Electrification in the context of "Climate change mitigation"

The Second Industrial Revolution, also known as the Technological Revolution, was a phase of rapid scientific discovery, standardisation, mass production and industrialisation from the late 19th century into the early 20th century. The First Industrial Revolution, which ended in the middle of the 19th century, was punctuated by a slowdown in important inventions before the Second Industrial Revolution in 1870. Though a number of its events can be traced to earlier innovations in manufacturing, such as the establishment of a machine tool industry, the development of methods for manufacturing interchangeable parts, as well as the invention of the Bessemer process and open hearth furnace to produce steel, later developments heralded the Second Industrial Revolution, which is generally dated between 1870 and 1914 when World War I commenced.

Advancements in manufacturing and production technology enabled the widespread adoption of technological systems such as telegraph and railroad networks, gas and water supply, and sewage systems, which had earlier been limited to a few select cities. The enormous expansion of rail and telegraph lines after 1870 allowed unprecedented movement of people and ideas, which culminated in a new wave of colonialism and globalization. In the same time period, new technological systems were introduced, most significantly electrical power and telephones. The Second Industrial Revolution continued into the 20th century with early factory electrification and the production line; it ended at the beginning of World War I.

Mechanization (or mechanisation) is the process of changing from working largely or exclusively by hand or with animals to doing that work with machinery. In an early engineering text, a machine is defined as follows:

In every fields, mechanization includes the use of hand tools. In modern usage, such as in engineering or economics, mechanization implies machinery more complex than hand tools and would not include simple devices such as an ungeared horse or donkey mill. Devices that cause speed changes or changes to or from reciprocating to rotary motion, using means such as gears, pulleys or sheaves and belts, shafts, cams and cranks, usually are considered machines. After electrification, when most small machinery was no longer hand powered, mechanization was synonymous with motorized machines. Extension of mechanization of the production process is termed as automation and it is controlled by a closed loop system in which feedback is provided by the sensors. In an automated machine the work of different mechanisms is performed automatically.

Big business involves large-scale corporate-controlled financial or business activities. As a term, it describes activities that run from "huge transactions" to the more general "doing big things". In corporate jargon, the concept is commonly known as enterprise, or activities involving enterprise customers.

The concept first rose in a symbolic sense after 1880 in connection with the combination movement that began in American business at that time. Some examples of American corporations that fall into the category of "big business" as of 2015 are ExxonMobil, Walmart, Google, Microsoft, Apple, General Electric, General Motors, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs; in the United States, big businesses in general are sometimes collectively pejoratively called "corporate America". The largest German corporations as of 2012 included Daimler AG, Deutsche Telekom, Siemens, and Deutsche Bank. SAP is Germany's largest software company. Among the largest companies in the United Kingdom as of 2012 are HSBC, Barclays, WPP plc, and BP. The latter half of the 19th century saw more technological advances and corporate growth in additional sectors, such as petroleum, machinery, chemicals, and electrical equipment (see Second Industrial Revolution).

An oil lamp is a lamp used to produce light continuously for a period of time using an oil-based fuel source. The use of oil lamps began thousands of years ago and continues to this day, although their use is less common in modern times. They work in the same way as a candle but with fuel that is liquid at room temperature, so that a container for the oil is required. A textile wick drops down into the oil, and is lit at the end, burning the oil as it is drawn up the wick.

Oil lamps are a form of lighting, and were used as an alternative to candles before the use of electric lights. Starting in 1780, the Argand lamp quickly replaced other oil lamps still in their basic ancient form. These in turn were replaced by the kerosene lamp in about 1850. In small towns and rural areas the latter continued in use well into the 20th century, until such areas were finally electrified and light bulbs could be used.

Renewable energy (also called green energy) is energy made from renewable natural resources that are replenished on a human timescale. The most widely used renewable energy types are solar energy, wind power, and hydropower. Bioenergy and geothermal power are also significant in some countries. Some also consider nuclear power a renewable power source, although this is controversial, as nuclear energy requires mining uranium, a nonrenewable resource. Renewable energy installations can be large or small and are suited for both urban and rural areas. Renewable energy is often deployed together with further electrification. This has several benefits: electricity can move heat and vehicles efficiently and is clean at the point of consumption. Variable renewable energy sources are those that have a fluctuating nature, such as wind power and solar power. In contrast, controllable renewable energy sources include dammed hydroelectricity, bioenergy, or geothermal power.

Renewable energy systems have rapidly become more efficient and cheaper over the past 30 years. A large majority of worldwide newly installed worldwide electricity capacity is now renewable. Renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind power, have seen significant cost reductions over the past decade, making them more competitive with traditional fossil fuels. In some geographic localities, photovoltaic solar or onshore wind is the cheapest new-build electricity. From 2011 to 2021, renewable energy grew from 20% to 28% of the global electricity supply. Power from the sun and wind accounted for most of this increase, growing from a combined 2% to 10%. Use of fossil energy shrank from 68% to 62%. In 2024, renewables accounted for over 30% of global electricity generation and are projected to reach over 45% by 2030. Many countries already have renewables contributing more than 20% of their total energy supply, with some generating over half or even all their electricity from renewable sources.

An electric vehicle (EV) is any motorized vehicle whose propulsion is provided fully or mostly by electric power, via grid electricity or from onboard rechargeable batteries. EVs encompass a wide range of transportation modes, including road (electric cars, buses, trucks and personal transporters) and rail vehicles (electric trains, trams and monorails), electric boats and submersibles, electric aircraft (both fixed-wing and multirotors) and electric spacecraft.

Early electric vehicles first came into existence in the late 19th century, when the Second Industrial Revolution brought forth electrification and mass utilization of DC and AC electric motors. Using electricity was among the preferred methods for early motor vehicle propulsion as it provided a level of quietness, comfort and ease of operation that could not be achieved by the gasoline engine cars of the time, but range anxiety due to the limited energy storage offered by contemporary battery technologies hindered any mass adoption of electric vehicles as private transportation throughout the 20th century. Internal combustion engines (both gasoline and diesel engines) were the dominant propulsion mechanisms for cars and trucks for about 100 years, but electricity-powered locomotion remained commonplace in other vehicle types, such as overhead line-powered mass transit vehicles like electric multiple units, streetcars, monorails and trolley buses, as well as various small, low-speed, short-range battery-powered personal vehicles such as mobility scooters.

Rural electrification is the process of bringing electrical power to rural and remote areas. Rural communities are suffering from colossal market failures as the national grids fall short of their demand for electricity. As of 2019, 770 million people live without access to electricity – 10.2% of the global population. Electrification typically begins in cities and towns and gradually extends to rural areas, however, this process often runs into obstacles in developing nations. Expanding the national grid is expensive and countries consistently lack the capital to grow their current infrastructure. Additionally, amortizing capital costs to reduce the unit cost of each hook-up is harder to do in lightly populated areas (yielding higher per capita share of the expense). If countries are able to overcome these obstacles and reach nationwide electrification, rural communities will be able to reap considerable amounts of economic and social development.