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2000 BCE
2000 BC-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. -
200 BCE
200 BC - 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
200 BC - 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. -
Sep 21, 1031
1st Century - 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. -
Sep 21, 1400
10th Century - 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 -
1590s - 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... -
1600s - 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. -
1924 - First Federal Law Established to Control Pollution from the Oil Industry
The federal government established a precedent for combating oil pollution when it passed the Oil Pollution Control Act in 1924. The contamination of water from tanker discharges and seepage problems on land were the primary problems. The former attracted the most attention largely because the polluting of waterways and coastal areas affected commercial fishermen and resort owners. -
1935 - Hoover Dam, the World's Largest Hydroelectric Power Plant, Is Built
Hoover Dam is completed on the Colorado River in Arizona in 1935, four years after construction began in 1931. At the time of its completion, the Hoover Dam was the largest hydroelectric producer in the world. The dam remains the largest producer of hydroelectricity in the world until 1948. -
1938 - Natural Gas Act: First Direct Federal Regulation of Natural Gas Industry
In 1938, the federal government became involved directly in the regulation of interstate natural gas with the passage of the Natural Gas Act (NGA). -
1950 - Petroleum Becomes Most Used Fuel in the US
Due primarily to demand caused by the automobile, 1950 is the first year that petroleum becomes most consumed fuel in the US. -
Feb. 2003 - President Bush Unveils the Hydrogen Fuel Initiative to Promote Hydrogen Fuel Cell Development
[T]he Hydrogen Fuel Initiative (HFI) increased federal funding for hydrogen and fuel cell research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) to $1.2 billion over five years. With this increase in funding, the HFI accelerated the pace of RD&D efforts focused on achieving specific targets that would enable hydrogen and fuel cell technology readiness in the 2015 timeframe
