https://theprogressnetwork.substack.com/p/king-solar
"The last time coal lost its lead as the world’s largest electricity source,
the Bolsheviks were fending off a counterrevolution, the
Treaty of Versailles
was in review, and Congress had just established a national park in Arizona
named for its big hole in the ground. The year was 1919, and as it happened, a
banner one for hydropower.
Renewables wouldn’t overtake coal again for more than a century. In its most
recent annual global electricity review, the think tank Ember reported that in
2025 renewables accounted for 33.8% of global power generation, edging out
coal, at just under 33%—its first time below a third in history.
The change has most to do with solar’s breakneck expansion. Wind power is
growing too, but at a pace that can’t compare to solar’s exponential rise: It
has multiplied tenfold since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015, to 2,778
TWh, or enough to meet the total electricity demand of the EU. The output,
which was larger than wind’s for the first time in 2025, is set to outgrow
nuclear this year as well.
Last year also saw an annual decline in fossil fuel generation, one of only
five times that has happened in the past century. But it was the first time
that the drop was the result of clean power growth and not a one-off shock such
as an economic crisis or pandemic. Wind and solar together were enough to meet
essentially all of last year’s new electricity demand, most importantly in
China, the world’s largest emitter."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
