Abstract
In the history of mankind, renewable energy has been the only useful resource for millennia: biomass (in the form of wood) for space heating, for lighting by means of torches, and for cooking; then wind energy for navigation and for mills; finally hydro energy, also for mills. With the development of fossil fuels (at first coal, then oil, later on gas), renewable energy lost ground in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in most industrial nations for the purpose of heat and transportation. Wood only kept a significant share for heating, and hydro energy for electricity generation, in countries endowed with large forest areas and hydrological resources.
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© 2013 Michel Cruciani
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Cruciani, M. (2013). Renewable Energy in the Twenty-first Century. In: Chevalier, JM., Geoffron, P. (eds) The New Energy Crisis. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-02118-2_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-02118-2_9
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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