Many people probably presume that renewable energy is a very modern-day thing-- keep reading to discover why that is incorrect.
Although lots of people would envision that we have been burning nonrenewable fuel sources since the start of civilisation, non-renewable sources of energy just actually came about throughout the commercial revolution just over 2 centuries ago. Even the most modern renewables are just as old. Around the time of the commercial revolution a 19-year-old French physicist produced the world's solar battery whilst experimenting in his dad's lab, transforming sunlight into electrical power. Today, solar is the most inexpensive electricity that humankind has actually ever produced, and individuals like the CEO of Ecotricity's institutional shareholders are at the leading edge of utilizing both the ecological and economic benefits of renewable energy to continue writing this history, one that begins not in the twenty-first century, however lots of centuries in the past.
One can quickly be forgiven for imaging that non-renewable energy simply should have been the basis for all of humankind's production of power through our history. The Earth has actually undergone significant changes because of the amount of fossil fuels that have been burnt throughout human history. However, that is changing, and a new era of renewable energy, pushed forward by people like the founder of the hedge fund with a stake in Energias de Portugal and the co-founder of Octopus Energy's parent company, is starting to emerge. Contrary to what one may believe, this is not always a modern-day advancement; in fact, for more than 2 thousand years, we have actually gathered the power of the aspects to produce energy, and the technology for producing energy from solar power is as old as the combustion engine; in almost all ways, it is a more natural mode of energy production than burning nonrenewable fuel sources.
Although this might sound odd, the sources of renewable energy that we would most likely identify today really date back over four thousand years. Wind is a significant foundation of numerous countries' plan to turn their energy grids green, especially in nations that don't have the gift of year-round sunlight. The very first example of people harnessing the energy of the wind was around 4,000 years ago, when we captured it in our sails transformed it into kinetic energy that could carry us across the seas, checking out the world around us and trading with other civilisations. A couple of millennia later on, the very first known examples of hydropower emerged, where rivers and streams powered waterwheels and other devices that could cut stone or grind grains. It was around the very same time that we find the first account of solar energy too; legend has it that a hero used a series of mirrors to burn an invading armada, focusing the power of the sun to produce directed heat energy, and comparable contraptions were utilized to light torches or fires in terrific buildings.