How Long Can We Postpone Electricity?

What's the latest we can keep electricity from being commonly used as a power source in the developed world?

Can we go up until the 1950's?
 
Not too much... Electricity was known even by ancient greeks and babylonians (see the "battery of Baghdad") so i guess it would be only a matter of time before someone rediscovering it and start experiments as it happened in OTL.
 
A somewhat philosophical solution is to delay the romanticism. Its anti-materialism and fascination of forces, power etc, inspired speculative thoughts. For example Örsted refusal of the newtonian model to describe electromagnetism was deeply rooted in romanticism.
 
Given the advances that were being made in electrical genarators and transformers at the turn of the century (19th - 20th) and given the rising demand for power plus the number of people studying/experimenting-on all things electrical, I doubt that the widening use of electricity could be slowed significantly (unless a viable alternative can somehow be found nad developed)


New_York_utility_lines_in_1890.jpg

New York City, 1990

How much fear of electrical power and resistance to its use could be generated by a major systemic system failure in a big city that sparked major fire and caused multiple casualties?
 
How much fear of electrical power and resistance to its use could be generated by a major systemic system failure in a big city that sparked major fire and caused multiple casualties?

Unlikely. The Great Chicago Fire didn't result in outlawing keroscene lamps, let alone cows residing within city limits. What you are suggesting with just spur developments of new methods and technology to make electricty safer.
 
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