That year he described our approach to energy to two industry magnates of the day - Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone.

He told them "we are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using nature's inexhaustible sources of energy - sun, wind and tide."

That was over 80 years ago - and we're still living the same way.

In 2014 - just over 13% of American electricity production came from renewables in some form or another.

That's not terrible - but it means that we're still getting nearly 90% of our electricity production from "chopping down the fence around our house for fuel".

And if the fossil fuel companies, lobbyists, and the 21st century fossil fuel tycoons (like the Kochs who inherited their oil company from daddy) have their way, that's not going to change anytime soon.

They're still fighting for ways to bring Alberta's tar sands to America to be processed and burned - and they're still chomping at the bit to drill in the Arctic's deep seas.

They're even using our precious fresh water reserves to shatter our Earth's shale just to get to the natural gas - making the Earth unstable and much of our water poisoned in the process.

Even as we run out of fenceposts to burn - the fossil fuel barons still point to more of our farm's property to chop down and burn.

Edison even gave Ford and Firestone a little bit of investment advice to go with his criticism - "I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that."

Unfortunately - the fossil fuel companies don't have any interest in folding up operations and letting our 19th century energy regime join the likes of whale-oil lamps as a historical curiosity.

But according to a new report from Citibank, large-scale investments in renewables are still a smart investment move for both the planet and the global economy.

The report is called "Energy Darwinism" and it looks at the predicted cost of energy over the next several decades - compared to the costs of developing and implementing low carbon energy sources.