Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company was a British engineering company based in Wallsend, North East England, on the River Tyne. The company was founded by Charles Algernon Parsons in 1897 with £500,000 of capital, and specialised in building the steam turbine engines that he had invented for naval use. The first ship to use a Parsons propulsion system was "Turbinia", launched in 1894; the successful demonstration of this vessel led to the creation of the company and the subsequent construction of the engines for the first two turbine-powered destroyers for the Navy, and , launched
Steamship or turboelectric (the turbines rotate electric generators, which in turn feed electric motors operating the propellers). While steam turbine-driven merchant ships such as the "Algol"-class cargo ships (1972–1973), ALP Pacesetter-class container ships (1973–1974) and very large crude carriers were built until the 1970s, the use of steam for marine propulsion in the commercial market has declined dramatically due to the development of more efficient diesel engines. One notable exception are LNG carriers which use boil-off gas from the cargo tanks as fuel. However, even there the development of dual-fuel engines has pushed steam turbines into a niche market with about