“For reasons this book will explore, hydroelectricity proved to be the major alternative to coal in generating electricity on the European continent in the early twentieth century, and the Alps became one of the global centers of its production. Understanding why and how the Alps became one of the foremost landscapes of electricity in Europe has much to tell us about modern energy use and the history of the lands that drew this power from the mountain” (3). This is the task that Marc Landry sets himself in his new book. He positions his approach in three overlapping fields of research: energy history, environmental history, and Alpine history, presenting important results in each. By creatively combining perspectives, he repeatedly succeeds in shedding light on previously underrated aspects of hydroelectricity in relation to other forms of energy in the Alps, in Europe, and beyond.
The book project began with Landry’s dissertation, which was further developed over the years. The author visited archives in five countries with Alpine regions (Austria, France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland) and studied countless technical reports and the associated literature. He does not limit himself to the technical aspects, however, but repeatedly embeds the world of engineers and entrepreneurs in the general history of the environment, economy, politics, and culture. This method, along with his sense of proportion, is an important basis for the plausibility of his theses and explanations.
When it became possible to generate electricity using the force of water flows in the second half of the nineteenth century, the Alps in Europe had two decisive advantages: their abundance of water and their large gradients. Both factors meant that they were predestined to play a central role in a new energy regime and to shake off their reputation as a peripheral region in this respect. However, the development was anything but linear. It was interspersed with many coincidences, recurring conflicts, and strong geopolitical upheavals.
In the first chapters of the book, Landry guides us through the topic along the lines of technical innovations. In scattered locations, engineers developed turbines that could convert stronger water forces into kinetic energy than traditional water wheels and iron pipes or penstocks, a controllable version of waterfalls (Chapter 1). One of the main problems of early hydroelectric production was the limited transportability of this form of energy. The solution came with the change from direct to alternating current. Step by step, mountain energy could now be transmitted and utilized over longer distances, until finally large parts of Europe were within reach of the Alps (Chapter 2). Another problem was the temporal fluctuations of the watercourses and the harmonization with the demand for electricity in the consumer markets. While in the early days, rivers and natural lakes were used to generate electricity, artificial dams at the mouths of valleys later became the central form. These reservoirs formed large storage tanks that could be tapped as needed, thus achieving greater independence from natural processes (Chapter 3).
The author does not present these developments in as technical a manner as I summarize them here, and in the four further chapters of his book, political and cultural developments with the world wars necessarily take up even more space. Chapters 4 through 7 are structured chronologically, according to the change of open and not-so-open war, starting in 1914: “The First World War and its immediate aftermath marked a watershed moment in the history of the Alps as an energy landscape. With the coming of the war and its disruption of European coal supplies, the Alps began to loom large as a landscape of alternative energy” (133). Depending on the situation, national war economies resulted in immediate expansion or at least planning of ever larger works. When the Nazi Party came to power in Germany, the energy question was again viewed from a military perspective. Politicians and planners developed a real obsession for Alpine hydropower, which they expanded even further with the Anschluss. Ironically, a considerable part of these plans was only completed after the war with funds from the US Marshall Plan. In fact, the 1950s to the 1970s were the great boom period, when one hydroelectric power station after another was built in the Alps, up to high altitudes. This changed the natural conditions to an unprecedented extent and provoked more and more protests from environmental groups.
Until the second part of the twentieth century, hydroelectricity remained a rival to coal and had to measure up to its advantages and disadvantages. Linguistically, this was expressed in the term “white coal,” invented by an early promoter. With the advent of oil at the beginning of the century and nuclear technology in the 1960s, the spectrum of energy forms became more diverse so that hydroenergy had to repeatedly reposition itself. As a renewable energy, it has a special opportunity in the current discussion under the pressure of global warming and the necessary reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. In his study, from start to conclusion, Landry provides many useful pointers on how to imagine energy transitions.
The book also repeatedly deals with the property issue (state ownership vs. the private sector), omitting only one point: How much of the value added by this “European battery” remained in the Alpine regions where it was generated, and how much was accumulated in the urban centers outside the mountains? This too has been a point of contention around hydroelectricity. This quibble, however, does not change the fact that Landry’s book is an excellent pioneering study. It skillfully combines exemplary and generalizing passages, which also makes it an enjoyable read. As the Walchenseewerk south of Munich and the Kaprun plants in the Tauern mountains form two main examples, it should appeal particularly to readers in Bavaria and Austria.
