Empire Rise: Spain

Chapter 91: Generators And Electric Motors

Facts have proven that good things come in pairs.

Not long after the Treaty of Ceuta was signed, Carlo welcomed another piece of good news, which was that after several months of effort, Gramme’s Electricity Laboratory had manufactured one AC Generator and one DC Generator respectively.

Carlo was not surprised at all by the speed at which the Electricity Laboratory manufactured the generators.

Previously in France, Gramme had already manufactured two types of generators and was quite proficient in the principles of generators and their specific manufacturing processes.

Although he had come to Spain, with Carlo’s strong support and some colleagues who had worked with him in France before, the speed of manufacturing generators would not slow down but would instead speed up.

After all, the earliest generators did not have any overly precise equipment, let alone the small generators used for experiments. For Gramme, manufacturing such a generator was completely effortless.

After learning that the generators had been successfully manufactured, Carlo was also quite excited.

Although the current generators seemed quite crude by posterity’s standards, this was Spain’s first step in exploring electrification.

As the saying goes, the hardest part is getting started. Only after developing the generator could Spain’s path to electrification truly begin.

With a generator, there is electricity. For Carlo, figuring out how to utilize this new energy source called electricity was not really a difficult task. To a certain extent, the principles of generators and electric motors are similar. One converts kinetic energy into electric energy, while the other converts electric energy into kinetic energy.

Besides the generator, another tool that widely uses electric energy is the light bulb, which Carlo was even more familiar with.

Education from posterity made Carlo deeply remember that the material ultimately used in light bulbs was tungsten filament.

Although current technology might not be able to produce qualified tungsten filament suitable for light bulbs, what did that have to do with Carlo?

Carlo’s task was to propose the tungsten filament light bulb as a conception to experts researching light bulbs.

As for how to produce tungsten filament and experiment with tungsten filament light bulbs, that was for the scientists to consider, and it had nothing to do with Carlo, this king.

Considering the importance of electricity for the future, the idle Carlo decided to personally go to the Electricity Laboratory to see how the Electricity Laboratory’s research was progressing.

Fortunately, the Electricity Laboratory was not far from the Madrid Royal Palace. Riding in the royal family’s exclusive luxury carriage and enjoying the maid’s attentive service, Carlo soon arrived at the suburban Electricity Laboratory.

“It does look much more impressive than before.” Carlo had already seen the newly built entire experimental area from the carriage, which was much more complete than the last time he visited.

Whether it was the Electricity Laboratory’s electricity experiment building or the Engine Company’s Engine Research Office, they were all built properly.

Because they were new buildings, they looked quite grand overall. The V-shaped comprehensive building located at the center of the entire experimental area looked quite imposing, standing out like a crane among chickens in this experimental area where all buildings were three stories or less.

Leaving two maids to stay in the carriage, Carlo headed toward the Electricity Laboratory with some guards.

To avoid disturbing Gramme and the others’ electricity experiments, Carlo specifically did not inform the Electricity Laboratory of his arrival, which resulted in no one coming to greet him from the Electricity Laboratory direction.

However, Carlo did not care about such formalities. If the Electricity Laboratory had research results, that would be something worth celebrating for Carlo, and that was also the reason Carlo founded the Electricity Laboratory.

Because he had visited the experimental area before, Carlo was quite familiar with the location of the Electricity Laboratory.

After instructing the army garrisoned on the outskirts of the experimental area to continue patrolling without making a fuss, Carlo entered the electricity experiment building.

The Electricity Laboratory was quite lively at this time. After the two generators were manufactured, Gramme and many colleagues began discussing the utilization of electric energy.

The generator could indeed generate electricity, but the question was how to use this electricity?

Or in other words, how to prove that electric energy is a more effective and cheaper energy source?

Currently, there were two explorations of electricity’s role: one was lighting, and the other was power energy.

However, both explorations were in the initial stages, and electricity was hard to prove its role, which was also why electricity practitioners had not received much attention until now.

Even if generators could be manufactured and generate electricity, the problem was that the current electricity had no use at all.

It could be stored using lead-acid batteries, but what was the use of that?

If electricity could not be used well, then electricity was useless.

Having several guards wait outside the laboratory door, Carlo heard the heated discussion inside as soon as he pushed open the door.

“It seems quite lively.” Carlo said with a smile.

Gramme and the others in the laboratory also heard the door opening and Carlo’s voice. They quickly looked up and found that Carlo had already entered the laboratory.

“Your Majesty!”

Everyone stopped discussing and bowed to Carlo.

There was no way around it; the current Carlo was the Electricity Laboratory’s big benefactor. The Electricity Laboratory’s research funding completely relied on Carlo, which made everyone’s respect for Carlo sincere, and they wished to increase the research funding in all sorts of ways.

“Please forgive us, Your Majesty.” Gramme appropriately stepped forward and expressed his apology to Carlo: “I did not receive any notification from the Royal Palace, so I did not come to greet you.”

“It’s fine, Mr. Gramme. It was my instruction; your experiments are more important.” Carlo smiled and nodded, not minding these formalities.

“I heard that both generators have been successfully manufactured?” Carlo looked curiously into the laboratory, searching for the generators.

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Gramme quickly explained: “We have manufactured the DC Generator and the AC Generator, and we are currently exploring the use of electricity.

Please look, Your Majesty; these are the two generators we use for experiments, and testing shows they can both produce electricity.”

Carlo looked at the two small generators without disdain, instead showing curiosity and satisfaction: “Is there any equipment that can store electricity now?”

“There is the lead-acid battery, Your Majesty.” Gramme continued to introduce: “Currently, the battery we use to store electric energy is this one, which ensures that when the generator is not working, we still have some electricity available for experiments.”

The lead-acid battery was invented in 1859 by French physicist Gaston Planté. Being related to electricity, and since Gramme and the others had worked for France’s Electric Company before, it was only natural that they had contact with lead-acid batteries.

After all, this was the world’s only rechargeable battery at present, more advanced than the earlier Voltaic pile and Daniel battery, and more suitable for various researches in the Electricity Laboratory.

“What stage are we at now? Are there any difficulties currently?” Carlo followed up by asking.

Although Carlo’s knowledge reserve in electricity was not abundant, if placed in 1870, over 150 years ago, the knowledge in his mind was still quite useful.

Just the tungsten filament light bulb alone was enough to let Spain avoid several years of detours in lighting research, as current light bulb research was basically focused on carbon filament light bulbs.

Electricity would slowly begin to develop, and later there would be Edison and Tesla’s war over direct current and alternating current.

In fact, direct current and alternating current each have advantages and disadvantages, with different application scenarios. Even in posterity, although alternating current is mostly used in daily life, direct current is also widely used in the industrial aspect.

Unfortunately, Tesla was still too young now; otherwise, Carlo really had plans to bring Tesla to Spain to work in electricity.

It would give Tesla a few years to grow without too much intervention in his development. When Tesla became an adult in the future and started looking for work, it would not be too late for Carlo to send someone to bring Tesla to Spain.

Tesla’s ability was quite impressive. In his lifetime, he obtained approximately 1000 invention patents, with research fields including alternating current, radio, wireless energy transmission, ball lightning, turbine, particle beam weapon, solar engine, X-ray equipment, electric energy meters, missile science remote sensing technology, aircraft, cosmic rays, radar systems, and robots, among others, appearing varied.

For ordinary scientists, specializing in one of them would require most of their energy, and still need some luck to discover famous research results.

But for Tesla, he had contributions in almost all these fields, with outstanding contributions in some, which was rare and valuable.

However, later because he was somewhat stubborn in scientific research, he ended up with the reputation of a mad scientist. Also because he abandoned the alternating current patent, he continued to live in poverty when he should have become rich from it, becoming one of the famous representatives of those with outstanding scientific contributions but personally poor and living miserably.

If Tesla had not abandoned the alternating current patent, approximately 5 US dollars in patent fees would need to be paid to Tesla for every horsepower of alternating current produced.

This was an extremely exaggerated income, but for someone like Tesla with an ordinary identity, whether he could actually receive this patent fee was also a question.

“We have currently conducted experiments on generating and storing electricity, but regarding the application of electric energy, there are still many problems.” Gramme reported truthfully.

While reporting, Gramme’s expression was somewhat awkward, clearly annoyed that Carlo supported them greatly but they had no major research results.

“Speaking of which, I also have some ideas about the application of electric energy.” Carlo said with a smile: “Mr. Gramme, have you ever thought of using the generator’s principle in reverse?”

Gramme was stunned for a moment, his mind obviously blank, but his words continued: “Your Majesty means?”

Carlo nodded and explained with a smile: “Since kinetic energy can produce electric energy, why not try producing kinetic energy from electric energy?

The generator can generate electricity; conversely, why not use it to produce motion? I think this is a very good idea. Why don’t you give it a try, Mr. Gramme?”

Gramme nodded dazedly, then suddenly reacted, his face showing an extremely excited smile as he looked gratefully at Carlo: “My God! What a wonderful conception. Why didn’t I think of it?

Your Majesty, you are truly a genius! If you also worked in electricity, those electricity scientists would probably have no rice to eat long ago.”

Carlo smiled and shook his head: “This is just a sudden idea of mine; whether it works or not still depends on specific experiments.”

Conducting the relevant experiments was actually very simple.

Gramme had two DC Generators brought in and began testing the generator and electric motor.

The testing principle was also very simple. The generator originally produces electricity; if the electricity produced by the first generator is transmitted to the second generator, what wonderful thing would happen?

Under everyone’s attentive gazes, Gramme began wiring the two generators.

After connecting all the wires and carefully checking them once, Gramme instructed his subordinate: “Start the first generator!”

With the countdown, the first generator officially started.

“Electricity has been produced!” The current passed through the test circuit, and the experimenters successfully detected the production of electricity.

Hearing that electricity had been produced, everyone quickly turned their gazes to the second generator.

The current entered the armature coil of the second generator, making it rotate at extremely high speed.

“God, this is real, it’s simply unbelievable!” Gramme looked crazily at the two operating generators, with tears even welling up in his eyes.

The other experimenters were no better; they didn’t expect the application of electric energy to be realized by Carlo’s magical idea.

“Your Majesty, I have a good idea; please wait a few minutes.” Having discovered the electric motor, Gramme could no longer contain his excitement and requested of Carlo.

Carlo nodded and quietly waited for Gramme to realize his idea.

The device Gramme wanted to make was actually very simple; at least Carlo understood the principle.

A small waterfall device, with reservoirs above and below the waterfall. Water released from the upper reservoir powers a water engine to produce electricity.

The electricity is then transmitted to the electric motor below, which pumps the water from the lower reservoir back up to the upper reservoir.

Of course, this was just to demonstrate the use of electric energy, not a perfect cycle device. Such a device was not a perpetual motion machine; there would be extra consumption in both the generation and use of electricity. Gramme’s purpose in making this device was simply to more clearly demonstrate the roles of the generator and electric motor.

This novel device immediately drew admiration from everyone in the laboratory, and even Carlo was quite surprised.

This also showed the ingenuity and hands-on ability of scientists of this era. Having just discovered the electric motor, they could create a corresponding simulated usage scenario, and Carlo became even more curious about what kind of rapid progress the electricity industry would make next.

Four thousand words second update, seeking support!

Riwandi fourth day, already updated 6000/10000, seeking support!

The remaining four thousand words might be finished after twelve, before two-thirty.