The Economist.
Okay, so I'm on a busy street in the City of London.
This is Hoben Viaduct, which flies over another busy London street.
I'm looking for quite a special place.
Number 57.
That's Jason, one of our producers, who for this episode,
thought it would be a good idea to embark on a very specific search in the City of London.
It's like a a very fancy bridge.
I'm looking for number 57.
Okay, that's number 24.
I'm going wrong here.
There's this massive glass building.
That's number 60, so I must be in the right spot.
So in January 1882, the world's first coal-fired power station opened roughly here at number 57 Hoban Viaduct.
It was opened by Thomas Edison.
So, coal was burned here to drive a steam engine,
and then the electricity that generated actually powered 1,000 incandescent light bulbs along this very street.
Interestingly, just two months before the power station opened roughly here,
the very first public electricity station in the world was actually a waterwheel in Surrey,
and that generated enough power to light 31 lamps.