Energy & Power Achievements Timeline, 1960-1975

1960

• The US builds the world’s first boiling water reactor for steam to power a generator.
• The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) established at Baghdad.
• First halogen lamps introduced to the market.
• Geothermal power is produced commercially for the first time in the United States at The Geysersnorth of San Francisco.

1961

1962

• Electret condenser microphone invented at AT&T Bell Labs using a permanently-charged material in lieu of a power supply.
• Construction begins of the 5,500-mile, Houston to New York City (Linden, New Jersey), Colonial Pipeline, the largest single, privately financed construction project in American history; traverses 12 states, with other states such as Tennessee serviced off the mainline, 600,000 tons of steel, 27 mainline pumping stations; by early 1970s had 1.6 million b/d throughput of diesel and gasoline products.

1963

1964

1965

• First practical use of fuel cells in US: on-board power sources on the Gemini missions into space.
• Oil replaces coal as number one in the world’s energy mix. 

1966

• Japan builds its first nuclear commercial power plant, Tokai 1 north of Tokyo; building of second plant begins in 1973 with 7X as more capacity at 1060 MW.

1967

• Project Gasbuggy, part of Project Plowshare of the US Atomic Energy Commission, explodes nuclear charges underground in the New Mexico desert hoping to stimulate production of natural gas.

1968

• The Soviet Union opens a 800-kw tidal power station near Murmansk.
• Oil and gas discovered by the Atlantic Richfield Company at Prudhoe Bay (January-June), Alaska that would become the largest field in North America
• Construction begins on nuclear power plants in California (Diablo Canyon), Pennsylvania (Three-Mile Island), and Maryland (Calvert Cliffs).

1969

1970

1971

1972

1973

• Oil’s percentage of use peaks among world’s energy sources. 

1974

1975

• Construction starts on TAPS, the “Trans-Alaska Pipeline System” (see Civil, Structural, and Mechanical Engineering Timeline)