Technology

As the late nineteenth century began, the Second Industrial Revolution started exerting its full force, and technological innovations emerged one after another.

As the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, Austria was the first to enjoy the dividends of technological progress, and the train of its domestic economic development shot straight onto the fast track.

By the end of 1877, electricity had already been popularized in 80 percent of Austria's cities, while work was underway in the rest.

This pace exceeded everyone's imagination. The fundamental reason behind it all was technological progress.

No one had expected power generation technology to achieve another breakthrough in such a short time. Generator output increased, while coal consumption had fallen to 450–630 grams per kilowatt-hour.

Such a vast disparity was mainly a matter of coal quality. Austria's power plants were all private enterprises, so naturally there was no need to adhere to a government-standardized coal specification.

Only second to that was the gap in power generation technology. Different power plants were beginning to pull apart technologically, and a new round of survival of the fittest was about to begin.

While power generation costs fell, Austria's metallurgical industry also made breakthrough progress. Copper prices on the market plummeted, bringing down the cost of producing electrical wire.

The sharp drop in costs meant that building power supply networks was no longer a fantasy, laying a decisive foundation for the spread of electricity.

The popularization of electricity brought not only a revolution in lighting technology, but also an industrial revolution. Electrically powered machinery sprang up like bamboo shoots after rain.

Besides electrical technology, internal combustion engine technology was also developing rapidly. This epoch-making invention directly swept steam engines into the rubbish heap.

Of course, that would still take time. Steam engines remained the mainstream of the era, and