Friends in Texas tell me there's surprisingly much liberal thinking there now. A lot of the shut your mouth shit kickin' image is a holdover from the recent past, since Republicans have appropriated patriotism and the whole Marlboro Man thing. Politicians like Ted Cruz and Allen West, who moved there from other states, are using that as marketing to the good-old-days audience. Texas is far from a traditionally Republican state - in the 20th century it voted blue in 16 out of 25 presidential elctions, and there's a decent chance Texas could flip Democrat in the coming midterms.

It's already working because it's a research reactor, it never had any goal to be profitable. We're learning tons of shit from it.

I agree, but I'd also include heating (whether natural gas or otherwise) and internet access. Maybe even cell service

This actually is the case. See Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming by Andreas Malm. I saw this argument featured in a video by "Our Changing Climate" that I can't seem to locate now. But I believe this book was the main source for the video. Coal never actually dropped in price during the industrial revolution. The new tech was just used to expand production. And it makes sense when you consider that for these industrialists, labor and equipment costs were probably a much bigger part of their budget than the bill from their coal supplier. Even today, with all our automation, labor remains the biggest expense of most businesses. And it's not like they just ran out of water mill capacity. They were still building dams in the UK well into the twentieth century. And ultimately, cheap urban labor combined with expensive coal power beat out expensive rural labor combined with cheap water power.

I have no reason to doubt that it was an element, but it seems to me that density of power and being able to place that power wherever it is needed (mines being a good example as you said) were likely a bigger consideration that just wanting to skimp on labour costs. If not why did steam power set off such an explosion of industrialisation?.

is already included, heating as energy (electricity and whatever fuel or gas you use to drive and heat) and internet access as IT (maybe should have called it IT and telecommunication services)

Good point, just wanted to clarify

The only reason was that coal power was available in cities, water power wasn't. You can cast it as for exploitation, but exploitation of the urban poor was going to happen anyway, coal power allowed them to make factories in the cities

My friends in Texas tell me it's a lot more liberal than outsiders would think. The shit-kicking Marlboro man image has been fading into the past for some time, but got CPR from politicians like Ted Cruz who moved there from outside to milk the image for their own gain. Texans are not historically Republican - throughout the 20th century they voted for Democratic presidents 2/3 of the time.