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Coal had become the major fuel used by electric utilities in the United States to generate electricity. (Today, it is still the leading fuel for electricity generation.)
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the members of Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries or the OAPEC (consisting of the Arab members of OPEC, plus Egypt, Syria and Tunisia) proclaimed an oil embargo. This was "in response to the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military" during the Yom Kippur war. It lasted until March 1974.
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Congress passed the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 aimed at increasing oil production by giving price incentives. This act also created the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) and required an increase in the fuel efficiency (miles per gallon) of automobiles.
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The accident at the Three Mile Island Unit 2 (TMI-2) nuclear power plant near Middletown, Pennsylvania, on March 28, 1979, was the most serious in the U.S. nuclear power plant industry's operating history. Equipment malfunctions, design-related problems, and human error led to led to a partial meltdown of the TMI-2 reactor core but only very minute releases of radioactivity. Although no deaths or injuries resulted, the accident brought about sweeping changes in emergency response planning, react
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Solar One, a 10-megawatt central receiver demonstration project, was first operated and established the feasibility of power tower systems. In 1988, the final year of operation, the system achieved an availability of 96%.
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It was passed by Congress and addressed energy efficiency, energy conservation and energy management (Title I), natural gas imports and exports (Title II), alternative fuels and requiring certain fleets to acquire alternative fuel vehicles, which are capable of operating on nonpetroleum fuels (Title III-V), electric motor vehicles (Title VI), radioactive waste (Title VIII), coal power and clean coal (Title XIII), renewable energy (Title XII), and other issues.
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Home Depot began selling residential solar power systems in three stores in San Diego, California.
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The record-setting hurricane season of 2005 caused massive damage to the U.S. petroleum and natural gas infrastructure. Gas Hits record high of $3.00 for the first time.
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Wind power provided 5 percent of the renewable energy used in the United States.
U.S. wind power produced enough electricity, on average, to power the equivalent of over 2.5 million homes.
Installed capacity of wind-powered, electricity-generating equipment was 13,885 megawatts as of September 30 — more than four times the capacity in 2000. -
On April 20, 2010, an explosion and fire occurred on the offshore drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, which had been drilling an exploratory well in the Gulf of Mexico. The accident killed 11 crewmembers and left oil leaking from the unfinished well into the ocean for months.
