The Industrial Revolution: What Power Decided Then and Now
The Industrial Revolution is usually taught as a story of inventions. It was really a story about energy: whoever controlled coal and steam decided which nations got rich. This video traces that story from Thomas Newcomen's 1712 mine pump and James Watt's 1769 and 1781 patents, through Britain's coal-fuelled rise to producing about two-thirds of the world's coal and half its cotton and iron by 1850, to the cities and empire that coal built.
Then it draws the line to today. The International Energy Agency's 2025 'Energy and AI' report found data-centre electricity demand rose 17% in 2025 alone, against about 3% growth for the rest of the world's grid, and is on track to more than double by 2030, to around 945 terawatt-hours. US utilities, including Southern Company, are now delaying the retirement of coal plants in Georgia and Mississippi — Plant Bowen, Plant Scherer and Plant Daniel — specifically to meet that demand, pushing some closures as late as 2039. At least 15 US coal plants nationally have had retirements delayed or paused since January 2025.
The verdict: AI did not create the scramble for cheap, abundant power. It reopened the same contest that started in a flooded coal mine three centuries ago.
Every figure is on screen with its source and date.
In these topics
Tags
Chapters
- The question nobody asks about machines
- Life before steam
- Newcomen's engine in the coal mines
- Watt's efficient engine
- Why Britain had the coal to burn
- From pump to factory
- Coal production explodes
- Cities, workers and empire reshaped
- The pattern repeats: coal, oil, and now electricity
- AI's electricity problem
- Coal comes back from retirement
- The same fight, a new century
Sources and credits
Photo credits (Wikimedia Commons)
- Robert W. Scherer Power Plant (Plant Scherer), near Macon, Georgia - the coal plant named in the scope as having its retirement delayed for data-centre demand: Antennas, Public domain - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ASchererplant.jpg
- Cooling towers of a coal-fired power station venting steam (John Amos Power Plant, Kanawha River, West Virginia): Schaefer, Harry, Photographer (NARA record: 8464469), Public domain - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACLOUD_OF_STEAM_RISES_FROM_ONE_OF_THE_MASSIVE_COOLING_TOWERS_OF_THE_JOHN_AMOS_POWER_PLANT_NEAR_NITRO_ON_THE_KANAWHA..._-_NARA_-_551184.jpg
- NSA Utah Data Center, Bluffdale, Utah - a real, large modern data centre exterior: User:ParkerHiggins (Electronic Frontier Foundation), CC0 - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AEFF_photograph_of_NSA%27s_Utah_Data_Center.jpg
Primary sources
- World History Encyclopedia, 'The Steam Engine in the British Industrial Revolution' (worldhistory.org) - Newcomen's 1712 pump at Dudley, 5,000 gal/hr from a 153ft shaft; Watt's 1769 separate-condenser patent and quarter-of-the-coal saving.
- World History Encyclopedia, 'Why the Industrial Revolution Started in Britain' (worldhistory.org) - Britain producing 80% of Europe's coal by 1700; coalfield geography and enclosure/wages.
- Standard engineering-history references for James Watt's 1781 sun-and-planet rotary patent (Patent No. 1306, 25 Oct 1781), used alongside the 1769 condenser date from World History Encyclopedia.
- Industrial-Revolution statistics compilations (gitnux.org; ZipDo) and UC Davis economic-history course material (faculty.econ.ucdavis.edu, Gregory Clark, ECN 110B) - British coal output ~3M tons (1700) to 62.5M tons (1850); Britain producing about two-thirds of world coal output and about half of world cotton and iron output by 1850.
- Wikipedia, 'Industrial Revolution', footnoted estimate - cotton industry's share of value added: 2.6% (1760), 17% (1801), 22% (1831).
- International Energy Agency, 'Energy and AI' report, 2025 (iea.org/reports/energy-and-ai) - global data-centre electricity demand set to more than double by 2030, to around 945 TWh.
- International Energy Agency, 'Data centre electricity use surged in 2025...' news release (iea.org/news) - data-centre electricity demand up 17% in 2025, against about 3% growth for global electricity demand overall.
- Energy and Policy Institute, 'Southern Company extends life of coal plants to power data centers' (energyandpolicy.org) - Plant Bowen and Plant Scherer (Georgia) and Plant Daniel (Mississippi); original 2028/2035 retirement dates delayed to as late as 2039; co-firing with gas from 2030; 9,400+ MW new demand cited in Georgia Power's integrated resource plan; ~8,200 MW combined capacity of the three plants.
- DeSmog, '15 coal plant retirements delayed: AI data centers, Trump DOE orders', 12 Dec 2025 (desmog.com) - at least 15 US coal plants with delayed or paused retirements since January 2025, nearly 75% originally due to close within two years.
Not regulated financial advice.