Thomas Newcomen's atmospheric steam engine, introduced in 1712, was a major step in industrial history. Read the following passage and answer the question:
In the early eighteenth century, British coal mining hit a geological ceiling. As miners excavated deeper shafts to meet the growing demand for fuel, they frequently breached deep-seated aquifers, flooding the mines and halting production. The existing method of draining these shafts—using teams of horses to haul buckets of water to the surface—was prohibitively expensive and inefficient at greater depths. This operational crisis directly catalyzed Thomas Newcomen’s invention of the atmospheric steam engine in 1712. Designed specifically to power water pumps, Newcomen's engine successfully drained the flooded shafts, allowing miners to reach previously inaccessible coal seams. However, because these early engines were highly inefficient, they consumed a significant portion of the coal they helped extract. This high fuel consumption restricted their initial deployment almost exclusively to the pitheads of coal mines, where fuel was virtually free. Consequently, rather than immediately transforming general manufacturing, the early steam engine’s primary effect was to drastically increase the domestic supply of coal, which in turn lowered fuel costs for other industries and eventually paved the way for wider industrialization.
According to the passage, the high fuel consumption of early Newcomen steam engines had which of the following effects?
- It confined the engines' operation to the immediate vicinity of coal mines, postponing their integration into broader manufacturing sectors.Answer
- BIt arose because the engines were immediately implemented across diverse manufacturing industries that lacked cheap coal.
- CIt compelled mine operators to rely on expensive teams of horses to drain water from the deepest mine shafts.
- DIt caused miners to breach deep-seated aquifers and halt production as they dug deeper shafts.