Chapter 242 Electrification and Internal Combustion Engines

After confirming that Tesla would work and study in two shifts at the Royal Academy of Sciences and the Royal Academy of Sciences, Carlo no longer hesitated and arranged a job position and a major for Tesla.

Although Tesla was an all-rounder in scientific research, he was most famous for his abilities in alternating current and radio.

It was for this reason that Carlo decided to let Tesla join Gramm's power laboratory to conduct research related to electricity and engines.

Currently, Gramm's power laboratory is studying the long-distance transmission and energy storage of electricity. It is believed that Tesla's joining will allow Gramm to discover more inspiration and perhaps promote the use of electricity in Spain earlier.

In addition to working in Gramm's power laboratory, Tesla will continue to study for a master's degree in physics, mathematics and mechanics at the Royal Academy of Sciences of Spain.

Carlo also personally promised Tesla that as long as he could successfully complete his master's degree in three majors within three years and get excellent grades, Carlo would allow Tesla to set up his own laboratory to conduct his own research.

Hearing that there was hope to set up his own laboratory, Tesla immediately agreed. Although Tesla is currently just a college student who has just graduated, the idea of ​​setting up his own laboratory is an irresistible temptation for any scientist who loves scientific research.

In order to prevent Tesla from being unable to start after entering Gramm's power laboratory, Carlo also specifically instructed Gramm to personally take Tesla to conduct some power experiments so that Tesla can understand the power laboratory.

Because of Carlo's instructions, Gramm also attached great importance to Tesla who joined the power laboratory midway.

Although the other party was a college graduate who just turned 22, Gramm also saw Tesla's potential in a brief contact.

Gramm complained to Carlo a long time ago about the lack of high-end talents in the power laboratory. Although Tesla was young, he was indeed a trustworthy talent in electricity.

It is precisely because of this that Gramm had no dissatisfaction with the need to take time out of his busy schedule to help Tesla master the various data and information of the power laboratory. Instead, he hoped that Tesla could quickly adapt to the rhythm of the power laboratory under his leadership, and then contribute more inspiration and ideas to the experiments of the power laboratory.

In addition to relying on the ability and talent of scientists, scientific research also tests the imagination of scientists. Sometimes the success and failure of an experiment is just a matter of thought. A seemingly insignificant thought may determine the success or failure of an experiment.

As a famous mad scientist in later generations, Tesla's talent in scientific research is naturally needless to say. Although he had just joined the power laboratory, he often raised some questions that others could hardly think of in the experiment, and indeed effectively accelerated the experimental progress of the power laboratory.

More than ten days later, Gram personally reported to Carlo about Tesla's performance in the past ten days, and praised Tesla as a rare genius in the power industry in a century.

After learning that Tesla was studying for a postgraduate degree in physics, mathematics and mechanics at the Royal Academy of Sciences, Gram personally asked Carlo to serve as Tesla's postgraduate tutor in physics and mechanics.

It is certainly a good thing that a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences is willing to serve as Tesla's postgraduate tutor.

What's more, the person who is willing to serve as a tutor is Gram, a pioneer in the power industry and a well-known scientist in this era.

If it were not for the contributions made by power pioneers such as Gram to the power industry, there would be no current dispute between Edison and Tesla.

Without the competition for electric current, there would naturally be no commercial use of electricity. Although this may be a bit exaggerated, Gram and other power pioneers have made great contributions to the power industry, and they are worthy of praise and praise.

At present, Gram's power laboratory has achieved many research results, the most important of which are motors, generators and light bulbs.

Street lights have been fully installed on the busiest street in Madrid, and free lighting time is from 6:30 to 10:30 every night.

As for the late night after 10:30, street lights are naturally not needed to provide lighting. After all, this era is different from the later generations. In this era, those who come out in the middle of the night are either government and official staff or some dangerous elements.

Judging from the reactions of Madrid citizens, people still like street lights that can provide lighting at night.

Of course, in order to provide four hours of lighting time for the busiest street in Madrid, Gram's power laboratory built two large thermal power plants on the outskirts of Madrid, which barely met the lighting needs of a street.

Some large government conference rooms and Carlo's palace are also illuminated by light bulbs, and the electricity consumed by these light bulbs is provided by other thermal power plants.

Although most of the electricity is currently used for lighting, lighting alone can fully reflect the role of electricity.

Before the birth of light bulbs, people basically relied on fire for lighting. Whether it was kerosene lamps or torches, the flames were dim and kept jumping.

In contrast, light bulbs are more stable and much brighter than kerosene lamps and torches. If the transportation of electricity was not a problem, some factories outside Madrid would have considered purchasing light bulbs for lighting.

If the factory can be equipped with a large number of light bulbs, it also means that the factory may be able to achieve a two-shift system of day and night shifts.

It may not be a big deal in summer, but in winter when it gets dark early, the role of light bulbs is still very obvious.

With the lighting of light bulbs with sufficient brightness, workers can also ensure their safety when they are producing at night. After all, only by seeing the environment around them clearly can workers stay away from more dangerous places.

Gram naturally knows the main reason for blocking the commercial use of electricity. At present, the power laboratory is vigorously studying the transmission and energy storage methods of electricity.

Of course, there is also the problem of generator power. At present, the maximum power of the generator in the power laboratory is only 6.5KW, which can only drive a small motor or hundreds of light bulbs for lighting.

In addition to the resistance and power consumption generated during power transmission, only three-quarters of the power generated by the power plant is used at most, and one-quarter is consumed in the process of power transmission.

In order to meet the power needs of the royal palace and government buildings, the thermal power plant near the royal palace has installed 3 sets of thermal generators, and the maximum power generation has reached 19.5KW. This is definitely the largest power plant in the world.

However, due to the loss of electricity during transmission, this largest thermal power plant in the world can only meet the power needs of the royal palace and government buildings, and there is no way to meet the power needs of the parliament building further away.

If you want to promote the commercial use of electricity now, you must build a thermal power plant in every factory and place where electricity is needed.

But this is absolutely impossible, and it is precisely this major limitation that has made it difficult to promote and commercialize electricity.

Taking advantage of Tesla's joining the power laboratory, Carlo once again approved the power laboratory's application for more R\u0026D funds, and asked the Royal Security Intelligence Agency to collect more power talents for the power laboratory throughout Europe, and strive to break the problem of power transmission in a shorter time.

As long as the two major problems of power transmission and power generation are solved, the current electricity can enter the era of commercial use.

After all, to put it bluntly, the commercialization of any technology is a gradual evolution, and it is impossible to wait until the power system is comparable to that of later generations before entering the commercial stage.

When electricity enters the stage of commercialization and full promotion in the future, Gram's power laboratory will be reorganized into the Spanish National Electricity Company, responsible for promoting the use and commercialization of electricity throughout Spain.

In the future, the industrial bases in Madrid, Seville and Barcelona will vigorously promote the use of electricity.

The era of electrification has made Germany and the United States become the shining pearls of the world, and Carlo naturally wants Spain to have a share.

As the biggest beneficiary of the First Industrial Revolution, the British Empire has already enjoyed enough glory and glorious history.

Now it is time for Spain to enjoy this feeling. Spain must become one of the promoters of electrification and one of the biggest beneficiaries of electrification.

This is still very likely to be achieved. Although Britain has established a fairly large industrial system with the help of the First Industrial Revolution, it has also produced a large number of factory owners and capitalists who have become rich because of industrial development.

It is easier to promote electrification in countries like Germany, the United States and Spain than in Britain.

Because electrification is a completely new technology compared to the technology born in the First Industrial Revolution.

If Britain wants to fully promote electrification, it must fully replace the equipment and factories of the First Industrial Revolution.

The comprehensive replacement of industrial equipment means huge expenditures, and it will also affect the production of those factories and the interests of factory owners.

Will those capitalists who have money in their eyes agree to do this? Of course they would not agree.

Britain only needs to use the technology of the first industrial revolution to achieve steady growth in its industry. In this case, why take the risk of using electrification technology?

Although new technologies have more potential, they often also symbolize more problems and potential risks.

It is precisely because of this reason that Britain did not keep up with the pace during the second industrial revolution, and its industrial scale was surpassed by the United States and Germany one after another.

The British government may have seen such problems, but they cannot change them. The full promotion of electrification means standing on the opposite side of the existing factory owners and capitalists, which is absolutely impossible for Britain at present.

Because this will hurt the foundation of Britain, it will make the huge industrial system of the British Empire very fragile in an instant, and may even cause greater civil unrest and crisis.

In addition to paying an additional research budget to Gram's power laboratory, Carlo also paid a research and development fund to Benz's automobile laboratory.

It has been nearly four years since Benz made a simple prototype of the car, and the automobile laboratory has also achieved more results in these four years.

No mistakes, one post, one content, one book, one bar, one 6, one 9!

However, due to the lack of industrial level, cars cannot be mass-produced at present, and the output is only a few hundred cars per year.

So far, the Spanish government has purchased more than 400 cars, of which nearly half have become the exclusive vehicles of cabinet ministers and heads of some important departments.

Although these simple cars still have many problems, they are much faster than horse-drawn carriages.

Take the car that Carlo took as an example. The car that Carlo took was equipped with the latest engine developed by the engine research laboratory, and it only needed to be inspected once every 350 kilometers on average.

Even if Carlo's carriage was modified, with steel plates embedded inside and the area of ​​the carriage increased, this car specially provided to Carlo could reach a speed of about 25 kilometers per hour.

It is not exaggerated for a faster military horse to reach a speed of 25 kilometers per hour, but if it is a carriage, such a speed is a bit exaggerated.

Because of the large number of simple cars equipped, communication between Spanish government departments has become more convenient. If you take a carriage before, it may take about half an hour to visit between two departments.

After the means of transportation became a simple car, it only took more than ten minutes to travel between the two departments, which greatly saved the time required for officials to travel back and forth between the departments.

Carlo's specially modified car can still reach a speed of 25 kilometers per hour. Those cars that are not exaggerated or basically not modified can basically reach a speed of about 30 kilometers per hour.

At present, officials within the government are quite satisfied with such cars, and some officials have even proposed to buy a car for private use.

Considering that such cars need to be inspected every 300 kilometers to prevent problems during driving, Carlo finally rejected the officials' proposal.

However, Carlo also issued an order to Benz and others, that is, to improve the stability of the engine as soon as possible, and to increase the stable driving distance of the car from 350 kilometers to more than 500 kilometers as much as possible.

In terms of the speed and power of the car, such a car has played a very important role. But because the engine is less stable, it will break down from time to time.

This also makes it difficult for cars to enter the commercialization stage. Carlo asked the Spanish government to purchase more than 400 cars for public use. On the one hand, he also wanted to provide more relevant data for the car laboratory through a large number of experiments.

Gram's power laboratory is Spain's hope to promote the electrification industry, while Benz's car laboratory is Spain's hope to lead the world in internal combustion engines.

Needless to say, the importance of electrification is no less important than that of internal combustion engines.

In the future, heavy weapons aircraft and tanks will all use internal combustion engines as power, including cars and other machinery.

If Spain can take a two-pronged approach in electrification and internal combustion engines, Spain will be truly confident to compete with superpowers such as Britain and Germany.

If Spain can be at the forefront of the world in the development of tanks and aircraft, it can ensure that Spain will gain huge benefits in the next two world wars and truly become a superpower.

In addition to improving the stability of the four-stroke engine, Benz and others also need to explore the assembly line production method proposed by Carlo as much as possible to increase the output of cars.

Carlo gave a deadline, which was to promote the commercialization of cars before 1885 and let Spanish cars go global.

Before that, Benz and others must at least ensure that the finished car will not have problems in a single 500-kilometer trip or 15 hours of continuous driving.

In order to facilitate car owners to repair their cars in time after problems occur, the car company after the reorganization of the car laboratory needs to build auto repair shops in various regions of Spain and even European countries to help car owners detect whether there are problems with their cars and repair them more quickly.

Only after doing this can cars be officially commercialized. Because only when the problems that arise during the use of cars are solved will people be willing to buy cars.

Otherwise, no matter how great the potential of cars is and how useful they are, if the problems are not solved, no one will buy cars.

In addition to building auto repair shops, Spain also needs to establish relevant energy supply stations everywhere. No matter which energy is used as the power of the internal combustion engine, it needs to continuously replenish energy to provide power.

The four-stroke gas engine currently used by Benz's car laboratory can be said to be one of the best engines in the world, but the thermal efficiency of such an engine is only about 11% to 13%.

Such thermal efficiency is obviously quite backward compared to the thermal efficiency of later engines that easily exceed 40%.

The so-called thermal efficiency is actually the utilization rate of the energy heat consumed by the engine. Such data also means that even the most advanced engines in the future have a thermal efficiency of less than half, and more than half of the fuel is wasted.

In this era, because the thermal efficiency is only a pitiful 11% to 13%, this also means that at least 87% of the energy is wasted.

Although it is a pity, there is no way to change it. The thermal efficiency of the engine can only be improved with the continuous improvement of technology and the repeated scientific research and efforts of relevant experimenters.

Before the technology is improved, even if Carlo is willing to spend money, there will not be much change in this regard.

Fortunately, oil, an important energy source in the future, is still in an undeveloped state. There are large tracts of oil fields in the Middle East that have not yet been discovered. Spain hopes to obtain a part of the land in the Middle East through various means and control a certain amount of oil reserves.

Most of the land in the Middle East is currently uninhabited desert, so it is relatively easy to obtain a piece of land.

Britain is the only great power that colonized the Middle East, and this was also the sphere of influence of the Ottoman Empire. For Spain, as long as it obtained the permission of the British, it would not be a problem to take a piece of land in the Middle East, and it could even be said to be easy.

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