Electricity generation was carefully parcelled out to two huge monopolies, Power-Gen and National Power. The 12 public electricity distribution companies were transformed into 12 private electricity distribution companies, run by exactly the same people and in exactly the same way as before ...
The only difference is that the new monopolies are not answerable to any elected authority and provide the most lavish largesse for their top executives and shareholders. John Baker, a bureaucrat who ran the CEGB at £76,000 a year is now an ‘entrepreneur’ who runs National Power for £347,911 a year, plus share options. In the first full year of trading the electricity companies paid out more than £300 million in dividends to private individuals, funds, trusts and banks. Almost at once the market went into another spasm of greed. The new companies, using special powers given to them by Parkinson and Wakeham (powers which had been specifically denied to the old nationalised companies) started to fund new gas fired power stations. The chief effect of this ‘dash for gas’ was to increase the overcapacity of power supply by a fantastic 25 per cent.
Was the purpose to make electricity cheaper? All the evidence suggests that the new gas fired electricity will be more expensive than the coal fired kind in the short term and much more expensive in the long term. How, in this disciplined and consumer conscious market, can billions of pounds be spent on increasing power, when there is apparently too much of it already, and into the bargain make it more expensive?
First, because the investors in private electricity want to collect a dividend from their share in the new gas stations, there is no dividend from nationalised coal. Secondly, the gas fired stations provide the new power vampires with a source of power supply where the unions are not half as strong as in the pits. So the market works against its own logic, increasing overcapacity and raising prices, solely in order to shift the balance of the fight against the workers.
This is also the only explanation for the greatest absurdity of all in the privatised power market; the subsidy for the nuclear industry. If the coal industry had the £1.3 billion subsidy dished out by the government for its unprofitable and dangerous nuclear power stations, coal could be given away free, delivered free and in abundance to every power station and every home, and still make a profit. Paul Foot, article November 1992, ‘Birth of Our Power’
According to the World Health Organisation 4,000,000 children under the age of five die each year from respiratory diseases caused by indoor smoke. And many millions of women die early from cancer and lung disease for the same reason. No refrigeration or modern packaging means that food cannot be kept. The fire in the hut is too smoky and consumes too much wood to be used as heating. There is no hot water. We in the West cannot begin to imagine how hard life is without electricity. Martin Durkin, The Great Global Warming Swindle, 2007
If you were to ask a rural person to define development they’ll tell you yes, I will move to the next level when I have electricity. Actually not having electricity creates such a long chain of problems because the first thing you miss is the light. So you forget that they have to go to sleep earlier because there’s no light; there’s no reason to stay awake. You can’t talk to each other in darkness. James Shikwati, economist & author
Galvanism was the belief that electricity was the spark of life, perhaps even the very essence of life itself. Science Britannica I: Frankenstein’s Monsters, BBC 2013
Michael Faraday, the father of electricity ... He conducted most of his experiments into magnetism and electricity here at the Royal Institution. And his practical demonstrations to a distinguished audience of fellow scientists and enthusiastic VIPs were the talk of the town. Mark Williams, Industrial Revelations s2e7: Bright Sparks, Discovery 2006
Armstrong, the Geordie genius, had with a combination of his power station and Swan’s lights pioneered the domestic use of electricity. ibid.
Another revolutionary discovery – the electric motor. Yet another breakthrough for the father of electricity. ibid.
During the nineteenth century electricity went from being an obscure scientific curiosity to becoming the driving force of the modern world. Ironically, it was on the railways electricity found its first practical use. Ronald Top, Industrial Revelations s3e6: The European Story: Generation Electric, Discovery 2005
Siemens completed his Indo-European telegraph in 1870. ibid.
Electromagnetism not only explained the relationship between electricity and magnetism, it would go to explain the very nature of light. Of radio waves. Of X-rays. Michael Mosley, The Story of Science: Power, Proof & Passion, BBC 2010
Vitalism: the belief that there was something more to Life than a physical body. Something intangible. In the eighteenth century many believed that extra something might lie in the very latest scientific marvel: electricity. No-one knew quite what it was. No-one knew quite what it came from. ibid.
A new information carrying medium – electricity. Order and Disorder with Jim Al-Khalili II: The Story of Information, BBC 2012
At the dawn of the nineteenth century in a cellar in Mayfair the most famous scientist of the time Humphry Davey built an extraordinary piece of electrical equipment ... The biggest battery the world had ever seen, and with it Davey was about to propel us into a new age. Jim Al-Khalili, Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity 1/3: Spark, BBC 2011
Electricity is one of Nature’s most awesome phenomena. And the most powerful manifestation of it we ever see is lightning. ibid.
Before Hawkesbury electricity had been merely a curiosity. ibid.
The spectacles grew bigger, and the more curious electricians started to ask more profound questions. ibid.
4It led [Stephen] Gray to divide the world into two different kinds of substances: he called them insulators and conductors. ibid.
Musschenbroek went to his laboratory to try to make a device to store electricity. ibid.
Electricity was without doubt a fantastical wonder. ibid.
Franklin decided to use the power of reason to rationally explain what many considered a magical phenomenon: lightning. ibid.
The modern equivalent of the Leyden Jar is this: the capacitor. ibid.
What Cavendish refers to as the amount of electricity we now call electric change. And his intensity is what we call the potential difference, or voltage. ibid.
The fish gave a shock of about two hundred and forty volts, the same as mains electricity. ibid.
Cavendish has shown that the torpedo fish made electricity. ibid.
In 1759 here in Bologna electricity was used on the muscles of a paralysed man ... Di Animali Electricitate: Galvani. ibid.
[Alessandro] Volta began his search for the new source of electricity ... His theory flew in the face of Galvani’s. The frog’s leg twitched not because of its own animal electricity but because it was reacting to the electricity of the metals. ibid.
He [Volta] could actually taste the electricity ... He’d created the first battery. ibid.
The electricity flowing out of the pile became known as an electrical current. ibid.
This flow of electrons is what we call an electric current. ibid.
This lay the foundations for chemistry, physics and modern industry. Volta’s pile changed everything. The pile made Volta an international celebrity. ibid.
Davy connected his battery to two carbon filaments and brought the tips together ... Out of the darkness came the light. ibid.
It appeared as though electricity might have the power of resurrection. And this made a profound effect on a young writer called Mary Shelley. ibid.
In the winter of 1943 Nikola Tesla looked out across the Manhattan skyline for the very last time ... He saw a new world, a world transformed, a world powered by electricity, his world. Jim Al-Khalili, Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity 2/3: The Age of Invention
Harnessing the link between magnetism and electricity would completely transform the world. ibid.
[Michael] Faraday had proved that this invisible force really does exist and he could see its effect – circular motion. ibid.
Faraday had generated a continuous flow of electric current. ibid.
The key to understanding the telegraph is understanding a special kind of magnet – an electromagnet. ibid.
The 1858 cable was never fully repaired. ibid.
A new branch of research into the electromagnetic spectrum, and solve the problems of the Atlantic telegraph. ibid.
A new way of using electricity – to make something every person in the world would want – electric light. ibid.
[Thomas] Edison had assembled a group of young and talented engineers. ibid.
The race to bring electric light to the world was to play out in the great cities of the time. ibid.
America’s first power station generating continuous direct current. ibid.
Tesla was less impressed. He had a dream electricity could be transmitted across entire cities or even nations. ibid.
Westinghouse believed alternating current was the future. ibid.
Tesla was paid $75,000 for his alternating current patents. ibid.
Westinghouse and Tesla went toe to toe with Edison for New York’s lucrative lighting contracts. ibid.
Edison claimed that AC was a more dangerous type of current than DC. ibid.
In an almost magical display of awesome power and wonder and without wearing any safety chainmail or mast tens of thousands of volts produced by a Tesla coil passed across his body and through the end of a lamp he was holding. ibid.