Lester Allan Pelton (1829–1908) was an American inventor whose innovative water turbine made him widely known as the father of modern hydroelectric power. Early life and move to California Pelton was born on September 5, 1829, in Vermilion, Ohio, into a farming family. As a young man, he joined the westward migration during the California Gold Rush around 1850, initially hoping to become a miner but eventually finding more steady work as a carpenter and millwright in gold‑mining communities of the Sierra Nevada . Inspiration and invention of the Pelton wheel While working around mining water wheels and primitive turbines, Pelton observed that conventional wheels, driven mainly by water pressure, were inefficient at the high‑head but low‑flow conditions typical of mountain streams. According to well‑known accounts, his key insight came in the 1870s when he noticed that a misaligned jet striking the edge of a turbine cup made the wheel spin faster, revealing that properly deflecting...
1 Name of Post: Project Scientist-II on climate projections, bias correction, downscaling, uncertainty, climate change impact assessment and hydrological modeling. Vacancy: 01 Location: Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, NewDelhi, India Last date : 10th March 2026 Link for more details : Email to dhanya.at.civil.iitd.ac.in . 2 Name of Post: PhD on Flood Risk Perception and Climate Adaptation Vacancy: Not mentioned Location: University College Dublin (UCD), Ireland School of Environmental Policy Last date : 27th Feb 2026 Link for more detail : Email to Louise.Dunne.at.UCD.ie 3 Name of Post: PhD in Cascading Risks from Weather Extremes in Critical Infrastructure Systems Vacancy: 01 Location: Dept. of Agricultural and Biological Engineering (ABE) at University of Florida, USA Last date : Open until filled Link for more detail : Email to nnajibi.at.ufl.edu Click here for more such updates. You may also like : HydroGeek: The newsletter for...