How long has solar power been around? Well, let’s see, historically speaking, it’s been available since…well…since before the creation of the human race. According to historical records, mankind figured out how to begin to take advantage of this power source. Someone discovered during the 7th century B. C. how to take a glass-like substance, and concentrate the sun’s rays on an object to start a fire. Then, in the 2nd and 3rd century B. C. the Romans and Greeks found they could focus sunlight using the reflective properties of various objects to create heat for lighting their torches. Not long after that, its potential destructive nature was exploited when the Greeks focused sunlight on their metal shields and set fire to Roman ships.

Early on, our ancestors learned how to use the power of the sun as a “sun-spark.” What they did with the sun spark, however, was to use it to create a fire with wood. For more than a millennia, fire has been available as fuel, creating heat as it burns. This has been both a bad thing and a good thing. Good for those needing the heat it provides, and bad for the forests that have been destroyed to provide that heat, as our forests are necessary to maintain the earth’s climates.

However, it’s very interesting to note that the next phase of solar energy development actually occurred when wood supplies began to diminish. During the 1st and 4th century, the Greeks and Romans both found they could use the passive energy of the sun by putting large south-facing windows in their sunrooms, and soon they similarly used this passive energy to heat their public buildings and bathhouses.

Somewhere around 1200 A. D., history says the ancestors of the Pueblo people in North America also found and used the advantage of passive solar energy in their homes, building south-facing cliff dwellings in order to capture and take advantage of the winter sun.

Despite the knowledge of how to capture the sun’s energy for heating, and its availability in many areas, the mystery of how to truly capture and use more of its benefits, remained for many centuries.

On the other hand, history shows that fossil fuels…natural gas, oil, and coal, have been used along with wood to provide heat and light going back to caveman days. History also shows that the Romans burned coal during the 2nd and 3rd centuries. In America as well, there is evidence from around 1300 that the Hopi Indians were burning coal for cooking, heating, and pottery making. Wood held top billing at the time, however, as it was the most accessible and readily available fuel.

During the Industrial Revolution, coal moved into the forefront in production of energy. James Watt invented the steam engine, and powered it with steam. The steam was created by burning coal, thereafter making coal the energy-creation machine. Coal, then ultimately became one of the major symbols of American power.

The history of using the sun for active solar energy really began in the 1860’s. A French mathematician named August Mouchet created, along with his assistant, a solar-powered steam engine, using the technology that is still used today for parabolic dish collectors. The technology worked well. With coal-powered steam now readily available, however, this solar-powered steam engine got “steam-rolled” and left to collect dust.

Solar power, in many ways, has ever since remained behind the curve…left in the dark. Fossil fuels, on the other hand, surged forward and now have a firm grasp around the neck of most Americans, providing 85% of all of the energy needs of the United States. As a major source of energy, solar power has had a very difficult time getting credit and recognition.

In the 1970’s solar energy had its first real resurgence as a potentially viable option to fossil fuel use. Oil prices were rising at an alarming rate, with demand far exceeding supply at the gas pumps. All of a sudden, there was acknowledgment of how dependent the United States had become on foreign oil supplies. Reacting to this unprecedented event, the government under Jimmy Carter’s administration, created tax credits, so research and development could begin for the development of alternative energy sources, and relieve dependence on foreign oil supplies.

Throwing their vast and powerful lobbying efforts into it, fossil fuel industries successfully thwarted or limited how the credits and conditions of alternative energy sources would be developing. Existing research and methods for immediately implementing solar energy for homes and business was in place. Entrepreneurial, rather than institutional efforts were ready to be implemented in individual home and community settings. However, funding for research and development was diverted to large universities and organizations, where it was slowly driven to put solar energy development into large utility industrial models.

With fossil fuel industry intervention, renewable energy resources in a decentralized environment have not been deemed an appropriate path…despite all indications that this is its most viable application. Instead, reaching parity with fossil fuel energy appears to be the most that any legislation is designed, or will be designed, to do.

Despite the rough beginning and continuing obstacles that solar energy has experienced, that it is a viable alternative to fossil fuel is no longer debatable…with or without government support. Driven to produce more fossil fuel energy quickly and more profitably, companies within these industries have taken shortcuts and incurred the consequences. The risks have resulted in unacceptable loss, both in the loss of human lives, and horrendous damage to the environment. Technological advances are pushing the production of solar energy more clearly into the forefront now, making it cheaper and more readily available. With the lack of similar potential to destroy the environment, solar and other renewable energy sources will drive production up and costs down. At this point, directing solar energy resource and development tax dollars toward the creation of large, profitable utility companies may be all fossil fuel lobbyists are able to do…if…they are able to accomplish even that.

There is no myth…nor real mystery… to global warming. It’s here. It’s now, and it’s everywhere. It can be seen by the environmentalist and the man on the street, both in the climate changes, and in the environmental damage created by our lust for fossil fuel energy. Whatever the debate, breathing clean air and protecting the Earth for generations to come requires all of us to stay focused on the full development of solar and other renewable energy sources as our best…and only really viable option…for our future.

Looking to find out all you can about solar energy history then visit www.HomeSolarPowerExplained.com to find the best advice on home solar power for you.

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