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Near Richmond, Virginia, the first commercial U.S. coal production began.
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Joseph Henry invented the electrical relay able to send electrical currents long distances.
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Edwin Drake drilled the first commercial well and hit oil and natural gas at 69 feet below the earth’s surface.
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Thomas Edison invented an incandescent light bulb that could be used for about 40 hours without burning out.
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Charles F. Brush used the first large windmill to generate electricity in Cleveland, Ohio.
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The Niagara Falls hydropower station opened.
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Boulder (Hoover) Dam was completed. The Rural Electrification Act of 1936 was aimed at bringing electricity to farms across the country.
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The Manhattan Project was formed in the United States to secretly build the atomic bomb for use in World War II.
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The Shippingport reactor in Pennsylvania was the first nuclear power plant to provide electricity to customers in the USA.
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The Arab Oil Embargo, several Arab OPEC nations stopped selling, oil to the United States and Holland to protest their support of Israel in the Arab-Israeli “Yom Kippur” War.
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The Energy Research and Development Administration began operating
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The National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program (NAPAP) study began.
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The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 required many changes to gasoline and diesel fuels to make them pollute less.
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Congress passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005 which promoted the use of coal through clean coal technologies