Harvesting the Elements – Part 1: The Deep Earth Blueprint: Chinese Gas Extraction and the 1,000m Well
Harvesting the Elements: Pre-Industrial Energy & Extraction 1 Harvesting the Elements – Part 1: The Deep Earth Blueprint: Chinese Gas Extraction and the 1,000m Well 2 Harvesting the Elements – Part 2: Focused Fire: Re-examining the Reality of Archimedes’ Solar Weapon 3 Harvesting the Elements – Part 3: The Automated Current: How Water and Tide Mills Revolutionized Labor 4 Harvesting the Elements – Part 4: The Untapped Revolution: Heron’s Aeolipile and the First Steam Turbine ← Series Home Unlocking Subterranean Power in Ancient China Centuries before the modern West conceived of deep-earth drilling or harnessed fossil fuels for industry, engineers in ancient China pioneered a highly organized industrial process for extracting natural gas,. This energy source was not sought for lighting or heating homes, but rather for powering the massive, essential enterprise of salt production. The technological achievement of reaching deep into the earth using purely mechanical methods, often surpassing 1,000 meters in depth, established the world’s first recorded fossil fuel industry more than 2,000 years ago,. This ingenuity circumvented the limitations of relying solely on surface fuels like wood or charcoal, propelling Chinese industry onto a new logistical plane. ...