Steampunkism

[clistensprechen]

When I added this board to this forum, it was my intention to reconstitute a now-defunct PBS Discussions Board thread on the topic of old technologies that are useful today.  However, there's a new fad that has just come 'round the block called "steampunk". It's a thing that attempts to resurrect the mechanical metal feel of the 18th and early 19th centuries.

And it's all superficial, with a serious demand on copper-based ornamentations at a time when thieves find stealing any/all copper is lucrative.  Hmmmmm.

In my studies of the history of energy and alternative energy, my path has already crossed with that of this era and I actually have the actual technical background behind all things steam (and working at a coal-fired power plant certainly helped).

The byproduct of producing electricity with coal happens to be a byproduct that used to be used for illumination gas, and it also happens to be what's used to make today's fuel cells work: hydrogen.  The steampunk era of interest was also the golden age of hydrogen technology.

Let's talk steampunk tech, shall we?