Time To Fall Back On Good Old-Fashioned Green Technology…

6 facts that will make you think differently about ‘new-fangled’ clean energy

1. We had solar power before we had teddy bears

Via Solar panels via Flickr, Rick Willouby / Bear via Flickr, Roxanne Ready

Patents have been granted for cells that generate electricity from sunlight since the 1880s.

We imagine teddy bears to have been the cuddly companions of children for centuries, but in fact they came about in 1902 after president Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt ordered the mercy killing of a young bear during a hunting trip. Awww.

2. People were being driven around in electric taxis while Oscar Wilde was alive

Via Flickr, Bert Boerma

Crazy as it may seem given our sluggishness to embrace electric and hybrid vehicles today, in 1900 there were fleets of battery-powered cars zipping people around New York City. Taxiiiiiiiiiiiii....

3. While we’re on the subject of electric cars, when the first were invented...

The Statue of Liberty hadn't been built. No one had been murdered by Jack the Ripper. And Great Expectations hadn't been written - maybe Miss Havisham should have used an electric car to get out more!

4. Renewable energy was powering a school before London's Tower Bridge was finished

In 1891 Danish scientist Poul la Cour constructed a wind turbine to generate electricity, which went on to light Askov High school, Denmark. Meanwhile, Tower Bridge was still being built. That wasn't finished till 1894.

Time we got UK schools running on renewables, no?

5. Wind turbines were turning when women were being imprisoned for witchcraft

Via Flickr, Nic McPhee

Helen Duncan was a Scottish medium who was convicted of witchcraft in 1944. She'd been under suspicion for predicting the sinking of the HMS Barham. The ship had already been sunk, but it was a military secret. They locked her up to stop her revealing other confidential information!

3 years earlier, the world’s first megawatt-size wind turbine was connected to the electrical system - at a mountain called, um, Grandpa’s Knob, in Vermont, USA.

6. When the first house was lit by wind power, doorknobs hadn't long been invented

In 1887, James Blyth lit his cottage in Kincardineshire, Scotland, with electricity from a wind turbine. He offered to light the high street too but locals were wary of electricity being "the work of the devil." (Seriously?).

The patent for the doorknob had only been filed 9 years earlier, in 1878, and they took a while to catch on. Fancy having wind turbines but not being able to open your front door?!

Find out other cool stuff you can do with renewable energy.

By Charlie Alderwick, Friends of the Earth.