"The earliest and most sophisticated 20th Century case for renewables came from a German who is widely considered the most influential philosopher of the 20th Century..."

"... Martin Heidegger. In his 1954 essay, 'The Question Concerning of Technology,' Heidegger condemned the view of nature as a mere resource for human consumption. The use of 'modern technology,' he wrote, 'puts to nature the unreasonable demand that it supply energy which can be extracted and stored as such… Air is now set upon to yield nitrogen, the earth to yield ore, ore to yield uranium…to yield atomic energy.' The solution, Heidegger argued, was to yoke human society and its economy to unreliable energy flows. He even condemned hydro-electric dams, for dominating the natural environment, and praised windmills because they 'do not unlock energy in order to store it.'... Heidegger, like much of the conservation movement, would have hated what the Energiewende has become: an excuse for the destruction of natural landscapes and local communities. Opposition to renewables comes from the country peoples that Heidegger idolized as more authentic and 'grounded' than urbane cosmopolitan elites who fetishize their solar roofs and Teslas as signs of virtue."

From "The Reason Renewables Can't Power Modern Civilization Is Because They Were Never Meant To" (Forbes).