When would steampunk have actually started if it were real?

I am in the process of writing a steampunk series set in early to mid 1800's and I think this is early. Let's see what Wikipedia has to say. Steampunk concepts are tied to, naturally, actual development of steam engines.Age of Steam - Wikipedia. read more

See right now, a lot of stuff runs on fossil fuels. Which will take a long time, but they are bound to run out at some point, or they will have to be used very sparingly, which means almost the same in practice. read more

Historical steampunk tends to be science fiction that presents an alternate history; it also contains real locales and persons from history with alternative fantasy technology. read more