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British engineer William Symington developed a practical steamboat for towing barges on the Forth and Clyde Canal in Scotland. In 1807, the American inventor Robert Fulton successfully demonstrated his steamboat by making a run between New York City and Albany on the Hudson River.
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Warren De la Rue encloses a platinum coil in an evacuated glass tube and passes electricity through it in the first recorded attempt to produce an incandescent lamp.
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Rudolf Clausius discovers the first statement of the second law of thermodynamics, restated by Clausius in 1865 as "entropy always increases in a closed system." In other words, energy in a closed system will change toward heat and disorder.
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Pierre Curie discovers the piezoelectric effect that certain substances produce and electric current as a result of pressure on them.
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The first offshore oil wells are drilled.
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Landflling is introduced and becomes a popular disposal method.
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The first commercial greenhouse use of geothermal energy is undertaken in Boise, Idaho. The operation utilizes a 1000-foot well drilled in 1926. In Klamath Falls, Charlie Lieb develops the first down-hole heat exchanger (DHE) to heat his.
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The first nuclear reactor in England goes into operation at Windscale.
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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is created.
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General Motors Corp. introduces an Electric Vehicle at the Greater LA Auto Show: the Impact (later refined into the sporty EV1, available for lease as of January 1995).
