The history of the US is replete with images of extravagant fossil-fuel consumption: smoke billowing from gleaming trains; long, sleek, gas-guzzling cars; gigantic refineries endlessly pumping out plumes of dirty air. But the reputation is somewhat misleading. For much of the country’s history, renewable energy played a far more central role than it does today.
The first US hydroelectric power plant opened on the Fox River near Appleton, in eastern Wisconsin, in 1882, supplying electricity to the town’s paper mill and to the home of its owner. By the early 1900s, hydroelectric power supplied more than 40 per cent of US electricity needs and by the 1940s, hydropower provided about 75 per cent of all the electricity consumed in western and Pacific north-western states.
