Energy Innovation with Huge Impact

Baskoro Lokahita
Jun 21, 2015
2 min read

High increase of energy market is really affecting our lives. In order to provide market demands and reduce environmental impact, high rate of innovation have been made in the past few decades.

In 1835, Scottish inventor James Bowman Lindsay became the first person in the world to demonstrate a constant electric light.
In 1878, a Victorian country mansion in Northumberland, England, named Cragside was one of the most technologically advanced houses of its era which utilize hydroelectric power. Today hydropower accounts for 17 percent of the world's electricity generation, according to the International Energy Agency.
In early 1882, inventor Thomas Edison turned part of London's Holborn Viaduct into a power station.
In 1913, American inventor and engineer Frank Shuman saw his design for the world's first solar thermal power station become a reality when it was built in Maadi, Egypt
In 1947, Halliburton conducted what it describes as, "the first experimental fracturing operation," in Kansas. Two years later, the company was able to perform, "the first commercial fracturing operation. Today, hydraulic fracturing is one of the most controversial and divisive extraction techniques in the energy sector.
In the summer of 1954, a nuclear power plant in Obninsk, Russia, became the first in the world to be connected to a power grid, heralding a new dawn in 'the nuclear age'.
At the end of 1980, a company called U.S. Windpower installed what the University of Massachusetts' Wind Energy Center has described as, "the world's first wind farm, consisting of 20 wind turbines rated at 30 kilowatts each." This pioneering installation was located in New Hampshire.
In February 2014, researchers and scientists at California's Lawrence Livermore National Library (LLNL) reported a breakthrough in the field of nuclear fusion.

The innovation in energy sector really depends on resources availability and efficiency. At first coal was very cheap, than massive construction of coal powered plant happen. After more development in thermal engine, people start to shift to natural gas and oil which have more efficiency and cleaner emission than coal. But, in country with high coal deposit, coal powered power plant will be still popular even they have low efficiency.

Nowadays, people start to pay attention to global warming and climate change. This situation increases the market for renewable energy. New business venture such as PayPal and Google start to put high amount of investment in energy sector. They create innovation according to latest technology and latest market demands in renewable energy to build new product and service. This thinking is a little bit risky knowing that technology to utilize fossil fuel also developed that way and produce cheaper energy.

In my opinion, fossil fuel will still dominate energy sector in the next 100 years.