History of energy and engines
69 inventions by year: what each evolved from and what it led to.
How the inventions are connected
| Year | Invention | What it is | Evolved from | Led to |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 400000 BC | Fire making Homo erectus, archaic human | The controlled use and production of fire. | Match, Lighter | |
| 30000 BC | Charcoal | Fuel made by heating wood without air. | ||
| 1000 BC | Coal | A fossil fuel — the basis of the Industrial Revolution. | ||
| 300 BC | Water wheel | A wheel with paddles turned by flowing water. | Turbine, Water turbine | |
| 300 BC | Watermill | A mill whose millstones are turned by a water wheel. | ||
| 50 | Heron’s aeolipile | A ball spun by jets of steam — the oldest steam turbine. | Vending machine, Turbine | |
| 900 | Windmill | A mill driven by the wind. | Wind turbine | |
| 1600 | Coal mine | Underground coal mining. | ||
| 1690 | Piston | A part that moves in a cylinder under the pressure of gas or steam. | ||
| 1712 | Boiler | A vessel in which water turns into steam under pressure. | ||
| 1712 | Newcomen engine Thomas Newcomen | The first practical atmospheric steam engine, for pumping water out of mines. | Pressure cooker | Watt steam engine |
| 1765 | Separate condenser | Watt’s invention: steam condenses outside the cylinder, greatly raising efficiency. | ||
| 1769 | Watt steam engine | A steam engine with a separate condenser — the prime mover of the Industrial Revolution. | Piston pump, Newcomen engine | Internal combustion engine, Tractor, Thermodynamics, Steam turbine |
| 1788 | Centrifugal governor James Watt | A speed regulator with spinning weights; used by Watt. | Cruise control | |
| 1800 | Mine ventilation | Airing the workings. | ||
| 1812 | Coal gas | Gas made from coal for street lighting and stoves. | ||
| 1815 | Davy lamp Humphry Davy | A safety miner’s lamp with a gauze. | Carbide lamp | |
| 1821 | Natural gas | A gaseous fossil fuel, mostly methane. | ||
| 1827 | Water turbine | A turbine driven by flowing water (Fourneyron, Francis, Kaplan). | Water wheel | |
| 1829 | Fire-tube boiler | A boiler in which hot gases run through tubes in the water. | ||
| 1830 | Mine hoist | A cage on a rope. | ||
| 1839 | Fuel cell | Produces current directly from the reaction of hydrogen with oxygen (Grove). | ||
| 1848 | Oil well | A well for extracting oil; drilling at Absheron and by Drake. | ||
| 1856 | Heat pump | Moves heat from cold to warm at the cost of work. | ||
| 1859 | Drilling rig | A machine for drilling wells. | ||
| 1876 | Internal combustion engine Rudolf Diesel, Nicolaus Otto | An engine in which fuel burns inside the cylinder (Otto’s four-stroke cycle). | Watt steam engine | |
| 1876 | Crankshaft | A shaft with cranks that turns the stroke of the pistons into rotation. | ||
| 1877 | District heating | Heating networks fed by combined heat and power plants. | ||
| 1878 | Pipeline | Pipes for transporting oil and gas (Shukhov, the Nobels). | ||
| 1878 | Hydroelectric power station | A station where water turbines turn the generators. | ||
| 1878 | Solar concentrator | Mirrors that gather the Sun’s heat. | ||
| 1882 | Electrical grid | A system for transmitting and distributing electricity. | Smart grid | |
| 1882 | Power station | A plant that produces electricity; Edison’s Pearl Street. | ||
| 1882 | Combined heat and power plant | A station that produces both electricity and heat. | ||
| 1882 | Thermal power station | A station where turbines are turned by steam from burning fuel. | ||
| 1884 | Turbine | A bladed machine turned by a flow of steam, gas or water. | Heron’s aeolipile, Water wheel | |
| 1884 | Steam turbine | Parsons’s turbine, driven by steam. | Watt steam engine | De Laval nozzle |
| 1887 | Wind turbine | A windmill that drives an electric generator. | Windmill | |
| 1888 | Electrolyser | A unit for electrolysis of water. | ||
| 1891 | Power line | Wires on towers for transmitting power over distance. | ||
| 1891 | Solar water heater | A collector for heating water (Kemp). | ||
| 1897 | Diesel engine Rudolf Diesel | A combustion engine with compression ignition. | ||
| 1900 | Biofuel | Fuel from plant material; Diesel demonstrated an engine running on peanut oil. | ||
| 1904 | Geothermal power station | Uses the Earth’s internal heat; the first was at Larderello. | ||
| 1907 | Pumped-storage station | Stores energy by pumping water uphill. | ||
| 1939 | Gas turbine | A turbine driven by combustion products. | ||
| 1941 | Liquefied natural gas | Gas cooled to −162 °C. | ||
| 1942 | Nuclear reactor | A facility for a controlled chain reaction (Chicago Pile-1). | ||
| 1942 | Control rod | Absorbs neutrons and controls a reactor’s power. | ||
| 1942 | Neutron moderator | Graphite or water that slows neutrons down. | ||
| 1947 | Hydraulic fracturing | Pumping liquid to crack rock. | ||
| 1947 | Offshore drilling platform | A platform for extracting oil at sea. | ||
| 1950 | Flywheel energy storage | Stores energy in the rotation of a flywheel. | ||
| 1951 | Fast breeder reactor | A breeder reactor (BN-600, EBR-I). | ||
| 1954 | Solar panel | A panel of photocells that turns light into current. | ||
| 1954 | Nuclear power plant | The world’s first was the Obninsk plant. | ||
| 1954 | High-voltage direct current | Transmitting power over very long distances. | ||
| 1958 | Tokamak Igor Tamm, Andrei Sakharov | A toroidal chamber with magnetic confinement of plasma (Tamm, Sakharov). | ||
| 1961 | Radioisotope generator | A battery using decay heat and thermocouples; powers the Voyager probes. | ||
| 1966 | Tidal power station | Uses the energy of the tides (Rance). | ||
| 1970 | Hydrogen energy | Hydrogen as an energy carrier. | ||
| 1972 | Carbon capture | Capturing and storing CO₂. | ||
| 1982 | Solar power station | A field of solar panels or mirrors. | ||
| 2000 | Smart meter | A meter that transmits data. | Electricity meter | |
| 2000 | Wave power station | Uses the energy of sea waves. | ||
| 2005 | Smart grid | A power grid with digital control. | Electrical grid | |
| 2010 | Grid battery storage | Battery stations for balancing the grid. | ||
| 2020 | Small modular reactor | A compact factory-built reactor (Akademik Lomonosov). | Nuclear icebreaker | |
| Wind power | Using the kinetic energy of moving air. |