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the creation of coke coal
By 1875, coke (which is made from coal) replaced charcoal as the primary fuel for iron blast furnaces to make steel. The burning of coal to generate electricity is a relative newcomer in the long history of this fossil fuel http://www.steel.org/making-steel/how-its-made/processes/processes-info/coke-production-for-blast-furnace-ironmaking.aspx -
First solar cell
First Solar Cell Charles Fritts develops a solar cell using selenium on a thin layer of gold to form a device giving less than 1% efficiency -
First Diesel Engine to Run on Vegetable Oil
The first public demonstration of vegetable oil based diesel fuel was at the 1900 World's Fair, when the French government commissioned the Otto company to build a diesel engine to run on peanut oil. https://www.dieselnet.com/tech/diesel_history.php -
electrification of oil fields
The modern oil industry was born on a hill in southeastern Texas. This hill was formed by a giant underground dome of salt as it moved slowly towards the surface. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrification -
the use of hydroelectric power
The Devil's Gate-Weber Hydroelectric Power Plant was built in 1909-1910 on the Weber River of northeastern Utah, USA, about 10 miles (16 km) southeast of Ogden, Utah. It was built by the Utah Light and Railway Company under the direction of E.H. Harriman, a director of the Union Pacific Railroad. It was one of the first powerplants in Utah designed to feed an electrical grid rather than as a source of power of a single locality. https://www.preceden.com/timelines/57324-hydroelectric-energy-- -
World's First Geothermal Power Plant
The Geysers [72 miles north of San Francisco] were discovered in the early 1800's but were an untapped energy source for many years... [In 1921] John D. Grant drilled a geothermal well and ran a small direct-current generator which was used to provide electricity for lighting The Geysers resort. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power -
biofuels
One of the first inventors to convince the people of the use of ethanol was a German named Nikolaus August Otto. Rudolf Diesel is the German inventor of the diesel engine. He designed his diesel engine to run in peanut oil and later Henry Ford designed the Model T car which was produced from 1903 to 1926. This car was completely designed to use hemp derived biofuel as fuel. biofuel.org.uk, history of biofuel. -
First Commercial Wind Turbines
Marcellus and Joe Jacobs develop the first commercially available wind turbine for electricity generation. The brothers knew that many remote farms were unable to electrify without using gasoline generators. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power -
Alcohol Fuel Production Promoted to Combat the Great Depression
By the 1930s, with the country caught in the depths of the Great Depression, new ideas were welcome. Corn prices had dropped from 45 cents per bushel to 10 cents, it was only natural that people in Midwestern business and science would begin thinking about new uses for farm products https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_fuel -
hover dam,worlds largest hydroelectric plant
Hoover Dam is completed on the Colorado River in Arizona in 1935, four years after construction began in 1931. At the time of its completion, the Hoover Dam was the largest hydroelectric producer in the world. http://www.history.com/topics/hoover-dam -
Natural Gas Act: First Direct Federal Regulation of Natural Gas Industry http://www.eia.gov/oil_gas/natural_gas/analysis_publications/ngmajorleg/ngact1938.html
The Natural Gas Act (NGA) of 1938 was the first instance of direct Federal regulation of the natural gas industry. Concern about the exercise of market power by interstate pipeline companies prompted the NGA, which gave the Federal Power Commission (FPC) (subsequently the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)) the authority to set "just and reasonable rates" for the transmission or sale of natural gas in interstate commerce -
1939 Nuclear fission
Nuclear fission of heavy elements was discovered on December 17, 1938 by German Otto Hahn and his assistant Fritz Strassmann, and explained theoretically in January 1939 by Lise Meitner and her nephew Otto Robert Frisch. In nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, nuclear fission is either a nuclear reaction or a radioactive decay process in which the nucleus of an atom splits into smaller parts (lighter nuclei). -
Chicago pile-1
Chicago pile-1 was the firs nuclear reactorto achieve criticality. its construction wa part of the Manhattan project, the allied effort to create atomic bombs during world war II -
World's first nuclear power station opened in UK
World's first nuclear power station opened in UK
The Queen opened the world first full scale nuclear power station in Cumberland. The government expected to save about 40 million tons of coal by investing in the new technology, and was planning to supply about 10% of the country's electricity needs from nuclear power within less than 10 years. 9 additional nuclear power stations were built across the UK within 10 years. -
NASA uses liquid Hydrogen to power rockets
NASA has used liquid hydrogen since the 1970s to propel the space shuttle and other rockets into orbit -
First world's first wave powered station
The world's first commercial wave power station on the Scottish island of Islay began to generate electricity. It works by having air enter a chamber where the air is compressed and decompressed by incoming wave movement. A high-powered turbine catches the air as it is decompressed, generating electricity. The power station can generate enough electricity to power 400 homes. -
German fusion reactor produces first plasma
The world's largest stellarator-type fusion device, Wendelstein 7-X, for the first time heated helium until it became plasma at around 1 million degrees Celsius. The helium was plasma for onetenth of a second, so the next task is to extend this duration so that more energy is produced than consumed. -
Future energy sources
If there's a Holy Grail of clean-energy generation, it's nuclear fusion, which promises limitless carbon-free power without producing dangerous nuclear waste. By figuring out how to mimic the same kind of atomic reaction that occurs at the center of the sun in a controlled way, fusion reactors could supply a whole lot of energy with little environmental cost.
