Some steps in the early development of coke manufacture & use in France & Belgium

Retraité ArcelorMittal Maizières, France
e-mail: nicolle.dom@wanadoo.fr

Received: 1 July 2011
Accepted: 10 January 2012

Abstract

Three hundred years after the first production of coke, the history of this important breakthrough, an energy transition that, together with the invention of the steam engine, opened way to the industrial revolution, is still thought provoking on subjects such as the rate of change and the factors that are favoring or slowing down the rate of change, the role of infrastructure and technology in the development of industry, the role of protectionism or free-trade on technological changes and last, but not the least, the development of science and technology as tools for the improvement of the processes and products. From the first information of G. Jars and his metallurgical trips and the small scale tests of the first pioneers of the Enlightment, to the development of large size plants incorporating new technologies, this history is that of the important social switch from a small scale peasant seasonal activity with many workshops, to the large scale integrated industry concentrated in a few places and connected with the suppliers and the market by the new transportation infrastructure (canals, railways) developed in continental Europe throughout the XIXth century. Scientists (such as Ebelmen, Lecocq, Boudouard, Berthellot) and technologists (such as the innovation brought by Belgian furnaces) have played an important role in this mutation.