Summary - TST 32

TRANSPORTES, SERVICIOS Y TELECOMUNICACIONES


TST 32
Francesc Xavier BARCA SALOM y Joan Carles ALAYO MANUBENS
Las técnicas de producción de gas utilizadas en las fábricas de gas españolas. El caso de las fábricas catalanas: 1842-1960

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Key Words: Gasworks, gas industry, Spain, Catalonia, nineteenth century, twentieth century.

[ Abstract ]

The first production system of gas lighting was to distill coal at high temperatures.However, soon were introduced technological changes that, maintaining the essential principle, came to improve production and facilitated the work. They were technologies affecting, among other things, the retorts, the furnaces and heat recovery. Many of these technologies, which were generated in countries such as England, France or Germany, they were introduced in Spain by the relation of this companies with the foreign ones or by the action of certain actors whose contacts facilitated the introduction of these technological improvements. In this article we try to describe the technological evolution of the Catalan gasworks until 1960, highlighting the foreigner innovations introduced and also the local ones. Our purpose is to describe the process of technology transfer through the countries and display the existence of a globalization in gas technology.