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2000 BCE
Chinese Coal Energy Source
Coal was being burned by the Chinese for heating and cooking. Countries in Europe disregarded it because of the soot and smoke, and used wood.
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200 BCE
Europeans use Water Energy to power mills
Waterwheels powered mills to carry out a variety of tasks like crushing grain, fulling cloth, tanning leather, sawing wood, smelting and shaping iron, etc. These were very useful in areas with lots of water and it reduced a lot of manual labor.
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First Steam Engine
The first steam engine was developed in England to help pump water out of coal mines. Before, the use of watermills and human and animal strength was all anyone could use to remove the water from coal mines. Since coal could be burned to power things, Thoman Newcomen built the steam engine to raise 10 gallons of water out of mines per stroke. Steam engines became the new big thing.
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First US Commercial Coal Production
In Richmond, Virginia, coal was found and several years after its discovery, coal mines were built in surplus. These mines were used to bring coal to manufacture shells, shots, along with other war materials for the Revolutionary war.
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First Hydrogen Fuel Cell
William Robert Grove created the first wet-cell battery, 'The Grove Cell'. This cell used electricity to decompose water into hydrogen and oxygen.
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First Solar Power System
Augustine Mouchot, a French engineer, believed that the sun's heat could possible replace the burning of coal. He researched mirror technology and built the first sun motor. The motor used heat from sunlight and produced steam used to drive machinery.
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First Electricity Plant
Thomas Edison built the first Electricity plant in New York of 1882. This was located near Wall Street and at 3pm on September 4th, he flipped the switch to power a square mile area.
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World's First Geothermal Heating System
In Boise, Ohio, the world's first geothermal district heating system was made. Water was piped down from spring to towns and within a couple of years, over 200 homes and 40 downtown businesses were served.
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First Diesel Engine to run on Vegetable Oil
The first vegetable oil based diesel fuel was shown at the 1900 World's Fair, when the Otto company built a diesel engine to run on peanut oil. Petroleum was available and cheap so the diesel engine design was changed so that the properties of petroleum diesel fuel would match. This resulted in a fuel efficient, very powerful engine.
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The World's Largest Hydroelectric Powerplant
In 1935, the Hoover Dam, the largest hydroelectric power plant in the world, was completed on the Colorado River in Arizona. It took four years to built and remained the largest hydroelectric power plant until 1948.
http://alternativeenergy.procon.org/view.timeline.php?timelineID=000015
