1946 - Energy

Energy

Hoover Dam builder Frank Crowe dies at Redding, Calif., February 26 at age 63, having superintended construction also of Parker Dam, Shasta Dam, and others.

The McMahon Act passed by Congress August 1 establishes a civilian U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). Former TVA director David E. Lilienthal is sworn in November 1 as AEC chairman (see Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 1974).

Soviet petroleum production begins a major expansion that will make the USSR the world's largest oil producer within 30 years. Engineers exploit deposits between the Volga River and Ural Mountains, where prospectors first found oil in the 1930s.

Kuwait Oil Co. is founded on a 50-50 basis by Gulf and Anglo-Iranian (see 1938). The company will produce 1 billion barrels in the next 8 years and another billion in the following 3, making Kuwait the Middle East's largest oil-producing nation (see Getty, 1949).

Dutch windmills dwindle in number to 1,400, down from 9,000 in the 1870s. The number will fall to 991 by 1960 and to 950 by 1973 despite government efforts to preserve the polder mills that have kept the Netherlands from being flooded during the war.