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"It may surprise you to know that the ancient Romans had central heating. They used geothermal energy - in the form of hot springs - to heat their homes. Geothermal heating wasn't used in an organized fashion since until the late 19th century when Boise, Idaho, piped in water from local hot springs to warm buildings. Now, geothermal energy is used globally. Reykjavik, Iceland, leads the world in use of geothermal energy, heating 95 percent of its buildings with heat from below the Earth's surface."

"It may surprise you to know that the ancient Romans had central heating. They used geothermal energy - in the form of hot springs - to heat their homes. Geothermal heating wasn't used in an organized fashion since until the late 19th century when Boise, Idaho, piped in water from local hot springs to warm buildings. Now, geothermal energy is used globally. Reykjavik, Iceland, leads the world in use of geothermal energy, heating 95 percent of its buildings with heat from below the Earth's surface."

""It may surprise you to know that the ancient Romans had central heating. They used geothermal energy - in the form of hot springs - to heat their homes. Geothermal heating wasn't used in an organized fashion since until the late 19th century when Boise, Idaho, piped in water from local hot springs to warm buildings. Now, geothermal energy is used globally. Reykjavik, Iceland, leads the world in use of geothermal energy, heating 95 percent of its buildings with heat from below the Earth's surface." more from curiosity.discovery.com - Not Cached - Edit - Delete - Share▼ - Preview"

"China has also laid claims to having invented windmills around 2,000 years ago, but the first documented claims appear in the 1200's. Around 250 A.D. the Romans introduced windmills into their culture and in the 700's so did Afghanistan. The Afghanistan windmills were also of the vertical axis style and cloth sails or reed matting was developed to catch the air. These windmills were used to grind corn and sugarcane plus draw water. In the 13th century Holland started developing large horizontal axis windmills. These four-blade windmills were larger, carried more torque and wind speed and could do more work than other windmills previously designed. The Holland windmills were also being used to grind grains and to drain part of the Rhine River. In the 19th century Denmark had an estimated 2,500 windmills and in the U. S. windmills were starting to be used to pump water. The Halladay windmill of 1854 is one such example of this. The first windmill in the world built for electrical production was in 1887 in Scotland built by Professor James Blyth. A year later in 1888 in the U. S. Charles Brush of Cleveland, Ohio built a large wind turbine used to generate electricity."

"Ever since ancient Romans installed glass and mica around their southern-facing door entrances, people have been finding ways to harness the power of the sun. From those origins, solar energy has slowly progressed into a viable source for powering your home. Other People Are Reading"

"Hot springs have been used for bathing at least since paleolithic times[9] The oldest known spa is a stone pool on China's Lisan mountain built in the Qin dynasty in the 3rd century BC, at the same site where the Huaqing Chi palace was later built. In the first century AD, Romans conquered Aquae Sulis, now Bath, Somerset, England, and used the hot springs there to feed public baths and underfloor heating. The admission fees for these baths probably represent the first commercial use of geothermal power. The world's oldest geothermal district heating system in Chaudes-Aigues, France, has been operating since the 14th century.[10] The earliest industrial exploitation began in 1827 with the use of geyser steam to extract boric acid from volcanic mud in Larderello, Italy."