-
Fossil Fuels
Native Americans burned coal since the 1300's but Virginia settlers didn't discover it until 1673. Fossil fuel weren't used to power things till the 1740's. -
Understanding Electricity
Benjamin Franklin did an experiment one night and determined that lightning is electricity in 1752. In 1820 Hans Christian Orsted determined that electricity creates a magnetic field. In the late 1800s Nikola Tesla after briefly working with Thomas Edison, who worked with direct currents, started to invent things using alternating currents. -
The First Battery (The Voltac Pile)
The first battery, the voltac pile was invented by Alessandro Volta in 1800. It was made by separating two metals with a cloth or cardboard soaked in an electrolyte. -
The Light Bulb
Thomas Edison tested more than 3,000 designs for bulbs between 1878 and 1880, but in November of 1879 he filed a patent for a bulb with a carbon filament. This was a step up from the bamboo filament he used previously. -
Hydroelectricity
The first hydroelectric project was in Rothbury, England. In 1880 the first industrial use of hydropower to generate electricity in the United States occurred in Grand Rapids Michigan when 16 brush-arc lamps were powered using a water turbine at the Wolverine Chair Factory in Grand Rapids. -
Power Supply
The first public power station was the Edison Electric Light Station, built in London, but the first in the U.S. was Pearl Street Station in Manhattan. -
Wind Power
The first electricity-generating wind turbine was invented in 1888 in Cleveland, Ohio by Charles F. Brush. Although many in history had used wind for oats this was the first time wind was turned into electricity. -
Discovery of Geothermal Energy
The first geothermal power plant was built in 1904 by Prince Piero Ginori Conti. It wasn't brought to the U.S. till 1922. -
Electricity Became Common
In the 1930s, although not all people in all regions of the U.S. had power it was becoming very common in homes and allowed people to enjoy life's little luxuries, such as hot plates, waffle irons and electric stoves. -
Nuclear Power
Uranium was discovered in 1789 by Martin Heinrich Klaproth and was named after Uranus. Physicist Enrico Fermi discovered the potential of nuclear fission in 1934, when he bombarded uranium atoms with neutrons and was surprised to discover that the products of this reaction were much lighter than uranium. December 2, 1942, Fermi created the first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear reaction.
