The majority of people most likely presume that renewable energy is a really modern-day thing-- keep reading to find out why that is incorrect.
Although many individuals would think of that we have been burning nonrenewable fuel sources since the start of civilisation, non-renewable sources of energy just really happened during the commercial revolution just over 2 centuries back. Even the most state-of-the-art renewables are just as old. Around the time of the industrial transformation a 19-year-old French physicist produced the world's solar battery whilst experimenting in his parent's laboratory, transforming sunlight into electrical power. Today, solar is the cheapest electrical power that humanity has ever produced, and individuals like the CEO of Ecotricity's institutional shareholders are at the leading edge of harnessing both the ecological and economic benefits of renewable energy to continue writing this history, one that begins not in the 21st century, but numerous centuries before.
Although this may sound odd, the sources of renewable energy that we would probably identify today in fact date back over four thousand years. Wind is a significant cornerstone of numerous nations' plan to turn their energy grids green, particularly in nations that do not have the gift of year-round sunlight. The very first example of humans harnessing the energy of the wind was around 4,000 years earlier, when we caught it in our sails converted it into kinetic energy that might bring us across the seas, exploring the world around us and trading with other civilisations. A couple of centuries later on, the first known examples of hydropower emerged, where rivers and streams powered waterwheels and other contraptions that might cut stone or grind grains. It was around the very same time that we find the first account of solar energy also; legend has it that a hero utilized a series of mirrors to burn an invading fleet, focusing the power of the sun to produce directed heat, and comparable contraptions were used to light torches or fires in terrific structures.
One can easily be forgiven for imaging that non-renewable energy just need to have been the basis for all of mankind's production of power throughout our history. The Earth has gone through substantial modifications because of the amount of fossil fuels that have been burnt throughout human history. Nevertheless, that is altering, and a brand-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 beginning to emerge. In contrast to what one might believe, this is not necessarily a modern development; in fact, for more than two thousand years, we have actually collected the power of the components to create 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.