range of primary sources from the time suggest that the critical step from water to steam occurred in spite of water being an abundant and consistently cheaper alternative. In line with Ricardian and Malthusian thought, is often argued that the turn to coal in the Industrial Revolution was motivated by a scarcity of energy. Before steam, up to the second quarter of the nineteenth century, British cotton manufacturers used water as their source of mechanical energy – so why did they shift from the one to the other? By examining the causes of the original transition from water to steam, we might come closer to an understanding of the mechanisms igniting – and perhaps still fuelling – the process now known as ‘business-as-usual’. It happened in Britain the cotton industry led the way. With the adoption of the steam-engine, fossil energy was first coupled to a process of self-sustaining growth, the new prime mover using coal to impel machines for commodity production. How did we get caught up in this mess? This thesis returns to a crucial moment in the emergence of the fossil economy: the rise of steam-power. The more we know about the catastrophic implications of climate change, the more fossil fuels are burnt in the world.
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