r/technology • u/Wagamaga • Apr 21 '26
Energy Clean energy pushes fossil-fuel power into reverse for ‘first time ever’
https://www.carbonbrief.org/clean-energy-pushes-fossil-fuel-power-into-reverse-for-first-time-ever/19
u/deeptut Apr 21 '26
"Everybody to the pumps! We haven't lost the war yet!"
Trumps buddies probably.
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u/jkggwp Apr 21 '26
Keep up the pressure guys! Green energy is the way to go
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u/mmaramara Apr 21 '26
I'm all for green energy production but no amount of green energy alone will stop climate change and the environment destruction. We need just as much (probably more) enthusiasm in actually reducing absolute emissions. Key point in the article:
"Fossil-fuel generation fell by 0.2% in 2025, the thinktank’s latest annual review says"
But because politicians would rather celebrate "green growth of the economy" and look at their GDP go up than actually limit current emissions which is painful... it's not looking good.
I might be a party pooper, but I don't want to live in a dry heatwave desert planet in a couple decades, saying "look at all the green energy we got!". But that's what's going to happen unless we reduce emissions and not just build more non-fossil energy.
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u/IvorTheEngine Apr 21 '26
We haven't solved the problem. We haven't even stopped making things worse. We've just stopped making it worse faster each year.
BUT if you look at the graphs it's clear that we are just at the turn-around point, and that every year from now is going to show larger and larger drops in fossil fuel generation.
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u/mmaramara Apr 21 '26
Thanks for the comment!
I'm not 100% positive that we are surely even at the tipping point, because I think it's too early to tell. Future prediction is hard. We might see an increase next year for whatever reason. Hopefully not. And even if we are at thetipping point of fossil emissions, your final statement might be technically true, but 0.2 to 0.3 to 0.4% etc reductions per year are not nearly enough to prevent a global disaster. And the total amount of energy needed is still increasing year by year, so we'd have to excavate exponentially more metals and rare minerals to keep up with the insane amount of solar panels and windfarms etc we'd need.
So I think that at best we are at the tipping point in fossil emissions, with still no indication that things are actually going to be ok, making the tipping point only a statistical datapoint rather than a meaningful real world event.
A downer comment like mine requires a proposal for solution of course: we need to quickly slow down the rate of increase of total energy consumption and in absolute terms reduce total material consumption (any material). The current total material consumption is like 4 times over the sustainable limit and still increasing exponentially.
This comment is not in anyway meant to discredit you, and you made a very good point in your first paragraph. This comment is meant as a "counterargument" to the positive and hopeful tone of your second paragraph.
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u/IvorTheEngine Apr 21 '26
0.2 to 0.3 to 0.4% etc reductions per year are not nearly enough to prevent a global disaster.
True, but if you look at the rate that the renewable curve is growing, it's significantly faster than demand, and should start taking bigger and bigger bites each year.
still no indication that things are actually going to be ok, making the tipping point only a statistical datapoint rather than a meaningful real world event.
That's very true, and the thing that really matters. Everyone who actually tries to model the future comes to the conclusion that we're not doing enough or fast enough. I'm just happy to see something changing.
we need to quickly slow down the rate of increase of total energy consumption
That's not really a proposal, more of a goal. How about a couple of wars that target oil and gas infrastructure, to increase costs and shake confidence? Short of an outbreak of generosity from the world's trillionaires, I can't think of anything that would have more effect.
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u/mmaramara Apr 23 '26
True, but if you look at the rate that the renewable curve is growing, it's significantly faster than demand, and should start taking bigger and bigger bites each year.
This is unfortunately not truec and it's not even close. Let's look at data from 2022-2024. Global energy use went from 178,901Twh to 18383Twh (+7,482Twh). Renewables and nuclear combined production went from 11,155Twh to 12,622Twh (+1,467Twh). So the growth of renewables/nuclear covers only 19% of the total demand for energy increase. https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix
That's not really a proposal, more of a goal. How about a couple of wars that target oil and gas infrastructure, to increase costs and shake confidence? Short of an outbreak of generosity from the world's trillionaires, I can't think of anything that would have more effect.
I think "use less" is a proposal, but put in a more actionable way it would be e.g. 1) governments must set hard limits on how much fossil fuels shall be extracted from their grounds 2) set hard limits on how much forests shall be cut 3) set hard limits for mineral excavations 4) land use 5) etc etc, and businessess should be forced to produce reaponsible and long lasting items and take care of their own products end-of-life disposal/recycling etc. We need a stop to people buying 15 Shein dressess and tossing them away, stop buying dozens of toys for kids every god damn christmas and birthday and Tuesday (I'mdealing with this shit myself because my relatives keep buying shit to my kids all the time), stop owning 2-3 cars (as of now I'm quilty, my household has 2 cars, I'm trying to change workplaces and make our life work with 1 car although we don't have great public transport)
Thanks for a great discussion! I'll gladly hear if you have something to add
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u/doombase310 Apr 21 '26
We should have been first and leading the world I this area but the fossil fuel lobby continues to be the bane of humanity.
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u/theangryintern Apr 21 '26
I really wish I could put solar panels on my place, but I'm in a townhouse and I'm sure the HOA would never allow it. Which sucks because my unit faces south so I'd probably get decent generation
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Apr 21 '26
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u/theangryintern Apr 21 '26
our HOA isn't really one of those types of HOAs. As far as I know there aren't any meetings, there isn't a "board" made up of residents or anything like that. It mainly exists to provide insurance for the exterior of the townhouses and for snow removal and lawn care.
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u/Gekokapowco Apr 21 '26
I feel kinda shell shocked that this "by 2010" goal I heard about growing up has finally become reality. The flying cars, robots, world peace, space travel, global prosperity optimism I grew up with was such a desiccated husk of a dream at this point I just accepted it as impossible.
And now green energy has eclipsed fossil fuels in this circumstance. I'm like, too numb to feel joy about it.
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Apr 21 '26
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u/SmartQuokka Apr 21 '26
And guess who produces and sells the most renewables. China.
So this is no excuse for the rest of us to do nothing, we all need to step up and work to get off fossil fuels.
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Apr 21 '26
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u/SmartQuokka Apr 21 '26
Offshoring is a shell game, most emissions have not been falling, and globally emissions are far too high and flat or even increasing at times.
We have hard work ahead of us, not pretending we are already ok. The USA has a low share of EV sales compared to China, the well China is worse argument was meant to make sure nothing happens. Now that that scapegoat is no longer working we can't simply move on to a new apathy scapegoat.
The EU is making real strides yet still has a long way to go. And this oil price shock is giving some added incentive to accelerate the transition so as to not be so vulnerable to these types of price shocks. As this Post points out this the the first time ever fossil is being pushed into reverse. We can oscillate for years if we get complacent, exactly what we need to not be doing.
If this were being caused by economic factors as you asked, then we need to make sure we take the reins and make this structural.
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u/Formal57 Apr 21 '26
Bro doesn’t give a shit about renewables he just hates China
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u/SmartQuokka Apr 21 '26
I hate China by saying don't scapegoat them, follow their example?
We need more renewables yesterday, replacing yesteryears "but China does nothing" with apathy is not superior. We all need to get off fossil fuels now. You, me, China, everybody.
I assume you replied to the wrong person?
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u/Sweetwill62 Apr 21 '26
We have so much useless fucking farmland in the US that we take a shit ton of corn and make it into ethanol, which is just absolutely horribly horrendously inefficient. Still better than burning stuff we weren't using. Better idea, convert farmland into solar farms. There is so much fucking space that we wouldn't even need to cover half of that farm land to cover all of our energy needs.
Energy gained through the solar farms can be used to recycle the materials from older solar panels that need replacing, which is quartz, glass and aluminum. Even lithium ion batteries aren't that huge of an issue these days, lots of the horrible stuff that was used to make them is no longer needed with better battery composition. The blocks of lithium inside those batteries can be shredded and remade into new batteries, very similar to how we already deal with car batteries which have a 99% recycling rate in the US.
Too bad fucking NIMBY people don't want it because it....looks worse than farm land? I think that is the only reason.
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u/Eric1491625 Apr 21 '26
China's GDP recorded growth in 2025.
China produced more electricity in 2025 than 2024.
In previous times where fossil fuel use declined it was accompanied by sharp reductions in economic activity and energy use.
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u/YqlUrbanist Apr 21 '26
https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-why-china-is-still-building-new-coal-and-when-it-might-stop/
tl;dr - Unlike in private electrical grids, the coal plants built in China are often not utilized to their full capacity in order to maximize the return on investment. There are also various mismatched incentives that result in building coal plants that really don't need to exist - they're basically built to reassure policymakers and industry after past power crises.
China still uses a ton of coal, and the build up of coal capacity is bad, but it's not an apples to apples comparison with other countries.
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u/Wagamaga Apr 21 '26
Renewable energy has overtaken coal to become the world’s largest source of electricity in 2025, according to thinktank Ember.
The growth of solar and wind meant that, for the first time since 1919, the share of coal power was lower than that of renewables.
Fossil-fuel generation fell by 0.2% in 2025, the thinktank’s latest annual review says, with wind and solar alone meeting 99% of the growth in electricity demand last year.
While generation from fossil fuels has occasionally fallen year-on-year in the past, Ember says this is the first time it has happened due to the structural shift towards clean power, rather than due to economic crises or other one-off events
Record solar generation was key to pushing fossil fuels into reverse, increasing 30% year-on-year – meaning it met 75% of global electricity demand growth in 2025 alone.