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

First Herbicide 2,4-D (2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid)

1946

R. Pokorny

First Large-Scale U.S. Plutonium Production

DOE Hanford Site

1947

Fracking (Hydraulic fracturing)

Stanolind Oil & Gas (later Amoco)

First off Shore Well Drilled Out of Sight of Land

Kerr-McGee Oil Industries

Proton Accellerator

1948

Brookhaven National Labratory

Creation of the Naval Reactors Program

Admiral Hyman Rickover - U.S. Navy

First Home Heated Completely by Solar Energy

Mária Telkes

Center-Pivot Irrigation

Frank Zybach

1949

Creation of Idaho National Lab

Department of Energy

Sandia National Laboratories

Department of Energy

Fracking (Hydraulic Fracturing)

Halliburton

Gas centrifuge Commercialized

1950s

Jesse W. Beams at University of Virginia

In-Situ Leach Mining

Utah Construction and Mining Co.

1951

First Usable Electric Power from the Atom (Breeder Reactor)

Argonne/INL

Oil Drill Pumpjack

1952

Walter Trout and the Lufkin Foundry and Machine Company

1953

90+% of U.S. Farms Get Electricity

U.S. Government

Nuclear Tech for Civilian Use

President Dwight D. Eisenhower

Commercialization of Nuclear Technology

1954

U.S. Congress/President Eisenhower

First Nuclear Powered Submarine

General Dynamics

123 Agreements

President Eisenhower

Silicon Solar Cell

Bell Laboratories

1955

Borax-III (First city lit from nuclear power)

Nuclear Reactor Testing Station, Now INL

First Commercial Building Heated With Solar

1956

Frank Bridgers, Donald Paxton

Transistor

AT&T's John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley

1957

The Vallecitos Boiling Water Nuclear Reactor

General Electric Company and Pacific Gas and Electric Company

First Commercial Nuclear Power Plant

Westinghouse & Duquesne Light

Philo 6 Steam-Electric Generating Unit

American Gas and Electric Co.

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs)

Stan Murphy, Bob Francois, and Terry Ewart

First University Department for Nuclear Engineers

1958

MIT

First Solid-State Electric Fence

Parmak

CO2 Systematic Measurement

Charles Keeling

1959

First Nuclear Powered Merchant Ship

U.S. Congress/President Eisenhower

Transient Reactor Test

Idaho National Lab, DOE, and Japan Atomic Energy Agency

Light Water Reactor

Late 1950s

Pittsburgh Naval Reactors and Argonne National Lab

Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactors

Argonne National Laboratory

1960s

YAG (yttrium aluminum garnet)

Nassau, Bell Labs.

Seafloor Cutters & Drills

John L. Mero

Recycling Permanent Magnets

University of Birmingham's Magnetic Materials Group (MMG) and researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)

Triso Nuclear Fuel by UK and U.S. Collaboration

UK & U.S. Collaboration

Laser-Driven ICF (fusion)

John Nuckolls at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

1962 Small Mobile Power Plant

1962

U.S. Army Power Program and The Martin Company

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC)

Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky

1963

3D/4D Seismic Imaging

ExxonMobil

Zeolite Catalyst

1964

Charles J. Plank & Edward J. Rosinski

First Fast Reactor with a Closed Fuel Cycle

Argonne National Lab

1965-1969

Molten Salt Reactor Technology Created

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) becomes a DOE Lab

1965

U.S. Atomic Energy Commission

First Semi-scale Blowdown Tests

National Reactor Testing Station (now INL)

1967

Peach Bottom Unit 1 High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor

Philadelphia Electric Company

Discovery of the Largest Coventional Oil Field in North America at Prudhoe Bay

ARCO

Fermi National Accelerator Laborator

Robert R. Wilson (founding director)

First U.S. LNG Export Facility

1969

ConocoPhilllips

First Ocean-Atmosphere Circulation Model

NOAA

Zero Power Physics Reactor

Idaho National Lab

1970s

First High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor 1967–1974

General Atomics / Philadelphia Electric

First Floating Nuclear Energy Facility 1960s-1976

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Polymetallic Nodule Collectors

Ocean Mining Associates (OMA) and Ocean Minerals Company (OMCO)

Atomic Vapor Laser Isotope Separation

DOE Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Magnetic Separation With Nanoparticle-Assisted Reagents

Pacific NW National Lab

First U.S. CO2 Pipeline

1970

Shell Oil Company

1971

Polycrystalline Diamond Compact Drill Bits

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory

First Wind Energy Research Center

1972

Professor William E. Heronemus

1973

First Production Catalytic Converter

John J. Mooney, Carl D. Keith, Antonio Eleazar, and Phillip Messina

First Hot Dry Rock Patent

1974

Potter / Los Alamos National Lab

First Hot Dry Rock Patent

1974

Potter / Los Alamos National Lab

1975

Strategic Petroleum Research Created

President Ford

Nitrapyrin (N‑Serve)

1976

The Dow Chemical Company, now Cordova

Heavy-Ion Beam Fusion

Brookhaven National Laboratory

1977

Department of Energy Formed

U.S. Government

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)

U.S. Department of Energy

Solar Energy Research Institute (later NREL)

U.S. Department of Energy

TransAlaska Pipeline Constructed

ConocoPhilllips; BP; Exxon; and Unocal Pipeline Company

First Deep Water Oil Well Drilled

1978

Shell

California Passes Solar Rights Act

RCA Labs

1980

First Geothermal Flash Plant

Union Oil Company of California

First Utility-Scale Wind Farm

U.S. Windpower

Binary-Cycle Geothermal Power Plant

1981

U.S. Department of Energy

1982

Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor

Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory

Continuous Mining Machine

Thomas E. Howard

Tradable Lead Credit Program

U.S. EPA

Pacific Northwest National Lab

1984

U.S. Department of Energy

1987

First Proposed Spent Fuel Repository

U.S. Department of Energy

U.S. Acid Rain Program

1990

Clean Air Act

1992

Vapor Recovery Units

Mark D. Dalhart, Paul B. Anderson and David A. Damico

Geothermal Combined Cycle Plant

Ormat

Princeton Large Helical Device

1993

Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory

1994

World-Record Fusion Power

Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) at PPPL

First genetically modified food approved for sale by the FDA, FLAVR SAVR Tomato

Calgene, Inc

GPS Precision Agriculture

1995

Dr. Pierre Robert

1996

GHG Registry

American Carbon Registry

Carbon Credits

1997

Kyoto Protocol

Carbon Offset Fund

The Climate Trust

Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility

U.S. Department of Energy

1998

Historic Temperatures Reconstruction

Michael Mann

Direct Air Capture (DAC)

1999

Klaus Lackner

Early 2000s

The Shale Revolution

George P. Mitchell and his company, Mitchell Energy & Development Corp.

A123 Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP)

2001

A123 Systems

Muon Scattering Tomography Technique

Chris Morris, Los Alamos National Laboratory

Self Healing Materials

Scott White

2004

Savannah River designated as a National Laboratory (SRNL)

U.S. Department of Energy

First Commercial Advanced Conductors

2005

CTC Global

Energy Act of 2005

109th U.S. Congress

2007

Massachusetts vs EPA

U.S. Supreme Court

45Q Tax Credit Introduction

2008

U.S. Congress

Milimeter Wave Drilling Demo

Dr. Paul Woskov / MIT

2009

ARPA-E Created

U.S. Congress

Solar Enhanced Oil Recovery

2011

GlassPoint Solar

DOE SunShot Initiative

U.S. Department of Energy

First Nuclear Battery on a Mars Rover

U.S. Department of Energy & NASA

2012

Installed Wind Capacity 60+ GW

U.S. Energy Industry Milestone

EV Superchargers

Tesla

Army's First Microgrid

2013

U.S. Army

2014

Critical Minerals Institute

DOE

Energy-Efficient Grain Dryers

2016

Matthews Company

2018

Utah FORGE (Enhanced Geothermal Systems Technology)

U.S. Department of Energy & University of Utah

Recycling Lithium from Batteries (ReCell Project)

2019

Argonne Labs

2020

Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program

U.S. Department of Energy

116th U.S. Congress

Energy Act of 2020

Hovering Robotic Collectors

2020 - 2022

Company Impossible Metals

2021

Direct Ocean Capture (DOC)

California Institute of Technology / Captura

Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA)

117th U.S. Congress

Fusion Ignition Breakthrough

2022

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)/NIF

CHIPS and Science Act

117th U.S. Congress

Inflation Reduction Act

117th U.S. Congress

2023

Repurposed Pipeline

Tallgrass Energy

Low-cost Carbon Capture

Pacific Northwest National Labratory

First HALEU Fuel Production

Centrus Energy Corp.

First AP1000 Nuclear Reactor

Georgia Power (Southern Co.)

First Commercial Fusion Power Purchase Agreement

Helion Energy & Microsoft

Perovskite & Tandem Cell Research

NREL

First U.S. Commercial Direct-Air Carbon Capture Facility

Heirloom

Renewables Overtake Coal

USA

World's First Grid-Scale Wave Energy Converter

2024

U.S. Navy, EERE + Ocean Energy

2025

First Nuclear Reactor Restart — Palisades

Holtec International

Project Pele: Mobile Microreactor Project Design

2025 - 2028

U.S. Department of Defense

2025 - 2030

Fluoride-Salt-Cooled SMR for Data Centers

Kairos Power, TVA, Google

250 Years of American Energy Innovation Timeline

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