We're in the future and all modern technology has been banned (consider "modern" = "from industrial revolution onwards"). This happened about 200 years ago. Now, a group of rebels wants to get it back. Suppose they have access to theoretical knowledge about electricity, and they may have gotten their hands on some well preserved electric or electronic item from our time (suppose it was stored in some secret bunker). None of them is particulary rich or powerful, so their resources are not huge, and they don't want to draw attention. What is the easiest way for them to create small amounts of electricity (let's say, enough for powering a few lightbulbs) and - if possible - storing it in batteries of some sort?
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1$\begingroup$ Not strictly relevant to your question, but if you successfully eliminate all technology invented since the 18th century, without also magically providing resources that technology currently provides, you've also killed about 95% of the human population. $\endgroup$– g sCommented Apr 13 at 0:18
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2$\begingroup$ Consider researching the Baghdad Battery. Electricity and batteries are NOT recent inventions. Your real problem is how to oppress the use of electricity when it's knowledge is all around us (e.g. lightning). Creating devices that can power a small non-vacuum incandescent lightbulb is high school electronics and isn't hard at all. We just don't have a reason to care about that in today's world. You might also research the centennial lightbulb. $\endgroup$– JBHCommented Apr 13 at 0:34
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2 Answers
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Frame challenge: It was always there, just "underground".
Like any illicit substance (think booze during the prohibition era in the 1920-1930s US.) or a black-market in weapons or "specialist" magazines, it's always been there.
Who would want to go without Aretha Franklyn, Elvis or Terry Wogan singing the Floral Dance? Music, light, e-books would likely always be items of nostalgic and monetary value. Long-range communications would always be of interest to anyone who doesn't like the status-quo, the rebels, subcultures and disaffected youth. Citizen's Band and Ham radio with all the various types of encoding and encryption available would still be going strong.
Sure, the authorities may try to stamp it out, but they can only detect and pinpoint it's location using modern electronic equipment which makes the people who wield them subject to heists (and jamming). Of course, you can protect against some of that sort of thing with huge manpower to escort the detector-equipment around (not a stealth approach) - but giving those using the illicit tech time to migrate it, turn it off or stick it in a nice-inconspicuous Faraday cage. Then there's the human-factor, the inevitable corruption in the authorities who also like a bit of Michael Bublé or Eminem and can be encouraged to ignore infractions or bribed.
Fuel-pump sized (commercial link, no affiliation) chip fabs would attract a premium price, refinement of feed materials would be the height of alchemy if not on an industrial scale. Perhaps whole areas of remote land would be dedicated to such production much like the illicit-substance hotspots in various South American Jungles.
Also the electricity generation itself, there's always the Sterling engine with mini-dynamo, or Thermoelectric generators. Any competent watchmaker should be able to make those without too much trouble.
Battery tech: even basic lead-acid would serve most people well, but in a pinch, any two unlike-metals in a salt-bath or Voltiac pile will serve as a temporary supply.
answered Apr 12 at 17:04
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None of them is particulary rich or powerful, so their resources are not huge,
This is going to make things difficult. The people who discovered and experimented with electricity the first time around were largely wealthy people who could afford to buy lots of expensive metals and chemicals and spend lots of time sitting around tinkering with them. Copper wire in a pre-industrial setting is not going to be cheap and readily available, and you need lots of it, as well as insulating materials like silk and varnish.
That's less of an issue if they're using materials from such a bunker (which itself could have been preserved by the very people who banned such technology, to use that technology themselves to enforce the ban), but that's less recreating electricity and more just using some technological artifacts.
What is the easiest way for them to create small amounts of electricity (let's say, enough for powering a few lightbulbs) and - if possible - storing it in batteries of some sort?
The likely easiest way to produce small amounts of power is with a primary non-rechargeable battery, which addresses the second issue as well. The easiest way to store electricity in a rechargeable battery is probably a lead-acid battery, and those are heavy, relatively low capacity, and a spill hazard without modern gelled electrolytes and sealed plastic housings.
A zinc-carbon dry cell could be recreated pretty easily, given the knowledge to do so, and would be far safer and more convenient.
answered Apr 12 at 23:56