In 1952, China was producing 0.005 kilowatts of electricity. Now they need trillions of kilowatts. After Mao’s death and Deng Xiaoping opened China to the world, China seriously started building electrical power plants.
If you study the timeline for the growth of America’s electrical grid, you will discover that Thomas Edison designed and built the first direct current (DC) power plant in 1882. Then the first alternating current (AC) power plant opened in 1885 and transmitted power 200 miles from the plant.
By 1927, forty-five years later, the first power grid was established in Pennsylvania. It wasn’t until 1933 that Congress passed legislation establishing the Tennessee Valley Authority, which now produces 125 billion kilowatt hours of electricity a year.
Similar to China today, in the 1930s there was a huge gap between people in America’s towns and people on farms. About 10 percent of U.S. farm families had central station electricity in the mid-30s. Like China, almost all urban people had power. Source: Living History Farm
Go to Part 2 of America Electrified or discover Deng Xiaoping’s 20/20 Vision
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.
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