We typically discuss renewables in the light of the future, however that does not take into consideration our ancient history with them.

Modern sources of renewable energy mainly consist of using the power of the three animated elements (or those having the quality of motion)-- wind, water, and the sun. This is much the same case as it was over 2 thousand years earlier. The first aspect that we learnt to harness was the wind, when individuals in the early civilisations set off across the ocean powered by sails which transferred the renewable energy of the wind into kinetic energy, allowing individuals to rapidly take a trip across the sea to trade and check out new lands. That had to do with 4,000 years earlier. About two thousand years later, we found how to use water to produce energy on land, utilising waterwheels to cut through stone or mill grain. Windmills used the wind to a similar result. It's also around this time that we initially made use of solar energy, when a legendary figure used a series of mirrors to harness the sun's rays and burn an invading fleet in the harbour.

As we move further into most likely the most substantial century in human history, we are returning to these even more ancient modes of energy production, even if the imposing wind turbines in the middle of the ocean or the large fields of solar panels in the desert would not at first seem even slightly related to those examples of renewable energy first discovered in antiquity. However, it is very important that we bear that in mind-- although Octopus Energy's parent company may be riding the wave of the future, we are going back to a far more natural state of being in relation to our world, not some science-fiction tomorrow.

If just for the reality that they are, by necessity and meaning, our future, it can be simple to think that renewable energy has actually been entirely out of our reach till we got to the age of high technology that we delight in today. However, although business like the activist investor in Energias de Portugal and Ecotricity's institutional investors have done a massive amount to establish and broaden the technology that will be necessary to any green future we can hope to have, sustainable and renewable energy really far predate our use of non-renewable energy. In the most ancient sense, when human beings found fire, burning wood was a sustainable source of energy. Rather than clearing huge swathes of rain forest, we would only take what we needed whilst retaining the natural equilibrium of the woodland. Obviously, this technique of production is not going to offer energy to an international population of nearly 8 billion people, however it goes to show that we share a much deeper history with renewable means of producing energy than its dirtier option.