Glass industry has been doing it since the 1850’s with “regenerator” furnaces
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_melting_furnace
One thing that really got my attention when I studied nanotechnology is how many original technologies we still use regularly, just in a refined/modified form (Chemical Vapour Deposition, a technique used heavily in the production of many ordinary products from computer chips to chip bags, is fundamentally the exact same technology first used to smelt ore). It actually wouldn’t be hard at all to transition to lower impact technologies in a lot of places if people were okay with not electrifying/connecting everything possible.
how is smelting similar to CVD, elaborate plz
They’re both essentially vaporizing a metal with high heat to deposit upon a substrate above. Early smelting was just looking to purify the metal and remove impurities, and now we’ve refined that same technique with strictly controlled parameters to deposit exactly what metal we want to have where, to build the microscopic features of modern computer chips.
I work in a fab and I assure you CVD is not like smelting…you gave me a chuckle though!
To wit: Firebricks store heat, cheaply.
👍 article. Firebricks may accelerate our transition to sustainable energy.
Primitive Technology on YouTube is waaaay ahead of you.
Well hot damn!!!
