Key historical energy events

By TiffanyGraham1234

  • First Steam Engine

    First Steam Engine
    The first steam-powered machine was by Thomas Savery. His invention, designed to pump water out of coalmines, was known as the Miner's Friend.
    www.encyclopedia.com/topic/steam_engine.aspx

  • First Battery Invented

    First Battery Invented
    Alessandro Volta invented the Voltaic Pile and discovered the first practical method of generating electricity. Constructed of alternating discs of zinc and copper with pieces of cardboard soaked in brine between the metals, the Voltaic Pile produced electrical current. Voltaic pile was the first "wet cell battery" that produced a reliable, steady current of electricity. http://inventors.about.com/od/bstartinventions/a/History-Of-The-Battery.htm

  • First Electric Light Created

    First Electric Light Created
    In 1802, Humphry Davy invented the first electric light. He experimented with electricity and invented an electric battery. When he connected wires to his battery and a piece of carbon, the carbon glowed, producing light. His invention was known as the Electric Arc lamp. And while it produced light, it didn’t produce it for long and was much too bright for practical use.
    http://www.bulbs.com/learning/history.aspx

  • First Electric Motor

    First Electric Motor
    Thomas Davenport of Vermont developed the first real electric motor ('real' meaning powerful enough to do a task). Davenport's various motors were able to run a model trolley on a circular track and other tasks. The trolley later turned out to be the first important application of electric power.
    http://www.edisontechcenter.org/electricmotors.html

  • First Commercial Nuclear Power Plant

    First Commercial Nuclear Power Plant
    In 1957, Shippingport, along the Ohio River in far western Pennsylvania, became home to America's first commercial nuclear power plant under President Dwight D. Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" program.The United State's first commercial nuclear power plant was opened in Shippingport, Pennsylvania. The plant split uranium atoms to produce energy.
    http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/portal/communities/pa-heritage/atoms-for-peace-pennsylvania.html

  • First Oil Well in the U.S.

    First Oil Well in the U.S.
    The first oil well in the U.S. could produce oil and gas in sufficient quantities, which makes it economically viable. This was one of the first successful oil wells that were drilled for the sole purpose of finding oil. Known as the Drake Well, after "Colonel" Edwin Drake, the man responsible for the well, it began an international search for petroleum, and in many ways eventually changed the way we live.
    https://www.priweb.org/ed/pgws/history/pennsylvania/pennsylvania.html

  • First Automobile invented

    First Automobile invented
    Karl Friedrich Benz invented the first true automobile. The gasoline automobile was powered by an internal combustion engine: three wheeled, Four cycle, engine and chassis form a single unit.
    https://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysteries/auto.html

  • America’s First Wind Turbine Generated Electricity

    America’s First Wind Turbine Generated Electricity
    In 1888, Charles Brush built an 80,000-pound wind generator that was a 60-foot tower with a 56-foot rotor to generate up to about 12kW of electricity. The turbine’s wheel had 144 blades and about 1,800 square feet of surface area. His home was the first to have electricity in the city. Incredibly, the wind turbine operated successfully for twenty years and supplied Brush’s home with electricity continuously. http://cleantechnica.com/2014/06/22/americas-first-wind-turbine-generated-electricity-18

  • Geothermal Electric Power Plant

    Geothermal Electric Power Plant
    In 1904, Italian scientist Piero Ginori Conti invented the first geothermal electric power plant in which steam was used to generate the power.
    http://www.conserve-energy-future.com/GeothermalEnergyHistory.php

  • First Successful Fuel Cell Device

    First Successful Fuel Cell Device
    Francis Bacon developed what was perhaps the first successful fuel cell device in 1932, with a hydrogen-oxygen cell using alkaline electrolytes and nickel electrodes - inexpensive alternatives to the catalysts used by Mond and Langer.
    http://www.sae.org/fuelcells/fuelcells-history.htm

  • First Silicon Solar Cell invented

    First Silicon Solar Cell invented
    Gerald Pearson, Daryl Chapin and Calvin Fuller at Bell Laboratories discovered a silicon solar cell, which was the first material to directly convert enough sunlight into electricity to run electrical devices. The efficiency of the silicon solar cell, which Bell Labs produced, was 4%, which later increased to 11%. The cells were made by hand and cost $1000 per watt.
    http://org.ntnu.no/solarcells/pages/history.php