Whilst combustion engines are only really a number of centuries old, human beings have been using renewable energy for over 4 thousand years.
Although many individuals would think of that we have been burning nonrenewable fuel sources because the start of civilisation, non-renewable sources of energy just really happened during the commercial transformation just over two centuries back. Even the most high-tech 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 exploring in his father's lab, converting sunshine into electricity. Today, solar is the least expensive electricity that humankind has actually ever produced, and people 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 starts not in the 21st century, but lots of centuries before.
Although this might sound weird, the sources of renewable energy that we would probably acknowledge today actually go back over 4 thousand years. Wind is a major foundation 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 couple of centuries later, the first recognized examples of hydropower sprang up, whereby rivers and streams powered waterwheels and other machines that could cut stone or grind grains. It was around the exact same time that we discover 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 develop directed heat, and similar devices were utilized to light torches or fires in great buildings.
One can quickly be excused for imaging that non-renewable energy simply should have been the basis for all of mankind's production of power throughout our history. The Earth has gone through significant changes because of the quantity of nonrenewable fuel sources that have been burnt throughout human history. However, that is altering, and a new age 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 starting to emerge. In contrast to what one might believe, this is not necessarily a modern development; in fact, for more than 2 thousand years, we have actually harvested the power of the elements to create energy, and the technology 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.