250 Years of American Energy Innovation Timeline

1752

Kite experiment; electricity "discovered"

Benjamin Franklin

Wood - The Largest Source of Energy in U.S.

1776

U.S. energy milestone

1790

First Patent - Innovated  a new way to make Potash and Pearlash

Samuel Hopkins

First high-pressure  steam engine

Oliver Evans

Coal mining in Appalachia

Dr. Thomas Walker

Steam-Powered  Pumping Station

1801

Fairmount Water Works

The Fairmount Water Works harnesses steam power to provide water for the city of Philadelphia.

1805

Vapor-Compression Refrigeration

Oliver Evans

First Commercially Viable Steamboat

1807

Robert Fulton

1811

The New Orleans Steam Boat

Robert Fulton , Robert R. Livingston and Nicholas Roosevelt

First U.S. municipal gas light

1817

Rembrandt Peale

1821

First drilled natural gas well

William Hart

First 4 Legged Oil Derrick

1825

Levi Disbrow

1826

Gas Or Vapor Engine

Samuel Morey

Discovery of Electromagnets

1827

Joseph Henry

1831

First Electric Product to hit market, an Ore Seperator

Joseph Henry

Solar Compass

1833

William Burt

1835

Electromechanical Relay

Joseph Henry

First Steam Shovel Patent

1839

William Otis

1841

Drilling Jars

William Morris

Telegraph system from D.C. to Baltimore

1843

Samuel Morse

1849

Mechanical Percussion Drill Invented

J.J. Couch and J.W. Fowle

Corliss Steam Engine

George Henry Corliss, RI

Francis "Modern Water" Turbine

James Francis

Corliss Valve Gear

George Corliss

Halladay Windmill

1854

Daniel Halladay, U.S. Wind Engine & Pump Company

The first patented, commercially successful, self-regulating windmill

Daniel Halladay

1855

Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company formed (first American oil company)

George Henry Bissell

GHG Effect Discovery

1856

Eunice Newton Foote

1858

Ore‑Crusher

Eli Whitney Blake

First Drilled Oil Well

1859

Edwin Drake

1863

Leschot Patented the Diamond Core Drill in the USA

Rodolphe Leschot

First American Oil Pipeline

1864

Samuel Van Syckel

1867

Patented an Improved Water-Tube Steam Boiler Design

George H. Babcock and Stephen Wilcox

Percussion Rock Drill

1870

Simon Ingersoll

Founding of Standard Oil Company

John D. Rockefeller

1870s-1880s

Standard Oil Co. focuses on Waste Reduction & Byproducts

John D. Rockefeller

Standard Oil Co. pioneering Pipeline Transportation

John D. Rockefeller

Standard Oil Co. turning Waste into Products

John D. Rockefeller

Patented and Commercialised a Constant Pressure Internal Combustion Engine

1872

George Brayton

1875

First Inexpensive Industrial Method for Mass-Producing Steel

Carnegie Steel Company

Electric Arc Lighting System

1877

Charles Brush

1879

First Conceptual Circuit Breaker

Thomas Edison

The Lightbulb

Thomas Edison

Pelton Wheel

1880

Lester Allan Pelton

Bolometer

Samuel P. Langley

1882

First hydroelectric power plant

Vulcan Street Plant

First Electrical Engineering Program

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Pearl Street Station

Thoman Edison, New York City

First Solar Cell

1883

Charles Fritts

1885

First Gasoline Pump

Sylvanus F. Browser

Rotary Converter

1888

Charles S. Bradley

Hall-Heroult Aluminum Smelting

Charles Martin Hall / Pittsburgh Reduction Company (now Alcoa)

U.S. Windmill Installation

Charles Brush

1890s

Implementing the Open-Hearth Furnace

Carnegie Steel Company

Uniflow Steam Engine

Skinner Engine Company

First Commerical Solar Water heater

1891

Clarence Kemp

1892

First Geothermal District Heating System

Boise, Idaho

First Gasoline Powered Tractor

John Froelich

Petticoated Porcelain Insulator

1893

William Cermak

1896

Steam Turbine Generator

Charles Gordon Curtis

The First Pier Attached Offshore Wells Were Drilled

H.L. Williams

Wilfley Table (gravity separation table for ore dressing)

Arthur Wilfley

American Innvoation to Steam Turbine (reduced weight yet same power)

Charles Curtis

Discovery of Radioactivity

Henri Becquerel

Niagara Falls Hydro

Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse

Steam Turbine Power Stations

1897

Westinghouse Electric

1899

Advanced Radioactivity Research

Marie & Pierre Curie

Dragline Excavator

1904

John W. Page

1905

Theory of Relativity

Albert Einstein

Electrostatic Precipitator

1907

Frederick Gardner Cottrell

1909

Hughes Two-Cone Drill Bit

Baker Hughes/Hughes Christensen

Dissolution of Standard Oil Co. by Supreme Court

1911

John D. Rockefeller

1914

Large-Capacity Electrical Switch

Augustus J. Bowie

Liquified Natural Gas Developed

1917

William Franklin

1921

First Crawler-Mounted Self-Loading Shuttle Car

Joseph Francis Joy

Nobel Prize Awarded for Explaining Photoelectric Effect

Albert Einstein

Clarke Calculator

Edith Clarke

First Geothermal Power Plant

1922

John D. Grant

Cameron Ram-Type Blowout Preventer

James Smither Abercrombie and Harry S. Cameron

1923

First Hybrid Corn

Henry A. Wallace

Dry Ice

1925

Prest Air Devices (now Dry Ice Corporation)

1926

Arutunoff Electric Submersible Pump

Armais Arutunoff

Catalytic Sensors

Dr. Oliver Johnson

PJM Interconnection

1927

PJM

1929

Tom Thumb (locomotive)

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad

Founding of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

1931

Ernest Lawrence

1934

First Irradiated Uranium With Neutrons, Achieving a Nuclear Reaction

Enrico Fermi (U.S. immigrant from Italy)

Rural Electrification Administration Established Investory-Owned Utilities

1935

President Roosevelt

1936

Hoover Dam

Six Companies, Inc.

Meter-Type Gas Odorizer

1937

Don A. Sillers

1938

Discovery of Fission

Otto Hahn & Fritz Strassmann

Electromagnetic Isotope Separation

1940s

Ernest O. Lawrence’s team at UC Berkeley during the Manhattan Project

First Experimental System of Ground Source Heat Pumps

Robert Webber

1941

Junction Silicon Solar Cell

Bell Laboratories

World’s First MW Scale Wind Turbine

Smith-Putnam wind turbine; Putnam and GE

First Controlled Nuclear Chain Reaction

1942

University of Chicago

First Commercial Fluid Catalytic Cracking Plant (Crude Oil)

ExxonMobil

1943

Quebec Agreement - The First Major Civilian Nuclear Collaboration (US and UK)

President Franklin D. Roosevelt

First Uranium Enrichment Acheived

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Manhattan Project)

Argonne National Laboratory

Department of Energy

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)

U.S. Army

Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Department of Energy

Integral-Angle Gas Engine-Compressor

1944

C. & G. Cooper Company & Bessemer Gas Engine Company

1945

K-25 Gaseous Diffusion Power Plant

Jesse Wakefield and the British MAUD Committee, with researchers such as John R. Dunning and Eugene Booth

250 Years of American Energy Innovation Timeline

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