Energy in the United States By dlcohen Jun 28, 1740 Commercial coal mining starts Very important for energy Sep 5, 1803 Richard Trevithick invents the steam locomotive (train) May 19, 1821 First natural gas well drilled in Fredonia, New York Jan 1, 1880 Coal used to generate electricity Mar 13, 1887 Charles Brush, American, builds first modern automatically operating wind turbine Jun 28, 1891 First natural gas pipeline built. 120 miles long, from Indiana to Chicago Aug 4, 1904 The first geothermal powerplant is built in Laderello, Italy Jul 2, 1954 D.M. Chaplin, C.S. Fuller, and G.L. Pearson invent solar voltaic cells Dec 16, 1998 Chicago adds hydrogen cell buses to mass transit Jun 28, 2001 President Bush approves an energy policy that looks at nuclear energy as a significant part of America's energy
