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200 BCE
Chinese Develop Natural Gas as an Energy Source
The first practical use of natural gas dates to 200 BCE and is attributed, like so many technical developments, to the Chinese. They used it to make salt from brine in gas-fired evaporators, boring shallow wells and conveying the gas to the evaporators via bamboo pipes." -
200 BCE
Europeans Harness Water Energy to Power Mills
"The vertical waterwheel, invented perhaps two centuries before the time of Christ, spread across Europe within a few hundred years. By the end of the Roman era, waterwheels powered mills to crush grain, full cloth, tan leather, smelt and shape iron, saw wood, and carry out a variety of other early industrial processes. Productivity increased, dependence on human and animal muscle power gradually declined, and locations with good water-power resources. -
38 BCE
Chinese First to Use Coal as an Energy Source
According to the report of an early missionary to China, coal was already being burned there for heating and cooking, and had been so employed for up to 4000 years. Likewise, in early medieval Europe, the existence of coal was no secret, but the 'black stone' was regarded as an inferior fuel because it produced so much soot and smoke... Thus, until the 13th century, it was largely ignored in favor of wood. -
10 BCE
Windmills Built in Persia to Grind Grain and Pump Water
"For the tenth century, we have material proof that windmills were turning in the blustery Seistan region of Persia. These primitive, vertical carousel-type mills utilized the wind to grind corn, and to raise water from streams to irrigate gardens... [T]heir use soon spread to India, other parts of the Muslim world, and China, where farmers employed them to pump water, grind grain, and crush sugarcane." -
1 BCE
Chinese First to Refine Petroleum (Oil) for Use as an Energy Source
"More than 2,000 years ago, our ancestors discovered oil seepages in many places in northwest China. A book titled Han Book Geography Annals written by a historian of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Ban Gu (32-92 AD), wrote of flammables in the Weishui River. Located at the east of the Yanan city, the river now is called the Jian. -
Dec 8, 1550
Dutch Build Windmills for Multiple Uses
The mill reached its greatest size and its most efficient form in the hands of the Dutch engineers toward the end of the sixteenth century... The Dutch provinces... developed the windmill to the fullest possible degree: it ground the grain produced on the rich meadows, it sawed the wood... and it ground the spices... -
Development of Coal Coke in England Aids Iron Production and Helps to Pave the Way for the Industrial Revolution
"Experimenters... discovered that the roasting process used to make charcoal [from wood] could be adapted to coal, the result being an extremely hot-burning fuel called coke. The use of coke in iron and steel production, beginning in England in the 17th century, would so transform those industries as to constitute one of the key developments paving the way for the industrial revolution." -
Coal Begins to Displace Use of Other Energies
he great shift in population and industry that took place in the eighteenth century was due to the introduction of coal as a source of mechanical power, to the use of new means of making that power effective - the steam engine - and to new methods of smelting and working up iron. Out of this coal and iron complex, a new civilization developed. -
Process of Electrolysis Discovered
English scientists William Nicholson and Sir Anthony Carlisle discovered that applying electric current to water produced hydrogen and oxygen gases. This process was later termed 'electrolysis.'" -
First Diesel Engine to Run on Vegetable Oil Demonstrated at World's Fair in Paris
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. The French government was interested in vegetable oils as a domestic fuel for their African colonies. Rudolph Diesel later did extensive work on vegetable oil fuels and became a leading proponent of such a concept. -
World's First Geothermal Power Plant Is Built in California
"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. However, because the materials used at that time could not withstand the geothermal steam environment and because of the difficulties of drilling for geothermal steam. -
Petroleum Becomes Most Used Fuel in the US
Petroleum Becomes Most Used Fuel in the US -
Natural Gas Becomes a Major Fuel in US with Extensive Construction of Natural Gas Pipelines
Natural gas was not a widespread home fuel before the 1950s. Home use of natural gas required a large pipeline network for delivery and the cost of such a system was considered prohibitive.