Despite the best efforts of we short-sighted Americans, renewable energy is booming globally. It may not be enough to avoid some serious consequences of climate change, but it does indicate that the days of fossil fuel dominance are numbered. The reason is pretty simple. Most of the world’s population is in developing nations who do not want to be dependent on outside powers for their rapidly growing energy needs. The cheapest solutions for all those countries that are fossil fuel-poor are solar and wind.
Global offshore wind capacity has increase 13% over the past year (compared to no growth of global oil production and 1.4% growth of coal). Norway led the way followed by China and the UK.
India in particular is becoming a player in wind turbine manufacturing with Suzlon Energy breaking into the global top-ten otherwise dominated by Chinese and European companies. Global Top 15 Wind Turbine Manufacturers [2025]
Not surprisingly, solar energy is killing it, with global capacity annual growth rate exceeding 50%. Growth was led by China (of course), with India second recording a 49% over the first half of 2024. Growth in Africa is rising as China reported a 60% increase in solar panel imports to that continent. Global solar installations surge 64% in first half of 2025 | Ember
That all this is happening despite the USA being controlled by fools is an indication of America’s growing irrelevancy in next-generation energy technology. The shift in technological dominance from the USA to the rest of the world is happening much faster than I expected, rapidly accelerating due to what must be the most anti-science US government in our history. White House Proposes Steep Cuts to Science and Education Funding | Association of American Universities (AAU)
OK, this is OT to the thread, but I don’t want to start a whole new one so I’ll just dump it here.
Yesterday I found out about the Lyndon & Lynmouth Cliff Railway, a funicular that operates without electricity, fossil fuel, or energy source of any kind - except gravity.
A funicular, for those who don’t recognize the term, is an inclined railway that travels up and down a cliff side, tugged by cables and balanced by one side going up as the other side travels down. The trick is adding energy to balance the two sides, as the passenger loads are usually different.
The Lyndon & Lymouth diverts water from a nearby river, adds it to a tank at the upper car, and uses the water weight to descend, running a cable around a pulley and to the lower car which then ascends the cliff. When the top/bottom is reached, the water is dumped, and the other car is filled and the process repeated.
Been running for over 100 years, not a single electron nor drop of fossil fuel involved, ever.
Tony Wood, senior fellow and director of energy and climate change at the Grattan Institute, said the energy transition has turned out to be increasingly difficult.
“When we began this transition, I think there was some optimism that almost it was going to be easy and pretty cheap, and it’s turning out not to be easy or cheap,” he said.
The diversion of water and adding it to the tank must use another energy source. Like many economic/energy use calculations, not all inputs are counted.
[quote=“solarae100, post:6, topic:122095”]
The diversion of water and adding it to the tank must use another energy source
[ /quote]
Nope. No pumps. The river runs along the mountaintop. A portion is diverted to fill the tank. Requires a human to move a lever, that’s all. Then the water is automatically dumped when the car reaches the bottom.
Keep that up and the fossil fuel contribution to electricity production will decline. It may have already begun. Fossil fuels generate 61% of global electricity in 2023, 59% in 2024, with the downward trend continuing for the near future according to Google AI:
In the first half of 2025, renewables accounted for 34.3% of global electricity, overtaking coal for the first time. However, the total clean energy share (including nuclear) is **over 40% **for the year, with a forecast of 47% by 2027 as low-carbon sources are expected to meet all global demand growth, as shown in reports from Ember and the IEA.
trump’s America may want to drill, drill, drill, but they better sell what they get fast because fossil fuels are losing the competitive race. Renewable energy technology continues to improve under relentless Chinese and soon to come Indian pressure, who together have a humongous number of engineers and scientists. The developing world wants renewable energy and that is where most people live. By focusing on fossil fuels and letting the rest of the world increase its renewable tech advantage, the US is handing over future economic dominance to the BRICS nations.
Petty politics can’t stop the economic and technological forces driving the transition to renewable energy .
Here’s what’s actually happening: Over the course of the last two years or so, sales of battery electric vehicles, while continuing to grow, have posted lower year-over-year percentage growth rates than they had in years prior. EV sales used to grow at 50%+ per year, but for the last couple years, they have grown closer to ~25% per year.
This alone is not particularly remarkable – it is inevitable that any growing product or category will show slower percentage growth rates as sales rise, particularly one that has been growing at such a fast rate for so long.
In some recent years, we had even seen year-over-year doublings in EV market share (though one of those was 2020->2021, which was anomalous). To expect improvement at that level perpetually would be close to impossible – after 3 years of doubling market share from 2023’s 18% number, EVs would account for more than 100% of the global automotive market, which cannot happen.
Clearly, growth percentages will need to trend downward as a new product category grows. It would be impossible for them not to.
Instead of the perpetual 50% CAGR that had been optimistically expected, we have seen a global EV sales growth rate of 23% in the first 10 months of this year, according to a report just released by Rho Motion (recently acquired by Benchmark Mineral Intelligence). That includes a +32% bump in Europe, +22% bump in China, +4% in North America, and a big +48% bump in the “rest of the world.” Notably, this 23% global growth rate is higher than last year’s YTD growth rate, which was [22% at this time].
Imagine what might have been if Elon hadn’t gone insane and continued to champion the fight against global warming instead of pushing for white supremacy. Imagine if the democrats hadn’t imploded in 2024. Imagine if Elon had envisioned Tesla as the bigger, better Toyota rather than some amalgamation of NVIDIA, Apple, and Willie Wonka. Imagine if Tesla had come out with the $25K EV for the masses and built gigafactories in India, Brazil, Pakistan, and South Africa. Imagine if there was still an EV tax break.
EVs might still be growing 50% per year, inflation would be controlled in the absence of arbitrary tariffs, the economy would be booming as supply chains return to pre-pandemic normal, we would still be a nation of law, and millions of Americans wouldn’t be priced out of health care.
Instead we have the prospect of learning over the next two years in dribs and drabs the depravities our current president performed with Jeffrey Epstein. How far we have declined…
When the Chinese started producing solar panels by the truckload I thought “well, there’s a future industry that’s gone.” We were (and continue to be, apparently) in thrall to “the market is always right and government is always wrong.” When the battery industry coalesced around their Lithium batteries I thought “well, there goes another.”
With their manufacturing prowess and electronics industries I figured those were pretty much gone, too, and then I learned about rare earths and other minerals processing and yup, we let another slip through our fingers even though we led the world in it at one time.
Now here comes the Chinese aerospace industry with passenger aircraft and the automotive industry with EVs, and we’re going back to mining coal and worried that we don’t have a steel plant or ship building capability anymore.
For a while I thought we might be good in EVs, but Musk’s derangement and the end of any meaningful help to the industry by rebates has pretty much destroyed that too.
But hey, maybe those Kentucky coal mines will keep the economy going. It worked 150 years ago, no reason it’s won’t now. Oh wait…
Here’s the irony. The US coal mining industry currently employs 40K-50K workers. The US wind industry currently employs about 120K workers, with few ever getting black lung disease.
Anyone who truly cares about jobs for Americans would be advocating a quick transition from coal to wind. More jobs for humans per gigawatt generated.
Do you think the fossil fuel percentage of global energy usage will be below 50% by 2040? Since 1990 (a third of a century) the percentage has fluctuated between 80 and 83%. While wind and solar are expanding, they have been running to stay in place.
I think, as of yesterday, it’s turning into a flood of learning how utterly morally bankrupt that man is. And now we can add to this, “imagine what might have been if Elon hadn’t supported a child r@pist” to the list.
In a striking development for global energy and climate discussions, China has reported a significant surge in coal consumption during the first half of 2025. Despite the nation’s aggressive push towards renewable energy sources, coal remains a dominant player in China’s energy landscape…
The paradox lies in the fact that while China is simultaneously expanding its renewable energy infrastructure significantly—installing solar capacity alone surged by an impressive 212 GW—the reliance on coal has not diminished accordingly.
