`Historical Boston water-gas street lighting infrastructure`

The first reason we wanted to convey gas was around 1800. People learned they could take coal and water and cook them together in an oxygen-deficient environment and generate what's called water gas. Just heat up coal in a container, drip water on it, and the carbon will reduce the H2O to hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and you'll have by your thermodynamics CO2 and water. So you have four species in the gas phase: carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrogen, and water. It's a great formula. I had to do it as a sophomore in thermodynamics class, in like second or third week, to calculate the water gas reaction under different conditions. And then when I was teaching thirty years ago I made the sophomores do it myself.