Just how ancient are renewable energy examples precisely?

Just how ancient are renewable energy examples precisely?

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Whilst combustion engines are just actually a number of centuries old, human beings have actually been using renewable energy for over 4 thousand years.

Although many people would picture that we have been burning fossil fuels because the start of civilisation, non-renewable sources of energy only really came about during the commercial transformation just over 2 centuries back. 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 photovoltaic cell whilst experimenting in his father's lab, transforming sunshine into electrical energy. Today, solar is the least expensive electrical energy that humankind has actually ever produced, and people like the CEO of Ecotricity's institutional shareholders are at the forefront of harnessing both the environmental and economic benefits of renewable energy to continue composing this history, one that starts not in the 21st century, however numerous centuries previously.

One can quickly be forgiven for imaging that non-renewable energy just must have been the basis for all of humankind's production of power throughout our history. The Earth has been subjected to considerable changes because of the quantity of nonrenewable fuel sources that have actually been burnt throughout human history. However, that is changing, and a new era of renewable energy, drove 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. Contrary to what one might think, this is not always a modern advancement; in fact, for more than two thousand years, we have actually gathered the power of the components to produce energy, and the innovation for producing energy from solar power is as ancient as the combustion engine; in almost all methods, it is a more natural mode of energy production than burning nonrenewable fuel sources.

Although this may sound weird, the sources of renewable energy that we would probably acknowledge today in fact date back over 4 thousand years. Wind is a significant foundation of many nations' strategy to turn their energy grids green, particularly in countries that don't have the blessing of year-round sunlight. The first example of people utilizing the energy of the wind was around 4,000 years earlier, when we captured it in our sails converted it into kinetic energy that could carry us across the seas, exploring the world around us and trading with other civilisations. A number of centuries later, the first recognized examples of hydropower emerged, whereby rivers and streams powered waterwheels and other devices that might cut stone or grind grains. It was around the 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 fleet, focusing the power of the sun to develop directed heat energy, and similar contraptions were utilized to light torches or fires in excellent buildings.