The key reasons why renewable energy sources are a lot more ancient than you think

The key reasons why renewable energy sources are a lot more ancient than you think

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Whilst combustion engines are just actually a couple of centuries old, humans have actually been utilizing renewable energy for over four thousand years.

Although this may sound weird, the sources of renewable energy that we would probably identify today actually date back over 4 thousand years. Wind is a major cornerstone of lots of countries' strategy to turn their energy grids green, especially in countries that do not have the blessing of year-round sunshine. The very first example of human beings harnessing the energy of the wind was around 4,000 years back, when we captured 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 number of centuries later, the first recognized examples of hydropower sprang up, whereby rivers and streams powered waterwheels and other devices that might cut stone or grind grains. It was around the same time that we discover the very first account of solar energy as well; legend has it that a hero used a series of mirrors to burn an attacking armada, focusing the power of the sun to create directed heat energy, and comparable contraptions were used to light torches or fires in terrific structures.

Although many people would picture that we have actually been burning nonrenewable fuel sources because the start of civilisation, non-renewable sources of energy just actually happened during the industrial transformation just over 2 centuries ago. Even the most modern renewables are just as old. Around the time of the commercial transformation a 19-year-old French physicist created the world's photovoltaic cell whilst experimenting in his parent's lab, converting sunlight into electrical power. Today, solar is the least expensive electrical energy that humanity has ever produced, and people like the CEO of Ecotricity's institutional shareholders are at the leading edge of utilizing both the environmental and economic benefits of renewable energy to continue writing this history, one that begins not in the twenty-first century, but numerous centuries previously.

One can quickly be excused for imaging that non-renewable energy merely need to have been the basis for all of humanity's production of power throughout our history. The Earth has gone through considerable modifications because of the quantity of nonrenewable fuel sources that have actually been burnt throughout human history. Nevertheless, that is altering, and a brand-new period of renewable energy, drove forward by individuals 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 always a modern-day advancement; in fact, for more than 2 thousand years, we have actually collected the power of the components to develop energy, and the innovation for producing energy from solar 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.