(MONEY Magazine) – --1859 Col. Edwin Drake drills the first oil well, in Pennsylvania.

--1860 Etienne Lenoir develops the first petroleum-based engine.

--1891 John W. Lambert builds America's first gas-run car.

--1896 Henry Ford builds the quadricycle, an ethanol-powered car; it's phased out as fossil fuels become less expensive.

--1900 Bostonian Aubrey Eneas forms the Solar Motor Co., the first company to market solar-powered heaters. Cheaper natural-gas water heaters cut into demand for his product.

--1908 Ford introduces the Model T, making cars popular.

--1916 Professor Charles Locke invents a kerosene-powered car but fails to attract investors.

--1939 MIT builds a solar-heated house. Wartime copper rationing in the 1940s stalls solar research.

--1947 The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission suggests using atom-splitting technology for power. First nuclear power plants open in the mid-1950s.

--1959 Dr. Francis Thomas Bacon invents an akaline cell that generates five kilowatts, enough to power a welder. Today automakers, including GM and Toyota, are developing cars powered by fuel cells, which mix hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity.

--1973 With oil selling for $47 a barrel (in 2003 dollars), the government kicks off years of multimillion-dollar funding for alternative energy sources, including wind, solar and ethanol.

--1975 Brazil launches the Pro Alcohol Program to build cars powered by 95% ethanol-blended fuel. It continues into the 1980s, until sugar cane becomes scarcer.

--1976 Inventor Sam Leach claims to be able to produce combustible hydrogen from tap water. After Presley Co. buys the rights, its stock quadruples and the SEC halts trading. In 1980, Leach and Presley settle an investor lawsuit for $4 million. No public tests are ever performed.

--1979 The Three Mile Island accident cripples the expansion of nuclear power.

--1989 Martin Fleischman and Stanley Pons claim to have achieved nuclear fusion in a jar; the process cannot be repeated. Cold fusion is dubbed a hoax. --DAVID WEIGEL