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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass_briquettes

Biomass briquettes are a biofuel substitute to coal and charcoal. Briquettes are mostly used in the developing world, where cooking fuels are not as easily available. There has been a move to the use of briquettes in the developed world, where they are used to heat industrial boilers in order to produce electricity from steam. The briquettes are cofired with coal in order to create the heat supplied to the boiler.

The manufacturing process is rather simple and easy (often being made by housewives and farmers in the developing world). Furthermore, there have been experiments done with different mixtures that have discovered that briquetting coal and biomass while mixing it with molasses makes the end result suitable for modern industrial use.

What if people discovered briquetting earlier before the 1900s? What effect would this have on the development of technology?
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