Renewable energy sources, such as solar power and wind power, have been in existence for a long time. These are the best ways to get energy because they don’t hurt the environment. Humans have always used the wind to push their boats. This eventually led to sailing ships of Ancient Egypt, Greece, and other civilizations around 5,000 years ago. Later on, mills and natural ventilation began to appear.
People used biofuels more than 800,000 years ago to provide for everyday life and production needs. So people learned how to make fire and modified it for cooking and heating their homes. This practice carried on for time, resulting in experience gained, which led to increased needs.
The first windmill was used in ancient Persia around 2000 years ago. Its blades were made out of reeds and rotated around a central vertical axis. The specially shaped and positioned outer walls ensured that the wind primarily rotated the potentially bidirectional system in the desired direction as well. While the invention of windmills has been discussed before, they have typically been associated with wind power in sailing. This is the first known use of a wind turbine for automation purposes.
Persian history includes one of the most sophisticated passive ventilation and cooling systems ever. 2000 years ago, the engineering was on par with today’s high tech equivalents and matched them in simplicity and elegance. Windcatchers work by intercepting air pressure differences, structural orientation and flowing water to help regulate temperatures in the harshest desert environments. They keep nights cool and days hot.
The Romans were the first to distribute water in a tension-relieving, gravity-assisted manner. Their notable inventions include the Coliseum, but most of all the Aqueducts which supply and distribute water to various areas of their empire. Aqueducts have been around for a long time and are still used today. They’re also an early example of using renewable water power to power mines, forges, mills and baths. Water played an instrumental role in the mining process. It was used to cut away rock and break it down into smaller pieces. It also functioned as a versatile tool for washing ore and might even have been used to power some of the hammers.
Greywater, or “mudflow” as it is more commonly called, is wastewater that doesn’t contain any faecal matter and is generated in households or office buildings.
For some 15,000 years, Jerusalem has relied on hard-to-reach underground sources for its water. This has helped to sustain the city even through difficult periods of drought. The hills and mountains that surround Jerusalem offer many natural reservoirs but those within the city itself were created by people over centuries. As the city developed, its water system evolved to reuse water. It would be filtered and put into pools for waste disposal or then distributed in gardens without sediment.
Ancient Romans used geothermal energy indirectly through the water it heated – especially in cities like Pompeii, which are now buried by the volcanic eruption (show), for their baths and to heat their homes. Places with a lot of thermal energy are preferable when it comes to these projects. One good example is Vesuvius as the area around it has close proximity to the surface. The Romans also created ice using the temperature difference between objects – by placing vessels of water in holes and letting them freeze during the day, they were able to utilize this technique at night.
Given the scarcity of fossil fuels, as well as their expensive cost, ancient Greeks began to design houses in order to maximise the preservation of heat during winter. This ingenious strategy also allowed them to save on firewood for cooking and heating. They began to orient buildings and entire city blocks so that the houses had an additional southern exposure, to capture the sun’s rays from the low sun in the sky during winter. The main reason for this is that, as it is winter, there are long periods of darkness during the day and it can get quite cold. They needed a way of combating this problem. The Romans evidently found a way to utilize more of the sun’s heat by installing glass windows in their villas.
The “Cliff Palace” in Mesa Verde National Park- Colorado is the largest cliff dwelling in North America and it was home to the ancient Indians. They depend on the sun for many things, including working and thriving. The giant overhanging cliff provides protection from the sun and weather for all of the village’s inhabitants. But these days, in contrast to the past, houses are usually built with a surrounding “buffer zone” to ensure they can receive enough of the sun’s heat.
Renewable energy sources have been around for centuries and are an important part of our history. They’re the oldest and safest way to generate electricity, too. Without them, the earliest humans would not have found any electricity or other means of powering their civilizations. But fossil fuel sources only started producing energy during the Industrial Revolution, which is when we discovered that they were more profitable to use in certain stages of civilization.
Renewable energy sources have become a more common energy source in recent years as more people have started to care about global warming.
Energy is fundamental to environmental challenges and human conditions, more than you might have realized. We humans need energy to survive, and energy production is one of the most important aspects of our society. The conversion of energy is the key to human development. It’s even been argued that human evolution would not have occurred otherwise. Most people agree that the standard of living and quality of civilization are proportional to the amount of energy a society uses.
The need to find energy sources led to a huge range of human cultures exploring every aspect of their lives: rituals, holidays, taboos, myths, dances, games, religion and war – these are all things which depict human cultural values at its most basic level. Humanity is constantly moving forward and our need for energy has never stopped.
Humans have always had the need for energy no matter where they are. It is clear that wherever humans have decided to settle society and their culture, this factor has been defining. The history of mankind’s use of energy is a fascinating one. It illustrates the value of resourcefulness and innovation, particularly as we increasingly need to use resources that are more sustainable in order to power the lifestyles many people crave.